Email Drip Campaign Examples That Work in 2021 

Email marketing is nothing new.

It has actually been around for over 40 years.

That’s when the first email blast was sent.  

“Following the inception of the Internet, the very first email was sent in 1971, by Gary Thuerk, a marketing executive, who sent a blast of 400 emails. The results of the email blast were impressive, even by today’s standards, as it yielded $13 billion in sales.”1

That first email looked very different from what we know today.

Green text on a black screen. Very monochromatic.

But it made an impact and helped to shape the future of the email marketing and drip campaign strategies that we know today.  

What is a Drip Campaign?

“Drip marketing is a communication strategy that sends or ‘drips’ a pre-written set of messages to customers and prospects over time. These messages often take the form of email marketing, although other media like direct mail and social media can be used. 

Simply put, it’s sending prospects a series of messages over time to get them interested in you, what you do, and potentially working together. 

Drip marketing is distinct from other database marketing in two ways: 

(1) the timing of the messages follow a predetermined course and 

(2) the messages are dripped in a series applicable to a specific behavior or status of the recipient.” 

 Drip campaigns are also typically automated.

Email Drip Campaign Best Tips

The beauty of email drip campaigns is that they can be perfectly timed and centered around certain consumer behaviors. But, how? When done correctly, it’s almost like an art form and will help you reach your best leads and generate higher than average open rates. Here are a few tips to help you maximize your email drip campaigns.

Email Drip Tip #1 – Identify Your Audience

The first step is to start collecting email addresses and identifying your audience. From offering email signup incentives to providing value added content with the promise of future promotions, there are a myriad of ways to generate leads. The goal is to generate the largest number of qualified leads as possible and then let your drip email campaign strategy do the rest.

Email Drip Tip #2 – Make Sure Messages are Relevant

A main goal of email drip marketing is to identify commonalities, fulfill a need or solve an issue. Highlight key benefits which is the main reason why a lead gave you their email address in the first place. “Sell” to the emotional human, not the logical business. It’s a well-known fact that people buy with emotion, then justify it afterwards with logic. In fact, a Harvard Business School professor says that 95% of our purchase decision-making takes place subconsciously!

• Can’t hit that deadline? Gonna have a sleepless night.
• Revenue down? Experience constant anxiety over staff paychecks and making your own rent.
• Landed that big deal? 
• Landed that big deal? Feel great for the next 72 hours.

Choose a messaging style and tone that feels unique to your prospects. Reference why you’re reaching out, provide examples of other clients like them, keep your copy short, and put an emphasis on adding value to your recipients. 

Email Drip Tip #3 – Have a Plan

People are busy and you are competing with every other business sending email drip campaigns. You don’t want to bombard prospects and need to find a way to stand out from the crowd.  Canned content that appears cold and impersonal won’t work. Identify the need you are trying to fulfill and ensure that your copywriting speaks directly to your leads. 

The goal is to convince prospects that you are speaking directly to them. It’s also important to determine how many times you plan to reach out to prospects, leads and existing customers for that matter. Too many emails can be overwhelming and turn potential customers away for good. 

And please, please, please, follow up. Sales are won and lost in the follow-up. Don’t rely on just one message or one campaign. You need to maintain consistent top-of-mind status and build relationships with your audience.

Email Drip Tip #4 – Be Prepared to Tweak the Plan

Creating an effective email drip campaign means being ready to tweak the plan as necessary.  After emails are sent, it’s important to track engagement, open rates, click through rates and ultimately sales. If something is not working, you can always adjust the flow of the drip, change the creative or tweak the execution as necessary.

Email Drip Tip #5 - Use Software, But Send Personal Emails

This is a big one. So it’s no secret that my team and I at Connect 365 help people send drip email campaigns. With one huge difference…

The emails that Connect 365 send register 100% as personal emails in your inbox. Just like each one was manually typed out and sent. That’s because they essentially are. Our tool just does it for you. You see, Gmail, Outlook, etc. give priority to personal emails. Not emails sent from big box email marketing tools. 

