Email drip campaigns: Strategy, examples, and best practices 

Keeping in touch with consumers regularly might seem challenging, but once you start using drip email campaigns, your work becomes super easy and fast.    

An exciting data states that companies that use drip marketing emails generate 80% more sales and can bring in more than 7x revenue.

It’s an ideal way to communicate about the company, its values, and its products.

Table of contents

1. What is a drip email campaign? 
2. What are the types of drip email campaigns? 
3. How to strategize an email drip campaign strategy? 
4. 6 design tips while creating a drip campaign 
5. What are the best practices for drip email campaigns? 
6. What are examples of drip campaign emails? 
7. Top 4 tools for drip email campaigns
8. How to create drip campaigns? 
9. Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

What is a drip email campaign?

A drip email campaign is a set of pre-generated emails that you can send to your subscribers, existing or potential customers at fixed intervals using automation.

When you talk about the meaning of a drip campaign, it is based on four major elements:

1. Target audience 
2. Timing  
3. Frequency 
4. Content 

You have successfully created a drip email campaign plan when you decide:  

Who would get my emails? 

At what time will they get my emails exactly? 

How many emails will they get in total?

What’s the takeaway from these emails?

You could be running an eCommerce online course platform providing courses, or running your own business, and drip emails could be an ideal way for you to connect with your audience.

The best part of the drip campaigns – you have the authority to define timeline, frequency, and triggers.  

What are the types of email drip campaigns? 

Drip email campaigns can have different motives, here are a few types and their motives you should consider for your brand: 

1. Onboarding email drip campaign – Help new customers familiarize themselves with your software or ecosystem. 

2. Re-engagement drip campaign – Encourage customers/subscribers to visit your product or blog again. 

3. Newsletter drip campaign – Educate subscribers with new guides, blogs, and content you’ve created. 

4. Abandoned cart campaign – Encourage customers to complete the purchase process. 

5. Promotional offer drip campaign – Offer your prospects exciting deals and discounts, especially on holidays. 

How to strategize an email drip campaign strategy? 

Email campaigns are forty times more effective in acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter. 

But without the right drip email campaign strategy, this would never work!   

Here are a few pointers which shall help you design the right strategy:  

1. Define the purpose of your drip campaign

As I mentioned above, there can be many purposes for email drip campaigns. You need a clear idea about your vision of the campaign. 

2. Segment your email list

It’s a great habit first of all. A segmented list with tags will help you identify the purpose in the future as well. A sorted list could be useful for future campaigns as well. 

For example, subscribers who were interested in “Email Marketing” would also be interested in “A Free Course on Emil Outreach”. You can use the same list multiple times, for different products. 

3. Build and divide your campaign into fragments

The drip campaigns, as we know, are a series of automated emails sent through a duration. You must build your entire campaign into various steps and then pick the right triggers.  

4. Write and work on emails

This is the most important step for obvious reasons. Make sure your writing is in line with your motive. Here are some quick tips: 

• Create click-worthy subject lines 
• Align your content with the motive 
• Link the right resource in emails 
• CTA links should reflect your end goal 
• Every email of the drip should follow a pattern that resonates with your goal 

5. Assess your performance

There is nothing called a perfect strategy, and you will have to monitor your plans compared to your targets. Every time you assess your routine, you can modify and rework the loopholes. 

6 design tips to follow while creating a drip campaign  

Each email must have a unique design and layout to serve its purpose. Some design attribute tips remain the same for all of these emails, and you should follow them to create better drip emails.  

1. Add relevant visuals to your emails 

Personalization is the key for an audience to connect with your brand, so make sure to interact and add a personalized touch with your visuals.  

Provide useful images like vector graphics, data-driven charts or animated data patterns. 

2. Have a Call to Action (CTA) in your email 

The CTA action buttons should be there and spread across the layout to ensure optimum results. 

3. Integrate your brand logo in the email  

Drip emails are the perfect way to promote your brand so make sure you integrate your logo in all the emails, preferably at the top. 

4. Add links to social media platforms 

Email campaigns are the most sought-after way to build a base of your subscribers for different mediums. Do add social media links at the bottom of the template to give subscribers a chance to connect with your brand on different platforms 

5. Have a well-designed layout and content 

The content and layout are kings, so make sure they are well designed and user-friendly. A user-friendly layout helps in building customer engagement. 

Users are becoming more comfortable with dark mode by default. Make sure your templates are visually appealing in dark and light modes. 

6. Always have a link to unsubscribe at the bottom of your email 

The bottom end of your email template should always have an option to unsubscribe. When you add an unsubscribe button to the list you add more relevancy for yourself and avoid annoying users.  

What are the best practices for a drip email campaign?  

Email drip campaigns are successful because of their relevance and rely on the customer trigger to send. The motive is to provide value to the customers and here are some best practices you can follow:  

Examples of drip email campaigns

Drip emails can be pretty daunting, especially with complex strategies, testing, and end-goals involved. A brand needs to get it right, and the best way to learn that is through examples.   

Let us take three examples to understand how to create successful drip email campaigns.   

 1. The customer delight campaign by Zombie Run 

If you are wondering how you could engage with new members and create a successful campaign on board, Zombie Run – a fitness app, is a perfect example. Their email campaign is simple and immediately shows users what to do next.  

