Drip Marketing: What It Is and How It Works

Turning curious browsers into loyal customers can feel like a Herculean task. Leads often play hard to get, and even when they’re ready to take action, holding their attention is no small feat. 

But what if you could captivate them with well-timed messages that gently nudge them toward conversion? 

Fortunately, this isn’t just wishful thinking—it’s a practical strategy you can easily implement. Follow along to learn about drip marketing and how to leverage its power to deliver the right message at the right time.

What Is Drip Marketing?

Drip marketing is a strategy that involves automatically sending out personalized messages based on a schedule or segments, or that is triggered by specific user actions. These messages can be delivered through email, SMS, or push notifications, with email being the most commonly used channel. 

Oftentimes, a drip marketing campaign is used to influence its target market over time by delivering a series of messages that follow a predetermined course. One common example is the welcome email sequence, used to greet newcomers. 

For instance, a welcome email can be sent automatically when someone registers on your website. Depending on whether the first email was opened, you can follow up with a different message tailored to guide them further down their email customer journey. If they don’t engage, you can remove them from this specific campaign. However, if they do engage, you can encourage further interaction by subtly prompting them to make a purchase.

Although transactional emails can be sent individually, they can also play an effective role in drip marketing. These types of emails include account alerts, such as password resets or subscription renewals, as well as commercial transactions like order confirmations and shipping notifications.

Why Run a Drip Marketing Campaign?

Email automation isn’t just about logistics, though: it can help grow your business. Indeed, here are several reasons why you should consider implementing it in your email marketing strategy:

• Time-Saving and Scalable

Drip marketing allows your business to communicate in real-time and in ways manual outreach just simply can’t replicate. That is, as a small business owner focused on growth, manually greeting every new subscriber or tracking each website visitor’s actions in order to send individual emails would be overwhelming, if not impossible. 

With drip marketing, you set up your automation workflows once, and they run automatically in the background, working their magic. This way, you not only save time to focus on other important tasks, but you can also handle a larger number of subscribers without extra effort. As a result, you spend less time on tedious activities while achieving greater results.

• Increased ROI 

Speaking of greater results, did you know that three out of four marketers who implement marketing automation achieve a positive return of investment (ROI) within a year, and almost half see a positive return within just six months? 

This success is largely due to drip campaigns’ ability to effectively highlight calls to action at the most opportune moments. For example, if someone is exploring your premium plans, they receive a message highlighting the benefits of upgrading. After making a purchase, they receive an upsell or cross-sell message to encourage further interest. In each scenario, they receive tailored messages during critical-decision moments, which increase the likelihood of success and therefore your ROI. 

• Gradual Relationship Building

Retaining existing customers is both easier and more cost-effective than constantly pursuing new ones. Automated flows can help you achieve this efficiently.

For instance, you can have one drip campaign for when someone signs up to download a resource, showing interest in your content. An automated sequence can follow up with related articles, helpful tips, or exclusive offers, gradually nurturing their interest and naturally guiding them from lead to customer. Once they make a purchase, transition them to a loyalty series. This might start with a thank-you email, followed by usage tips for their new product and exclusive discounts on future orders.

This approach ensures that customers receive messages relevant to their current situation, keeping them engaged with your brand and increasing the chances of repeat purchases and loyalty.

• Personalization Made Easy

When subscribers receive emails that feel personal, they are more likely to engage—whether by opening, clicking, or even making a purchase. Drip campaigns simplify personalization by allowing you to set up the flow once and customize it for each recipient’s unique attributes, such as user data, behavior, and preferences.

Nordstrom, for instance, customized their promotional emails to reflect each visitor’s local weather conditions, providing content that was directly relevant to their environment. This level of personalization makes the communication feel more relevant and engaging, increasing the likelihood of interaction and conversion.

How to Set Up an Email Drip Campaign

Now that you’re versed on what drip marketing is and its many perks, let’s pull back the curtain and explore the behind-the-scenes processes. From choosing your email triggers to crafting a compelling message, let’s examine all you need to know in order to create seamless customer experiences.

1. Choose an Automation Software

First and foremost, you can’t really set up a drip campaign without automation software.  That’s because manually managing dynamic content and conditional statements would likely be mind-bogglingly time-consuming and error-prone. Fortunately, most email marketing or CRM platforms include automation features that simplify the process.

