Using Email Drip Campaigns to Nurture Leads and Increase Sales
There’s
no doubt about the enduring viability of email marketing, which delivers some of the highest ROI of all marketing
tactics. Yet, many
integrated marketers make the mistake of thinking that if they can get a
prospect to open an email, they need to give them the entire sales pitch. While
there may be a small portion of your audience who’ll respond, this is an
expensive, impersonal process that ignores the fact that not all potential
customers are at the same place in the funnel.
Email
drip campaigns offer a more measured approach that lets you send targeted,
personalized communications at regular intervals. Instead of cramming your pitch
into a single email, you map out communications over several different touches
or ‘drips.’ It’s a better way to groom qualified leads and stay top of mind
with prospects who aren’t as deep into the funnel. You can tailor a campaign to
every step of the journey, from enticing your audience to take a free trial,
targeting those who abandon their shopping carts, and turning customers into
repeat buyers. By playing the long game and providing valuable information when
it’s needed most, you’re nurturing a potentially high-value relationship. These
essentials will help you create a drip campaign that gets results.
It
All Starts with Strategy
The
first step is to identify your goals. What problems are you trying to solve,
and what business need are you trying to address? Beyond growing sales, consider
these goals:
- Introducing
a new product
- Increasing
brand awareness
- Encouraging
more repeat business
- Event
registration
- Driving
engagement
The
more specific you are, the more effective your content will be.
Smarter
Segmentation
A
big part of what makes drip campaigns so effective is that you’re talking to
people at specific points of the customer journey. Having a well-segmented
database can help you reach the right people at the right time and give your
creatives deeper insight to inform their work.
When
possible, segment your list not only based on obvious criteria such as
geography, industry, and job function, but purchase behavior, stage in the
sales cycle, topics of interest, and their behavior on your website.
There’s
a tradeoff to getting so granular. You may need to create more different
iterations of a campaign, but the extra details can help you produce more
impactful emails.
Create
Great Emails
When
writing or designing your drips, focus on relationship-building instead of just
making a sale. Consider your customers’ perspectives and needs and center on
those. Think about:
- Your
customers’ pain points
- What
their goals are
- What
actions you want them to take
You’ll
need to figure out the best way to tell an engaging story across multiple
touches. Consider the 6-drip sample outline below as a guide, but use as many drips
as you need to court your audience and prepare them for your ask.
Drip
#1: Introduction
and education, putting customer needs and pain points at the center.
Drips
#2 - #4: More
education and information, still honing in on the customer experience.
Drip
#5: Transition to
what makes your company uniquely qualified to meet their needs.
Drip
#6: Closing and
ask. Even now, think about a ‘soft sell’ and invite the reader to take a free
trial or set up a call, rather than asking them to purchase.
Schedule
Your Drips
Most
email drip campaigns include four to 11 emails spaced about anywhere from four
days to 14 days apart. A good rule of thumb for B2B companies is to email once
a week, at most. On the other hand, studies have shown that B2C customers like
getting emails from brands at least once a week.
Effective
Email Campaigns Are Just a Drop in the Bucket
Emails
are an essential part of any integrated marketing strategy, but you’ve also got
to create synergy through all of your channels for maximum impact. FSI can
help! Whether it’s working with your team to develop an overarching strategy,
designing an effective drip campaign, or producing videos for use across all
your marketing channels, we have the expertise to help you reach more
customers. Contact us to learn about all we have to offer.