Moreover, with this campaign, you can show the users the number of steps they need to take, and it’s all based on your activity.   

2. Twelve days campaign by Trello

The holidays mark the perfect occasion to promote your products and services to your audience. All you need is some high-converting messages in your email drip campaign.   

Trello did precisely that and implemented its unique “Twelve Days to Trello Campaign” during Christmas time.   

The campaign gave out all the project’s benefits and contained links to pages on using it.   

3. Cart abandonment campaign by Kenneth Cole’s   

If you are running an eCommerce website, you will know the struggles faced when people leave the items in the cart.   

Cart abandonment is a serious issue for most eCommerce and there can be multiple reasons. According to statistics, an average store loses 75% of sales due to digital cart abandonment. 

What you need is a solid drip campaign that motivates customers to complete their purchases. 

The drip campaign from Kenneth Cole is a perfect example, and what’s more, they also offer discounts to buyers.   

Top 4 software for drip email campaigns 

Drip email marketing is about sending the right automation emails through marketing campaigns. It is a more innovative way of conducting campaigns by automating mailing machines and CRM software.  

There is a wide variety of software and tools available out there, and to help you make the best choice, we have a few recommendations for you –  

1. Salesmate 

Salesmate is a cost-effective marketing automation tool that’ll help you design your dream drip email campaigns. It’s not just a marketing tool, but a fine combination of sales CRM and customer service facilities. 

That means, you don’t have to spend on multiple tools for sales, marketing, and customer service.    

Features:

• 45+ triggers, actions, and conditions 
• Craft beautiful email templates 
• Pre-made library of automation and email templates 
• Create lists and segments 
• Segment customers easily using tags and many more filters 
• Send emails and texts using automation 
• Live view of your campaigns with logs 
• Test campaigns with A/B testing 
• Detailed insights on your marketing campaigns 
• Automate other marketing outreach and tasks 
• Lead capture and nurturing using Web Forms and Chat Journeys 
• Integrate Salesmate with your favorite tools 
• Send personalized emails in bulk with security 

Salesmate is cost-effective, and the plans start from $12. What’s more, is that it also offers 15-days free trial.  

2. Mailchimp 

Mailchimp is a well-known product in email marketing segment that helps send automated emails for specified activities, and you can choose from how many emails to send and the rate at which to send them. 

Features:

• Customer segmentation and lists 
• Interactive audience dashboard 
• Take surveys easily 
• Track customer engagement and purchase behaviors 
• Create email templates easily 

3. Sendinblue 

This tool is a comprehensive email software and a marketing communication platform. Sendinblue offers design templates to create a good-looking email with A/B testing and a segmented recipient list.  

Features:

• Customer segmentation  
• Mobile-friendly email designer 
• Marketing automation capabilities 
• Create landing pages effectively 

4. Sender  

The sender is a marketing automation tool with great features to ensure smooth deliverability. This software allows you to create unique newsletters without any knowledge about HTML.  

Features:

• HTML editor 
• Contact profiles and segmentation  
• Email automation and workflows 
• A/B split campaigns 

I would highly suggest you compare each tool in-depth. As far as Salesmate goes, it’s a super affordable, all-in-one business tool that offers much more than just email marketing like build-in calling, lead management, lead nurturing, live chat, and much more. 

How to create a drip email campaign? 

We know almost everything about creating a drip campaign, how to design perfect emails, and so much more. As we know, drip campaigns are automated sets of emails that are sent across through automation to all the subscribers on the list.  

For the sake of understanding, let’s take an example of a newsletter series on Salesmate. 

First, we will name our new automation “Newsletter Campaign”. 

Next, we have to create a list of all the subscribers that we want to include in our drip. 

We can perform this by creating a new list on Salesmate. It’s easy. You can learn everything about it from this article. 

Now, we have to make sure we add subscribers to this list regularly and Salesmate will take care of the rest. 

Coming back to our automation, we have to pick the right triggers and conditions to execute our newsletter drip. We will use some basic triggers and conditions and here’s what the automation would look like: 

Frequently asked questions (FAQs) 

Throughout this guide, we have answered these questions in one way or another, but here’s a quick glimpse for you. 

1. What is email drip marketing? 

A drip email campaign is a set of automated generated emails that you can send to your subscribers, existing customers, and potential customers at set intervals.   

2. How to add prospects to the drip campaign?  

Consider you already have an active drip campaign, all you have to do is add prospects to that specific list and drip campaign will shoot the email as per the designed steps.

3. How to plan an email drip campaign workflow? 

It is super easy to create and plan a workflow in Salesmate, all you need to do is follow these four simple steps 

• Identify and analyze your target market 
• Determine your goals 
• Curate your Content 
• Plan and set triggers for your drip campaigns 

4. How many emails should there be in a drip campaign? 

There is no definite answer as it completely depends on the purpose and duration of your campaign. However, it is a general best practice to follow the entire campaign in 5-6 emails. 

5. What industries can use a drip campaign? 

All the industries related to sales and marketing can use drip campaigns for their products and services. In general, specific industries like real estate, fitness, hospitality, and e-commerce can make the most use of drip campaigns.