Here’s a quick list of key features to look out for when selecting an email automation tool: 

• Ease of Use: Look for intuitive navigation and a no-code builder so you can manage workflows without needing lengthy tutorials. 
• Deliverability: Ensure your platform allows you to authenticate your sending domain via DNS records (DKIM, DMARC, SPF) to prevent emails from landing in spam folders or getting blacklisted.
• Recipient Segmentation: Look for a platform that allows for straightforward recipient segmentation into cohorts that align with your marketing efforts.
• Analytics and Reporting: To identify the most effective email elements and increase conversions, your platform should provide access to key email marketing metrics like open rates, click rates, bounce rates, and interactions.

SiteGround Email Marketing happens to have them all! With its intuitive interface, AI writing assistant, and pre-built templates, you can effortlessly schedule welcome sequences, deliver freebies, and keep your audience engaged with simple, targeted email flows. Discover how easy it is to nurture, engage, and grow your audience.

2. Determine Your Email Triggers

In the world of drip campaigns, triggers, also known as rules, act as the signals that determine when and why a user receives a particular email. It’s important to choose triggers that resonate with your audience to avoid overwhelming them with irrelevant information. Here are the four main types of email triggers you might consider:

Action-Based Triggers

As you can guess, action-based triggers are initiated by a specific action a user takes, either on your website, or within your app, like:

• Sign-Up Confirmation
• Product Purchase
• Webinar Registration
• Abandoned Cart

Date-Based Triggers

Engage with your audience on the days that are important to them—or to you. These automations can be utilized for a range of occasions, including:

• Subscription Renewal Reminder
• Milestone Achievement
• Brand Anniversary
• Birthdays

Demographic-Based Triggers

Demographics provide valuable insights into your users, allowing for more personalized interactions. Consider factors such as:

• Gender
• Age
• Location

However, it’s crucial to use this information responsibly and respect your audience’s privacy consent.

User Characteristic-Based Triggers

You might also try targeting audience segments based on user characteristics such as:

• Visit Frequency: How often do they visit your site, or how long do they linger on your premium services page?
• Account Inactivity: How long ago did they sign up, or make their last purchase?
• Content Preferences: Which types of content do they engage with most?

3. Determine Your Calls to Action

The primary goal of a drip campaign is to guide your prospects through the customer journey by encouraging them to take specific actions. 

To achieve this, each email in your series should include a call to action (CTA) that prompts subscribers to engage in activities that advance them further down your sales funnel, such as:

• “Download Guide” 
• “Redeem Your Discount”
• “Watch Video”
• “Purchase Now”

To motivate subscribers, it’s important to associate a clear benefit with the action you want them to take. Additionally, the actions subscribers take—or choose not to take—serve as triggers for the subsequent email in the campaign.

4. Plan Out Your Drip Campaign

How many emails should your drip campaign include? How should you space them out? These are crucial questions, and the answers depend on several factors:

• The type of drip campaign 
• The complexity of the information you need to convey
• The length of your customer journey

Research indicates that increasing the number of emails in an autoresponder sequence can lead to reduced engagement. Surprised? After all, nobody enjoys being blasted with emails. 

However, there are a few guidelines to help you hit the sweet spot regarding the number of emails in your sequence and the intervals. Here are a few to consider:

• Identify the amount and type of content needed to effectively guide a subscriber through your sales funnel.
• Break your content into small, easy-to-digest chunks
• Assign the content to each stage of your customer journey
• Experiment with different drip sequences to find the sweet spot

5. Don’t Forget to Set Exit Conditions

We’ve talked about setting email triggers; now let’s focus on how your audience exits these triggers—that is, how they finish the email drip campaign. To stop subscribers from receiving your sequence after they’ve already taken the desired action, it’s important to establish exit conditions. These conditions define the specific actions or criteria that, when met, automatically remove subscribers from the campaign, ensuring they only receive relevant content.

Consider a situation where a prospect is enrolled in a drip campaign aimed at gathering feedback. They receive an email requesting feedback about their experience with your brand’s support team. After submitting the form, they expect a thank you email but receive another feedback request instead, leading to confusion. This is not the reaction you want from your prospects, right?

To ensure a smooth process, remember to set exit conditions for your email triggers, which will automatically disenroll a prospect once they complete the desired action.

