There’s a reason email drip campaigns are so popular: In marketing, like so many things, timing is key. Send a message too early? Your prospect isn’t ready to convert. Too late? They’ve already gone to your competitor. Drip marketing campaigns are an extremely valuable addition to the marketer’s toolbox.
Before we get into the email drip campaign best practices, let’s start with the basics.
What is an Email Drip Campaign?
An email drip campaign is a marketing tactic that simply means sending messages at a specific tempo. Drip emails land right where they’re supposed to go, over time, with a minimum of waste. They can span all kinds of time periods, from daily reminders and weekly specials to monthly updates and yearly renewal notices. Each message should stand alone, but they should also build on the messages of the past and set the stage for what’s to come.
This kind of timed-release marketing is great for products and services with a long selling cycle. However, it can also be used for upsell and cross-selling and developing customer loyalty – no matter what industry you’re in.
Email Drip Campaigns vs Lead Nurturing
Email drip campaigns and lead nurturing are both strategies aimed at guiding potential customers through the sales funnel. However, they differ in execution. Email drip campaigns involve sending automated, pre-scheduled messages, to maintain consistent contact with leads. It’s often a series of messages designed to educate or remind prospects over time.
Lead nurturing, on the other hand, is a more personalized approach, where businesses build relationships with leads through tailored content, engagement, and follow-ups based on the lead’s behavior and stage in the buying journey. While drip marketing is automated and linear, lead nurturing is dynamic and responsive.
Email Drip Campaign Best Practices
1. Make sure to cover the basics first
Before you set up your email drip campaign, outline the goals and identify success metrics. And get to know your customers and prospects before crafting your messages. What search terms did they use to find your site? What pages did they visit, and what did they download? Do you have a persona outlined for this audience segment? Who are they and what are they likely to respond to? Segment your lists by interests, geography, responsibility – any factor or combination of factors that makes sense in your business model – and drip out email content and offers they’ll care about.
A constant flow of email drip messaging that’s not related to the interests of your audience is more likely to be an annoyance than anything else. And annoyed customers will shut off the spigot in a hurry.
2. Use multiple channels to connect, not just email
While email drip programs can be extremely effective, they don’t need to be the only way you connect with customers and prospects. Consider using timed social media posts, SMS text messages, direct mail such as letters, postcards, brochures, and printed newsletters, as well as phone calls. Better still, test a combination of formats, along with emails, to see what works and what doesn’t.
3. Nurture leads to warm them up for sales
Drip nurturing is an excellent tactic for capturing the attention of someone who might be interested but not quite ready to buy. High-ticket products or complex services are prime candidates for drip nurturing campaigns. You can deliver a progressive set of messages as the prospect proceeds through the funnel. Nurtured leads become sales-ready with deeper knowledge and insight – and they tend to make larger purchases, too. With drip marketing, you can deliver the right information at exactly the right step in the buyer’s journey.
4. Close the deal after the trial
Free trials are a great way to get your solutions into the hands of your prospects and to become indispensable to them. But if they don’t work as advertised, they can alienate your potential customers as well. Using a series of messages to help prospects get the most out of your product or throughout a trial period will improve the odds of closing the sale. Provide them with a series of tips, best practices, and how-to webinars. Give them the opportunity to join an online community or to share their experiences on a message board. Notify them when the trial is about to close. Be sure to build in a step that makes another offer if they don’t respond.
5. Bring them further into the fold
Once your prospect has become a customer, use the opportunity to provide helpful information to them on a regular basis. A purchase could trigger a drip nurturing thank you email, followed by an ongoing series of messages asking them to provide a customer review, take advantage of upsell and cross-sell promotions, or watch a series of instructional videos designed to help them get the most out of their new product or service.
6. Keep up with the buying cycle
Email drip campaigns are especially effective if you know where your customer or prospect might be in the buying cycle. Many products, like mobile phones, appliances, and cars, are replaced every few years. Loyal customers who are kept in the loop about current products and offers are more likely to buy from you again. If you have a “lead that got away” for a yearly contract (say, for something like software or insurance), set up a drip marketing campaign to target them with a series of messages leading up to the contract renewal date. If they’re not happy with their current service, they may be in the market to make a change.
7. Re-engage inactive prospects and customers
Keep those leads that don’t close in a segment and do a drip nurturing campaign to keep them warm. When they’re finally ready to buy, you’ll still be on their radar. And reach out to current customers who haven’t been in touch lately. Try using email marketing automation to upsell them to bigger and better products, cross-sell related products and services, or ask them to recommend your company to friends and colleagues. Be sure to give them an incentive to re-engage.
8. Get creative to drive engagement
A series of unexpected – and delightful – messages can be a great way to keep your brand top-of-mind with your audience. Use social media to push out “something of the day” to your followers. It can be a word of the day, a photo, a joke, a special deal, a series of tips, or anything else. It doesn’t even need to be related to what you’re promoting, but it’s always nice to align with your brand identity. A pet supply company can get away with sending a kitten a day via Facebook, but a mortgage bank might raise a few eyebrows for doing the same thing. Then again, it might be a huge hit. This is why it pays to test your drip marketing strategies on a smaller group first.
9. Ensure readiness and build excitement
Are you launching a new product? Renovating your website? Opening a new store? Promoting an upcoming event? A series of drip marketing messages informing customers about what to expect can be a great opportunity to improve their overall satisfaction and drive conversion, too. A teaser email, followed by a formal announcement and a series of educational messages will help get customers through the entire process with a minimum of disruption. You can schedule event reminders, follow-up thank you notes, and surveys asking about their experience with the process.
10. Automate your drip nurturing campaigns
It goes without saying that sending a series of emails at certain intervals is a labor-intensive process – that is, if you do it manually. This kind of campaign is where marketing automation software really shines, especially when it comes to reducing costs and effort and boosting overall results.
Summary
Email drip campaigns are a powerful marketing tactic designed to deliver timely, relevant messages to prospects and customers throughout the buying journey. By sending pre-scheduled, automated emails that align with user behavior and lifecycle stages, businesses can educate leads, warm them up for sales, improve trial conversions, and deepen long-term customer relationships. When paired with thoughtful segmentation, multi-channel engagement, and marketing automation, drip campaigns help marketers reduce wasted outreach, stay top-of-mind, and guide audiences toward meaningful action at exactly the right moment.