Well we worked with Google and Microsoft hand in hand to develop a tool that can automate sending outreach, follow up, and drip emails in bulk while still registering as a personal email. 

This means...

• Priority inbox placement (no promo folder)
• Better open and engagement rates (50%+ open rates)
• No unsubscribe needed
• No “sent via infusionmail” type language that tips off the recipient that it was automated. 

If you want your message seen by more of your process. This step is important.

Best Drip Campaign Examples For Outreach

Expert Content Lead Generation Drip Campaign

Perfect for: Anyone. Whether you have unique content or you are simply sharing curated content applicable to your prospects' interests, this is one of our most recommended short-term lead generation campaigns.

Outcome: Book appointments or meetings with either cold (or warmer prospects).

It is important to  put your expertise on display and provide unique content early on. Remember it’s not about you, but what’s important for your clients and what unites them. 

Prospects have a limited attention span so it’s important to show value immediately.  All email outreach and follow up content should be focused on highlighting benefits to THEM. 

So in this campaign it is imperative that you highlight how they can benefit from engaging with you right away. This doesn't mean you list out the features one by one. Keep the focus on their needs, their goals, and their wants. 

Initiating the conversation is important but you don’t want to overwhelm them off the bat... so keep it short, simple and give a compelling reason to chat and connect with you in the future.

Short Term Lead Generation Drip Campaign With Group Invites: 

Perfect for: Anyone. Whether you manage your own group (on LinkedIn, Facebook or elsewhere) or you are simply sharing information on a third-party group that is applicable to your prospects' interests. 

Outcome: Book appointments or meetings with either cold (or warmer prospects).

Don’t lose sight of your prospects. They want to feel valued. They only want to communicate and associate with people they can benefit from. This is natural. They are on a mission and anything that does not help them get there is just noise. 

So when launching a group invite campaign, make it very clear that the group you're inviting them to join is for people just like them. 

Emphasize why being a member of that community is relevant to them and most importantly HOW it adds value to their lives and business. It’s important to create a unique reason why your prospects would be interested in speaking with you. Your call to action should be simple and compelling.

And the best part is that a lot of the content can be almost completely hands off combined with social media automation.

Direct Lead Generation & Outreach Campaign

Perfect For: Those targeting warmer prospects. B2B companies can target colder audiences with this campaign, but this direct approach is typically best reserved for warmer contacts. (We aim for more of a relationship-building campaign first for colder contacts.)

Since this campaign is intended to speak directly about how you can help them right away and ties each message into their desired results, it’s typically a better play for warmer prospects. 

A simple way to do this is to provide examples of how you’ve helped other clients and people just like them achieve success. While we don’t want to be salesy it would be a mistake to avoid talking about your experience in helping similar people overcome the unique problems that they need to solve.

This campaign allows you to introduce big benefits and relays your experience. Relevant data referencing back to these successes allows you to exert your authority, foster truth, and gain qualified leads. It also gives you the connection to check-in and to ask for a follow-up response.

Why You Should Use Drip Campaign Software

If you have a marketing team devoted to creating and managing drip campaigns – great. Most companies are not that fortunate which is why drip campaign software has made life much easier. Drip campaign software provides the following benefits:

• Automation. Drip campaign software allows for a set it and forget it approach. You can schedule campaigns and the timing of those campaigns, and the software will do the rest.

• Templates. Most drip campaign software has established templates that allow for easy creation and does the hard work for you.

•  Varied Platforms. Many drip campaign software solutions work in tandem with social media platforms to create a combined approach to reaching prospects and leads. 

Email Drip Campaign Takeaways

When it comes to creating email drip campaigns and finding the best software solution, there are many choices out there. It’s not easy and sometimes you just need more information. We’d love to answer your questions and give you the information you need to help you make an informed decision and make a deeper connection with your prospects and customers. From email automation to lead management to automated sales follow up, our focus is to help you achieve your goals, build relationships and create lifelong customers. Request an invite and let’s connect today!