6. Craft Action-Inspiring Content

Now that you know who you’re targeting, you need to generate a message that’s helpful and grabs their attention. What do you want the customer to do or learn? Based on your answer, write copy that’s clear, actionable, and on brand. 

In an email drip marketing campaign, each message should be able to stand alone, even though it’s part of a series. For instance, if a prospect skips the first two emails but engages with the third, they should still be able to follow along and understand the call to action.

Don’t assume subscribers read every email, just as you likely don’t either. Instead, ensure each message provides context and relevance.

7. A/B Test Your Drip Campaign

Once you’ve crafted your emails, you might think it’s time to send them out. But wait! To make the most out of your email drips and to continuously improve, it’s important to conduct A/B testing. For an email drip campaign, this means sending slightly different versions of an email to various groups of subscribers to determine which performs best.

You can test each component of your emails to find the optimal combination that drives results. However, remember to change only one element at a time. For instance, try different subject lines or images while keeping everything else constant. This approach will help you identify the specific change that made the campaign more successful, allowing you to fine-tune your drip campaigns.

Examples of Email Drips

Now that you have the know-how to start your drip campaign, here are some real-life examples to ignite your creativity.

1. Welcome Email 

Imagine how bewildered a newcomer might feel during their first encounter with your business. That’s why a welcome email series is an essential first step in engaging a new or potential customer.

This type of drip marketing triggers immediate next steps based on actions users take on your website or app, such as subscribing to your newsletter or creating an account in your application.

Welcome drips allow you to share everything a newcomer needs to know about your business—from your brand’s values and story to your product selection or even a quick guide on how your platform works. This email from Pinterest is a good example.

2. Cart Abandonment

Abandoning a fully loaded shopping cart is unfortunately quite common, but a well-crafted abandoned cart email can encourage customers to reconsider their purchase. Be cautious not to come across as overly intrusive or “big brother”-like. Instead, find a subtle way to say, “We understand, life happens,” without any judgment or pressure.

For example, Meow Meow Tweet sends a light-hearted reminder to customers that something is waiting for them, gently encouraging them to return and complete their purchase.

3. Post-Purchase 

When someone makes their first purchase from you, it’s an excellent opportunity to thank them for their business, highlight the product features and quality, offer tips on maximizing their purchase, and reinforce that they made a wise choice.

Expressing gratitude at this early stage of your business relationship can make customers feel like they’re part of a special community, much like this email from Ilia.

4. Order Confirmation

When a customer completes a purchase, an order confirmation email is the initial communication they anticipate from any brand or business. It reassures them that their transaction was successful and provides crucial details such as shipping information and an order summary.

However, these emails can be more than just a receipt, and Ipsy is a perfect example of that. They even provide a how-to guide in order to educate the customer on how to get the most out of the product.

5. Birthday Celebration 

Sending an email on a customer’s birthday, the anniversary of their first purchase, or another significant event can be an excellent way to reinforce your brand’s value—and might even prompt a purchase.

Take a cue from Little Beast, which remembers to delight its customers, even if those customers aren’t exactly human.

6. Unsubscribe 

While unsubscribing emails might not be the most exciting aspect of a marketing plan, they are essential, particularly when building a high-quality email list.

These emails can be used to try to win back customers by understanding their reasons for unsubscribing, and thus offer valuable insights to enhance your marketing strategy. Alternatively, you can suggest they customize their preferences to receive more relevant information, if this was the problem.

7. Subscription Renew

If your subscriptions don’t auto-renew, design a compelling drip campaign with a clear call to action, urging users to renew their service. Use this opportunity to showcase the advantages of maintaining their subscription, such as access to exclusive content and exciting new features introduced since their last renewal.

For instance, YouTube Premium successfully encourages users to keep enjoying the enhanced experience of their premium service by highlighting what they would miss out on if they don’t renew.

Final Words on Drip Marketing

Drip marketing is like having a friendly digital concierge for your audience, ready to deliver just the right message at just the right time. 

With drip marketing, you can send personalized, timely messages, effortlessly guide prospects through their customer journey, enhance their experience, and build lasting relationships. Whether you’re rolling out the welcome mat for new subscribers, giving a gentle nudge to those who left items in their cart, or assisting someone who has forgotten their password, drip campaigns offer a strategic and efficient way to communicate that saves time and drives results.