How To Setup A Drip Campaign
In the Marketing world, the more you can automate the better. Drip campaigns are automated email sequences that strategically send pre written emails to prospects or customers over time. You can create campaigns for your entire list or you can automatically enroll customers in segmented sequences that speak just to them. These can be a series of offers, or useful information that will strengthen your new or existing relationship.
In the Marketing world, the more you can automate the better. Drip campaigns are automated email sequences that strategically send pre written emails to prospects or customers over time. You can create campaigns for your entire list or you can automatically enroll customers in segmented sequences that speak just to them. These can be a series of offers, or useful information that will strengthen your new or existing relationship.
Setup Your Account
Signup for a Mailchimp account. There are many services to choose form like Hubspot, Drip, Constant Contact and Active Campaign. But Mailchimp is one of the more affordable and easy to use options.
The free account will only allow you to send 1 email as part of a sequence so you’ll have to choose the Standard or Premium Plan.
Set Up Your Automation
Click on “Automate” from the top menu bar, and then choose Email. For the easiest execution, MailChimp offers some preset automation you can choose from. Or if you want more control, you can choose the custom option to set your own frequency and cadence.
Name Your Campaign
Name your campaign so it can be easily identifiable at a later date. You’ll also need to choose an audience you want the campaign to go to. If you don’t have an audience, just choose the default option. You can always go back and change which audience will receive the campaign at a later date. Click “Begin”.
Outline Your Strategy
Start with the end in mind. Make an outline of the emails you want to send to a prospect or customer. Then write each email out as you intend to send it. By doing this first, it will make setting up the drip campaign later on more streamlined.
The content of your emails is king. Try to write in useful and logical sequences. Make each email interesting, and end with a tease to create anticipation of the next email your prospect will receive. If you can’t find something else to say in the next email, then you’re probably done. Likewise, if you can’t find another topic to discuss, you’re probably done.
Create Each Email
Click on “Add Email”. Then create each email that you want to send out using the strategy that you have just developed. Pay special attention to the subject line as people will see that before they actually open the email. You can have the best looking email in the world but it the Subject line is not engaging, nobody will open it. Also lead with a great looking image. The purpose of this image is NOT to explain you email but to get people’s attention. Once you have their attention, let the text do the explaining.
Outline The Trigger And Cadence For Your Campaign
Think about what time of day, and day of the week, your customer should receive their email. Click on “Add Email”. Then set your desired time before the next email in the campaign is sent out. Repeat the same process for your next email and the next one until your campaign is finished.
For campaigns that are welcoming new customers, 1-2 emails per week is acceptable. For sales campaigns, 1 email per week is the standard, and should run approximately the same length of time as the sales funnel for your product. For holiday’s and sales events like Black Friday all rules are off, sending 3 emails a day is not unheard of.
Monitor And Optimize
Monitor the results of your campaign for drop-offs. If some messages are opened less than others, experiment with new headlines to improve the open rate. Likewise, if some messages have less engagement, you may want to rewrite or remove the message altogether.
The first rule of a drip campaigns is there are no rules in drip campaigns!
