What is Drip Email Marketing?

January 18, 2021 Adlab

Drip email marketing gets its name from drip irrigation systems which drip feed plants water.  The same theory applies to drip email marketing. 

Drip email marketing is the process of sending a sequence of predetermined emails to customers over a duration of time. 

The e-commerce industry commonly uses drip email marketing to follow up with their customers and sell their products, but the technique is spreading to service based industries as it gains notoriety.

Why Drip Email Marketing?

This is a popular marketing technique because it’s extremely effective at converting a stranger into a customer. 

Direct Marketing 

Email is a powerful platform to tell stories and educate customers, because of how it’s delivered – straight into the customers inbox. 

There’s no easy way for a customer to ignore this, especially when they are likely to receive a notification on both their mobile and desktop devices. 

Custom Content

There’s nothing emails can’t do (well actually there are a few limitations). But the point is, emails are highly customisable. They can include text, photos, videos, custom graphics, tables and more. 

The ability to customise emails means they can be designed with the right content to encourage the target audience to become a customer. 

In-comparison to mediums like SMS or Facebook Ads where there are strong limitations placed on content. 

Custom Interval Durations

Drip emails can be set to be released at set time intervals. For example, one week intervals may be programmed between emails. This way the audience members aren’t disturbed by a large amount of emails in a short period of time.  

Time Efficient

Once a drip email campaign has been written, designed and set up, it effectively requires no maintenance or work. 

This makes it great for large businesses who need a scalable system which can handle large amounts of customers. 

Cost Effective 

Reaching audiences at a large scale can become extremely expensive. Drip email marketing is remarkably inexpensive, $35 a month is the average price for a high quality email marketing platform. 

How to do Drip Email Marketing

Like any new marketing activity, it can be hard to get started with drip email marketing. Here are a few pointers to help.

1. Decide on a strategy.
Who will the emails be sent to?
How will the customer emails be collected?
What products or services will be sold?
How many emails will be sent?

These are some questions that can form the bedrock of your strategy.

2. Sign up for an email marketing provider, and start experimenting with designing emails. This can help to understand the features, capabilities and limitations of email drip campaigns.

Most email platforms offer free trials, so sign up to a few and find one which is user friendly and ergonomic to use.

3. Once you’re comfortable, get started!

Start designing your emails and sending them out. If you need help, we can help with email marketing.

Example of Drip Email Campaign

This is an example of a drip email from Drift, which provides AI driven sales tools.

What makes this Drip Email Campaign Successful?

Simplicity

The simple written email is easy to read and consume. This means the audience isn’t overloaded with information, and is guaranteed to get your key message.

Personable

The email series is written like it’s being spoken, this lets the audience know they’re speaking to a human not a computer. 

Links to Find Out More

The goal of each email is simple and easy to see. Each email contains a few links where the audience can find out more information. 

Conclusion

Drip email marketing is a powerful automated marketing tool to include in your arsenal of marketing tools. 

The success of drip email marketing is in the automation, customisation and scalability of the tool. 

Don’t hesitate to get started with drip email marketing, start by joining a free trial on an email platform. If you need help with email marketing, we can help.

,