According to Zapier, a drip campaign is a “set of marketing emails that will be sent out automatically on a schedule.” The email schedule can be a set schedule, or it can be based on the actions of the recipient. For example, the email schedule could be to send an email every monday. Or, it could be to send out an email once the recipient has completed a specific action. The action could be to buy something, apply for something, download something, you name it!
Another important point to note is that since drip campaigns are scheduled, the emails must be written in advance, which means you have to be strategic with how you design them. That in itself can be great because it pushes marketers to develop a plan of action for their email marketing ahead of time as opposed to just winging it. So now that you know what a drip campaign is, we can move into some of the main reasons as to why you should use a drip campaign!
There are three main benefits to drip campaigns: lead nurturing, timely information and easy automation.
Lead Nurturing – Drip campaigns allow potential customers or leads to be reminded or the business or product. If someone is opening emails, or pressing on links in an email, they are likely interested in the company’s product or service. Drip campaigns can continue to send information to this person until they are convinced to make a purchase.
Timely Information – As mentioned above, drip campaigns are often based on the actions of your recipients. If the recipient opens an email and clicks on a link to browse at a product, you can have another email sent to them to reinforce a sale because you know they are currently thinking about your product.
Easy Automation – All in all, drip campaigns perform actions based on a user’s action. This makes things easier on the marketer so they’re not constantly monitoring users.
Regardless of the type of drip campaign you design, you should create an email marketing campaign that works to help you meet YOUR goals. Email marketing can be either really, really effective or a dud. And, frankly, YOU are in control of if an email marketing campaign is a complete dud. If you don’t plan strategically and have the right marketing foundations in place, you’ll find you have a dud. But, if you are strategic and creative, we’ve seen email marketing campaigns do wonders for brands!