Email Drip Campaign: How to Create + Best Practices

With a good email drip campaign, you can turn cold leads into eager customers simply by addressing their needs with a series of timely emails.

By nurturing relationships gradually, these campaigns ensure that your leads hear from you at just the right moments, increasing relevance and conversions.

Implementing a drip email campaign effectively can transform a list of contacts into engaged customers, making it a critical strategy for anyone serious about building lasting relationships with customers.

In this blog, we break down what an email drip campaign is, the best email drip campaign examples, how to set up one in simple steps, and the best practices for email drip campaigns to get the most out of them.

Let’s dive right in.

What is an email drip campaign?

An email drip campaign is a series of automated emails sent out at predefined times or triggered by specific actions taken by recipients.

The content of each email in the sequence is planned to build upon previous messages and lead the recipient toward a final goal, such as making a purchase.

Here are the components of an email drip campaign:

• Trigger events: These are actions performed by users that initiate drip campaign emails. Common triggers include user sign-ups, purchases, or cart abandonment.
• Segmented customers: An automated drip email campaigns target specific segments of your customers based on their behaviors, preferences, or demographic information to ensure the content is relevant.
• Wait time: Time intervals between emails are strategically set based on the behavior and expected decision-making process of the segment.
• Scheduled emails: These are the backbone of the campaign, with each email scheduled to be sent out at an optimal time following the trigger event.

How many emails should be in a drip campaign?

The ideal number of emails in an automated drip email campaign can vary depending on your objectives, but a sequence of 3 to 5 emails is effective for most of it

Why use drip email campaigns?

Best drip email campaigns build interest with every email, and gradually, these connections grow into strong relationships – and maybe even customers. It’s about consistency and timing. That’s why drip campaign emails hold an important place in email marketing.

Here are the 4 benefits email marketing drip campaigns bring to your marketing efforts.

• Effective lead nurturing
  Not every lead is ready to convert immediately. Best drip email campaigns allow you to nurture the leads by sending a series of email newsletters that gradually guide them through the buying process.
  This helps in warming up the leads by providing them with relevant information and solutions, slowly moving them closer to conversion.
• Automation saves time
  Once the email automation is set up, drip email campaigns run automatically. This saves you a considerable amount of time and resources, as you don’t have to manually send out each email in the automated email drip campaign.
  Automation ensures that communications are sent out at the optimal time without any additional effort from your team.
• Consistent engagement without overwhelming
  Automated email drip campaigns are designed to provide information in small, manageable doses, which prevents overwhelming your subscribers while keeping them engaged over a longer period.
• Personalization at scale
  Email drip campaigns can be highly personalized based on the data you have about each recipient. This could include their name, past behaviors, or specific interests.
  Personalization makes the messages more engaging and can significantly improve open and click-through rates.

4 Essential Email Drip Campaign Examples

Drip email campaigns can be a versatile tool, enabling you to engage with customers through carefully timed, relevant communications.

Here are the essential email drip campaign examples, their purpose and, the sequence of emails to send.

1. Welcome email drip campaign

A welcome email drip campaign is often the first series of emails a new subscriber receives after signing up for your service or newsletter.

• First email: – Sent immediately after registration, this email thanks the subscriber for signing up.
• Second email: Key features or benefits of your product or service.
• Third email: Send useful information related to your industry or products.

Here is a welcome email drip campaign workflow:

2. Lead nurturing email campaign

Lead nurturing emails help build a relationship with potential customers by maintaining regular contact.

Through this email campaign example, you can communicate about your product’s features, how to get the most out of those and build trust and rapport with prospects.

Here is the series of emails to send in this drip email campaign example:

• First email: Provide educational content like a a whitepaper on a specific topic, follow up with related articles or a webinar invitation.
• Second email: Share case studies or success stories demonstrating how your product or service has helped others
• Third email: Soft sell with a special offer

Here is an email drip campaign template:

3. Abandoned Cart Series

Abandoned cart emails are sent to users who have added items to their cart but haven’t completed the purchase. Sending multiple emails in a series increases the chances of recovery.

Here is the series of emails to send in this email marketing drip campaign example:

• First email: Simply remind the customer of what they left in their cart.
• Second email: The second email could offer a small discount or free shipping to encourage a purchase.
• Third email: A final reminder might emphasize the limited availability of the cart items to create urgency.

Here is an email drip campaign template:

4. Post-purchase follow-up campaign

After a customer makes a purchase, post-purchase follow-up emails can enhance their experience and encourage repeat purchases.

Here is the series of emails to send in this drip email campaign example:

• First email: Thank them for their purchase.
• Second email: Offer helpful information about the product usage or care.
• Third email: Ask for customer feedback or a review.
• Fourth email: Suggest complementary products or accessories.

Here is a drip email campaign workflow:

5. Re-engagement series

The re-engagement email marketing drip campaign targets subscribers who have been inactive for an extended period and wins them back to your fold.

Here is the series of emails to send in this drip email campaign example:

• First email: Start with a “We miss you” message and highlight new products or changes since their last visit.
• Second email: Continue with a special offer exclusive to them as a return incentive.
• Third email: Conclude with a feedback request to understand why they disengaged.

Here is a drip email campaign workflow:

How to set up an email drip campaign?

Setting up an email drip campaign can be done in 6 easy steps:

• Step 1: Define your goals
• Step 2: Segment your email list
• Step 3: Map out your campaign
• Step 4: Choose the triggers
• Step 5: Craft your email content
• Step 6: Automate the campaign

Step 1: Define your goals

Before setting up your email drip campaign, clearly define what you want to achieve.

Are you looking to nurture leads, increase sales, onboard new customers, or re-engage inactive subscribers? Your goals will guide the content, structure, and timing of your campaign.

Step 2: Segment your email list

Segmentation is crucial for the success of automated email drip campaigns.

Divide your email list based on relevant criteria, such as where each subscriber is in the customer journey, demographics, past purchase behavior, or engagement level.

Here are the segmentation criteria you can consider while sending email drip campaigns:

• Lead nurturing email campaign: Where the leads originated, how they’ve interacted with your past emails, website, or content.
• Abandoned cart campaigns: By cart value, by product category, frequency of abandonment.
• Post-purchase follow-up campaigns: By purchases items category, by purchase frequency, by purchase value.
• Re-engagement campaigns: By inactivity period, by last interaction.

Step 3: Map out your campaign

Plan the flow of your emails based on the actions that will trigger them. Decide the email drip campaign frequency – how many emails to include in the series and the timing between each one.

This flow should naturally lead the subscriber towards your end goal, whether it’s making a purchase, purchasing the cart items, or another action.

Step 4: Choose the triggers

Decide what actions or behaviors will trigger each email in your automated email drip campaign. Common triggers include:

• Signing up for a newsletter
• Making a purchase
• Abandoning a cart
• Downloading a resource
• Specific dates like birthdays or anniversaries

Step 5: Craft your email content

Wrapping up!!

Done right, these campaigns don’t just lead to better sales; they create genuine connections. That’s the real payoff. So, the customer stays with you longer and purchases repeatedly.

By adhering to best practices, personalizing content, and automating them with the best email drip campaign software, you can achieve this.

Choose the right drip email campaign software to create an automated drip email campaign with minimum effort from your end.