Drip Email

If you’re looking for big results without a lot of effort for your software company, a drip email campaign may be exactly what you’re looking for.

You may not be familiar with the term, but you’re certainly familiar with the concept. Customers have to register with an email address to use your software program. Little by little, you “drip” content to them by sending short, helpful emails. These emails might include things like tips for using the product, explanations of features, or other types of information that they can use. The helpful information increases their interest in the product until they finally sign up for the full-priced version.

What makes drip email so effective is that it’s basically a set-it-and-forget-it system. You design the series of emails, then upload them into a software program called an autoresponder. This system then sends out emails at the time intervals you specify. Sure, you’ll probably want to go in and tweak the message every so often — especially if sales have slowed — but you’re not constantly creating new content. It’s easy to create customized content that meets the needs of your users.

Once you learn more, we think you’ll want to incorporate this technique into your marketing plan.

What Is A Drip Campaign?

People often refer to this as an educational drip campaign. You’re not hitting the user with a hard sales message. You’re simply educating them on all of the benefits and uses of your product. By making it easier for them to see how your software can solve their problems, you’ll generate interest. In turn, these users will hopefully encourage other colleagues to adopt the program.

To fully answer the question, “What is an email drip campaign?” though, you need to delve deeper into all of the components that you’ll need for a successful campaign.

First, you’ll need a CRM database like Telemetry to capture customer information. A good program will include all of their contact information, but also ways to sort customers into different categories.

You’ll also need an email marketing software program to send out those emails once someone signs up. This is important because these programs make sure that your emails aren’t being treated as spam.

Additionally, a marketing automation program can help you do things like sorting customers into different stages of the buyers journey to better target the messages that you send. With this knowledge, you can send specific emails to potential customers based on their current needs.

Drip Campaign Template

Have you ever opened an email only to find the formatting completely off? Maybe the sentences kept going on and on to the right so that you had to scroll to read them. Maybe the pictures just weren’t lined up properly, making it hard to read. Maybe you just found it frustrating that the links didn’t work by clicking on them, and you had to copy-and-paste the link in a new tab.

These things are frustrating for you, so you don’t want them to frustrate your customers.

By using a drip campaign template, you can avoid these types of problems. These templates will have all of the elements you need:

• A spot for your logo
• Places for text or pictures
• Proper html formatting
• Links to your social media sites
• Company contact information
• Links for unsubscribing

Whether you’re creating an event drip campaign for your next training event, real estate drip campaigns to sell homes, or any other type of drip email series, having professionally-designed templates makes it easy to get the job done. In fact, you may want to keep several templates on hand for the different types of campaigns you run.

Don’t like the look of the free templates you find online? Then it’s probably a good idea for you to have someone create a custom template just for your company. Doing this will ensure that you’re able to include every detail you want without the headaches of trying to make changes to someone else’s work. Taking a look at the Mailchimp drip campaign emails can help you get started with your design.

Drip Campaign Flowchart

All of this probably sounds great so far, but what are you going to write? You need to design a campaign that courts your potential customers. You should let them know how great you are without making them feel pressure to buy just yet. This is where the drip campaign flowchart comes in handy.

Every successful drip marketing campaign starts with mapping out the journey that you want customers to go through when they start receiving your emails. While this should definitely vary from company to company, a common drip campaign timeline looks something like this:

1. The Greeting. This is a basic welcome email where you thank the person for signing up for your list. You might even give them a little preview of what to expect from your emails and how often you’ll be emailing them.
2. The Tutorial. Since you’re focused on product-led growth, there’s a good chance that your email recipients have downloaded a software program and are giving it a try. The next email in your series should make sure they know how to use it. Link to a video or tutorial to make sure they’re getting started.
3. The Tips Email. After a few days, they’re getting the swing of your program. This email might show them a new way of using it or mention that it works better when shared with others.
4. The Soft Sale. You want these recipients to convert to paying customers, so you need to make the sale. At the same time, you don’t want to be pushy. Remind them that their free trial is almost up and explain your pricing structure. Let them know about additional features they get with a Premium membership.

Of course, each company’s flowchart is going to look a bit different, but this should get you started. Note that this flowchart should work whether you’re creating a Sendgrip drip campaign or using any other company.

Drip Workflows

In most cases, your email welcome drip campaign will be connected to a few different components. There’s the CRM system that helps you manage your relationships with your customers. This will track things like who’s buying and who’s not, what features customers are most interested in, and the characteristics of your best customers. You can use this data to increase sales.

Your campaign will also be connected to the email marketing software, which manages the email drip campaign workflow. This is knowing which emails to send when.

You may even connect to some type of marketing automation software to help you fine tune your messaging.

All of these systems need to be working together, and you need to develop drip workflows that manage the process. Each one should be talking to the others. For instance, when a customer signs up for your mailing list, their email goes into the email automation software, but it should also go into your CRM system.

When these systems are effectively working together, it reduces your speed to lead time, or how quickly you can start contacting your potential customers after they’ve indicated interest. It’s important to start engaging with them quickly.

Email Drip Campaign Examples

Now that you’re getting ready to start a drip campaign for your product, you’re probably wondering what type of content should go into these emails. One of the best ways to decide what to write is to look at examples from your industry to get email drip campaign ideas.

You shouldn’t have a hard time finding email drip campaign examples through a simple Google search. Remember, the more closely the examples are related to your industry, the better. While you should already have a good idea of what your customers’ needs are, seeing how other companies try to target those needs in an email series will spark ideas.

As you look at those examples, pay attention to the email drip campaign strategies they use for success. You might notice that the tone of the emails is either friendly or serious, depending on the type of business. You could also note things like the length of the email, the number of words per paragraph, and what types of CTAs they’re using. Each of these details could make a big difference in the success of the campaign.

From these examples of email drip campaign best practices, you can create your own emails.

Email Drip Campaign KPI

How will you know that your campaign is a success? Through email marketing KPIs, or key performance indicators. These are measurable items that show your company is reaching its goals.

For instance, you can use tracking methods to show that people are signing up to become Premium customers after reading the emails in your campaign. If Premium sign-ups seem to coming directly from software use, it’s possible that your emails aren’t working. A tweak to the email campaign could then generate more sales.

Some companies use things like open or clickthrough rates as their email drip campaign KPI. This may not be the best idea. While it’s good to see that people are opening your emails, that doesn’t really mean much if opening the email doesn’t turn into a sale. People might even be opening it just to see how to unsubscribe!

Instead, you’ll want to create an email marketing KPI benchmark that’s more meaningful. Consider looking at things like conversion rates, share rates, and engagement over time. These are metrics that are more likely to lead toward your success.