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An email list is one of the easiest ways to maintain a one-to-one relationship with your audience.
From pre-purchase to post-purchase and everything in between, creators rank email marketing to be the most important channel, over social media and even paid ads.
But effective email marketing isn’t about aimlessly pushing out content every week. So, if you want to avoid your readers’ deadly spam inboxes, it’s worth learning how you can perfect your campaigns.
In this article, we’re breaking down the basics of email drip campaigns and explaining how you can start using them to turn your email list into a profitable machine.
What is an email drip campaign?
An email drip campaign is an automated series of pre-written emails sent to subscribers based on their actions and your sales funnel. Drip campaigns deliver consistent value to your readers and persuade them to take a specific action.
A drip campaign has become standard practice for seasoned and new creators—so naturally, it has many different names. As a solution to marketing automation, drip campaigns are also known as automated email campaigns, autoresponders, or lifecycle emails.
What’s the difference between a drip campaign and an email sequence?
A drip campaign and an email sequence are similar. They both are pre-scheduled emails you send your audience to engage them and hopefully result in sales for your products or services.
But these tools are different in two distinct ways:
Creating a well-crafted email sequence helps you build a relationship with long-standing subscribers, while a drip campaign has a specific intent based on the consumer’s behavior.
An email drip campaign is slowly but surely becoming every creator’s dream solution because of this very reason. It’s simple to set up, personalized enough for the user to care and brings in a higher ROI than all other communication channels.
Why drip campaigns are a creator’s best friend
Busy creators benefit from using email drip campaigns because of their ability to handhold every reader through a personalized journey down the sales funnel. The “drip” in this campaign’s name symbolizes how it seeps into your audience’s inboxes slowly over time.
Four primary benefits make email drip campaigns one of the most effective sales tools.
1. Supercharges ROI up to 451%
Implementing email automation as part of your marketing strategy isn’t a new approach, but it’s a proven one. Data shows an increase in qualified leads of up to 451% with automation like email drip campaigns.
Perfecting your drip campaign can take some time because you have to make sure it’s tailored to your business needs and goals. But once you know which KPIs to track, you can expect to see a better ROI than you would expect – stats suggest $36 for every $1 spent.
2. Drives revenue, thanks to segmentation
Persuasion works best when you know specific information about your audience’s demographic or purchase history.
By segmenting your email list into categories like journey point, affiliate program, or engagement level, you can create better-targeted email drip campaigns for each customer. Hubspot has also reported that marketers using segmented lists see an increase of 760% in revenue.
3. Works like a full-time marketing machine
Email drip campaigns run indefinitely without putting in active work. In other words, a successful drip campaign acts like a hired marketer full-time without needing your interference (or your funds!) to keep bringing in sales.
This way, you can focus on being a creator while your automated campaigns continue to engage your audience and bring in sales.
4. Nurtures customers through the sales cycle
Your sales cycle is carefully calculated to take readers from unaware to paying customers, and email drip campaigns can fast-track the journey for you.
96% of leads won’t be willing to buy from you yet, but you can feed their contact info into a relevant drip campaign as a start. The true reward lies in nurturing those leads over time as they become fans of your brand.
Types of email drip campaigns + 8 superb creator examples
Now you know why email drip campaigns are the best resource for busy creators, it’s time to learn how to utilize them to optimize your brand’s marketing.
Let’s take a look at the 8 most popular types of email drip campaigns with examples of creators who have perfected each of them to inspire your own:
1. Welcoming
A proper welcome to every new subscriber sets the tone for the relationship and encourages reader retention, and reduces churn.
It takes a lot of hard work getting readers to hit that subscribe button, and a welcome email drip sequence is how you make sure all that effort doesn’t go to waste.
Knowing the best practices for welcome emails that stand out helps you prime the reader for what to expect and keeps them excited for the coming emails. Here’s a great example:
Brian Dean (Backlinko)
As the founder of Backlinko, Brian Dean’s welcome email reflects the brand nicely with its playful subject line and concise body. He leaves the reader with just enough information to feel good about their decision to subscribe and look forward to the next emails.
2. Onboarding
An onboarding email drip sequence automates a personalized experience for all your customers, ensuring they have all the answers, demos, and resources they need to make the most out of their purchases.
By sharing all that information, you build authority and earn the customer’s trust from the first interaction. Here’s a great example:
Colin Gray (The Podcast Host)
Colin’s onboarding email for his ‘How to Start’ podcast guide explains his plan to ensure the customer makes full use of the guide, including an 8-day email drip sequence with one learning each, which encourages reader retention by building anticipation. With actionable tips and exercises, he sets a clear path to help readers run their own podcasts.
3. Launch
When you spend months perfecting a new product, offer, or course to launch, you want your audience to be as excited about it as you. Building up that excitement is exactly what a launch campaign does, with every email taking the reader through the journey with you.
Here’s a great example:
Verdi Advising
When launching their new program Verdi Money Club, the brand sent out a series of emails that shared their mission with VMC. With every email, the readers learned who the program is built for, its features, benefits, and what they can gain from it—effectively leading to a mega-successful launch.
4. Subscription renewals
Onboarding a new subscriber for your product or service membership is great, but ensuring you can retain them through billing cycles is even more important. So it’s a good idea to have an email drip sequence ready when a subscription is up for renewal.
