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3 Email Drip Campaign Ideas to Adopt Right Now
Email marketing continues to be the most reliable channel for companies looking to convert, engage, and keep customers. One reason for this is that email offers so many different opportunities to connect with subscribers.
There are practically limitless ways companies can use this channel to reach almost any goal.
Odds are, if you can dream up a goal, there’s an email drip campaign that can make it happen. Which type of email campaign—or, more likely campaigns—makes the most sense for your particular business will depend on a number of different factors.
But whatever types and number of campaigns serve your marketing purposes, email drip campaigns need to be a part of your digital marketing repertoire.
3 email drip campaign ideas to boost conversions
The fundamental goal of a drip campaign is actually simple: Keep your recipients engaged.
Of course, engaging your subscribers can take many different forms. Maybe you simply need to people that your company and your products exist and are available to help. It could also mean reminding them about a product they meant to purchase but never completed the conversion process.
Either way, the long-term goal is always the same: to increase conversions and then retain your customers.
Here are 4 ideas you can use for your next drip campaign, or allow these ideas to inspire you in order to craft an email drip campaign that drives revenue and builds your business.
1. A welcome email that compels customers to get started
Any email marketing strategy is incomplete without an engaging welcome email drip campaign. That might seem obvious, but you don’t want to make the mistake of taking this opportunity for granted.
For one thing, the welcome email serves as your only chance to make a winning first impression with a new customer or prospective customer. If you start your relationship off on the wrong foot, it’s unlikely they’ll look forward to your future emails with much anticipation.
Generally, welcome emails have the highest open rates, too, which is all the more reason to treat this email drip campaign as a priority.
Don’t just greet the customer and leave it at that, though. That increased open rate means a huge opportunity for you to compel your subscriber into taking action right away, whether you want them to make a purchase, download an ebook, or leave a review.
Check out this welcome email from Local Guides, an app that helps users explore their local areas:
Source: Email Drip Campaigns
The message begins by clarifying what the app is for (“Explore the world. Earn rewards”), but then, almost right away, the email gives the recipient an opportunity to click for “exclusive benefits,” which would take them right to the app.
It even describes how the platform works (“Earn points in five ways”), making it even easier for the recipient to get started and fall in love with the product. It ends with yet another opportunity (“Start Exploring”) for the user to click through and engage with the app.
The other reason this is such a great message to kick off a drip campaign is because the links give Local Guide the chance to segment their list from the very beginning. Whether the subscriber clicks on those links or not tells the company the kind of content this subscriber is likely to engage with now and in the future.
Every opportunity to interact with your subscribers is an opportunity to get to know them.
2. Celebrating a major milestone
Sending your subscribers regular emails updating them on their progress to a milestone—and, of course, when your subscribers actually reach that milestone—keeps your company and your products on the recipient’s radar.
First, updating your users on their progress is extremely personalized. The message is literally about the recipient. Even better, it’s about one of their accomplishments. Who doesn’t love to be recognized for an achievement?
Second, updates are good for promoting ongoing engagement. It serves as a fun reminder and an encouragement to keep using your company’s product or service.
Take a look at this fun example from Runkeeper, a distance-tracking app for joggers:
Source: Email Drip Campaigns
This whole message is all about the customer and cheering on their recent accomplishment. Plus, the email subtly encourages further engagement with their product as well by telling the reader to schedule their next activity.
The CTAs at the bottom encourage users to upgrade their app or simply learn more about its capabilities. Including these CTAs could result in an upsell, but at the very least they make it simple for the recipient to learn about all the other ways the app can help them reach their goals.
3. A re-engagement email for customers who have dropped out
As great as your company’s products or services may be, some of your customers or users will eventually drop off and stop engaging with your emails. This list churn is normal, but too much list churn signals your content could use some improvement.
Perhaps these subscribers quit engaging with your emails, or maybe they never started engaging with them at all. Either way, you’ll want to keep an eye on the engagement level of your list and regularly send a re-engagement email drip campaign.
The idea is simple, yet effective: You need to come up with a message you know the recipient will find compelling enough to open and act on.
There’s literally no downside to sending a re-engagement email to someone who isn’t reading your messages anymore. The worst-case scenario is simply that they continue not engaging with your emails, and you can remove them from your list.
Though it might seem counterintuitive to purge your list, doing so can save you money and send your engagement through the roof. After all, if you have an unengaged subscriber on your list, they’re dead weight, costing you money with no chance of earning any of it back.
Many companies offer some kind of deal to grab their disengaged recipients’ attention. The mere mention of a discount in the subject line may be enough to convince someone to give this email drip campaign a look.
Another option is to simply point out all the ways your product or service can help the reader. In other words, improve the perceived value of what your company has to offer.
Here’s an impressive example of such an email from Typeform:
Source: Really Good Emails
Typeform provides multiple ways for their subscribers to re-engage, but they keep the email short and sweet. The eye-catching graphic of the bearded man catches the reader’s attention and the simple text can be digested at a glance.
There are only two CTAs, meaning your subscriber is less likely to become confused and do nothing. The CTAs also emphasize that the company wants to be helpful, providing them two ways to use Typeform: The template gallery and the leaderboard.
Typeform also mentions they know the user has become disengaged and even suggests they can ignore the email if the subscribers want to. This tells their recipients that the company is here to help, even if that means passing on the hard sell.
Allowing for this eventuality shows the recipient that Typeform isn’t only interested in their money. The company understands there’s a human being with a busy life on the other end of the email. As authenticity becomes more and more important for digital marketing, allowing these human glimpses into your email campaigns will become more and more important.
Wrap up
None of the above drip campaigns should be copied word-for-word, of course. The same goes for the formatting used. However, the tips and best practices in these drip campaigns can easily be applied to your own email marketing wherever it makes sense for your company.
Once you have these emails created, it’s just a matter of automating them and establishing the triggers that will send them out. Don’t send it and forget it though: Keep an eye on your metrics and results in order to revise your email drip campaigns based on feedback.
Eventually, you’ll have the perfect drip campaign, one you can automate all the way to greater revenues without taking on extra overhead.