Whether you simply send a reminder with the subscription’s expiry date, throw in a special discount, or list the upcoming features and benefits to encourage renewal, these emails can generate recurring revenue. Here’s a great example:
Blythe Stevens (Yoga & Dance Classes)
As an educator, Blythe Stevens hosts live group classes over Zoom for members every month, along with an unlimited number of classes to choose from. With real-time connection and feedback, her subscriber retention rate remains high with easy payment and discount options.
5. Customer feedback
Collecting customer feedback via an email drip sequence lets you communicate with all active customers and encourage a two-way discussion. The goal is to help customers understand how important their feedback is and make giving feedback as easy as possible.
You can ask for feedback following a launch, after a purchase, or as a survey to collect data.
Here’s a great example:
Myntra
This online shopping platform sends emails to its customers asking for feedback at every stage of the journey, including after a browsing experience that ended with no purchase. Their unique and personalized approach to feedback forms improves trust with their millions of customers.
6. Re-engagement (stay top of mind)
As you grow your brand’s email list, it’s important to segment the subscribers who haven’t opened your emails in a while and re-engage them. The goal of re-engagement email drip sequences is to either make them active subscribers again or confirm they are inactive and purge them from the list.
Improving your email deliverability can feel like a mammoth task, but the return on investment could mean better conversion rates and higher sales in the long run. Here’s an example that demonstrates this:
Abeego
The beeswax wrap company runs re-engagement campaigns with emails that give subscribers the choice to stay connected or unsubscribe from the list. With links to the latest brand news and bonuses, the brand easily communicates its purpose and encourages engagement.
7. Courses
An email drip sequence for a creator course can take your brand to the next level and bring substantial income. Whether you want to run a campaign for your paid email course or upsell to current subscribers, an email drip sequence maximizes your reach as an authority in your niche. Here’s a great example:
Kate Marley
To make her coaching more accessible, Kate writes to her coaching newspaper members every week to share tips, answer questions, and empowerment resources. The lessons drip into her readers’ inboxes, giving them the opportunity to make the most of every email as they ask their queries, suggest topics, and build a one-on-one relationship with her.
Image via Kate Marley
8. Unsubscribes
Your email list is a product of pure hard work, and you want all your readers to love it too, but some relationships are bound to end. When you come across those who haven’t opened your emails in a long time, it’s best to address the issue and present the ‘unsubscribe’ button to them.
This email drip sequence contains only one email as you prepare to say goodbye to the subscriber. Here’s an example to demonstrate:
Puma
The brand’s unsubscribe email communicates the sadness of losing a reader and gives the receiver the option to rejoin the list if they wish. It’s a short and straightforward way to give it one last shot and evoke the emotional bond they share with you.
How to set up an email drip campaign in 5 steps
Setting up an email drip campaign is easier today than ever before, thanks to applications and automations you can employ to do the grunt work for you. But you know what works for your brand and audience, so knowing the ins and outs of every step can help you craft a campaign that’s best suited to your goals.
General email marketing best practices also apply to your drip campaigns, and you can set it up in 5 simple steps:
Step 1: Choose a drip campaign software
As you get ready to streamline your email drip campaign, choosing the right software can ensure you streamline your marketing and track all relevant metrics without a steep learning curve. An ideal software system includes easy customer segmentation, visual templates, and seamless editing.
For example, Kit’s automation feature helps you keep your content relevant throughout your customer journeys with clear workflow overviews that you can easily control with a few clicks.
Step 2: Identify your goal and target audience
Whether you aim for a successful launch, collect feedback, cross-sell, or upsell, your goal drives your target audience. Define these two variables as they help you strategize for email segmentation and ensure you reach the right people at the right time.
Step 3: Craft and personalize the content
Addressing each reader by their name, sending behavior-based recommendations, and celebrating personal milestones are just some of how you can personalize your email content to forge a bond with every reader.
Crafting good content is necessary when running successful campaigns today, and putting your email marketing practices into your content is a long-term investment that will pay you dividends for years.
Step 4: Set up your campaign in Kit + launch it
Kit is designed to make email drip campaigns as easy for you as possible, and setting up and launching your campaign is no different. To do this, follow these steps:
Go to the Kit website and log in to your account (or sign up for a new one for free!)
- Click on “Sequences” from the main menu to start a new drip campaign
- Choose one of our pre-made templates
- Click “compose” to start writing a new email and add as many to the sequence as you need
- Add more actions until your campaign is complete
- Preview and test your campaign to make sure you like it
- Launch your drip campaign and adjust as needed
Step 5: Monitor and tweak
Supervising your drip campaign once it goes live is as important as the goal setting because here you can see the results your strategy is bringing in and tweak parts of the campaign to hit the metrics you set earlier.
Tracking your email marketing KPIs helps you understand how well your audience responds to your segmentation, content, and campaign so you can adjust accordingly.
Turn your email list into a money-making machine with email drip campaigns
If you haven’t found success with your email marketing yet, it’s likely because you’re churning out content with no clear game plan. Email drip campaigns help you put the power of strategy behind your email marketing, guiding subscribers into doing exactly what you want them to—like buying from you!
And once you find an effective email drip campaign, you can set it and forget it. Your drip campaign becomes your full-time marketer. You can spend more of your time serving your customers and doing what you love while leads or customers flock to you.
