If a drip email campaign isn’t part of your sales funnel, it’s time to make some changes.
For a while now, you’ve been collecting email addresses on your company blog, but you’ve yet to do much with them. That is until you were at a convention and all of the other businesspeople you were conversing with mentioned how well their drip email campaigns perform in sales.
You haven’t sent any drip campaigns. Why? Well, you didn’t even know what they were. Your email marketing consists of sending sales emails and monthly newsletters filled with blog content. And even with just that, you thought you were ahead of the game.
Actually, there’s a lot more you can be doing. Here are some tips for email marketing which you can use to optimize your email campaigns.
What is a drip email campaign?
A drip email campaign is a series of automated emails that are strategically sent out to specific people (or groups) on your email list at specified times.
The emails are prewritten, so there’s no need to write something new every time. Also, email providers allow for personalization with each contact’s name (and even other fields, such as business name), so the emails feel valuable, and not spammy
Why you need to start using email campaigns
The reason drip campaigns work so well as part of a sales funnel is that it gives prospective clients the information they’re looking for – whether they know it or not – at the right time. Plus, it’s automated, so you don’t have to do anything except write the original content of the emails.
Start simple with a “welcome” drip email campaign
What happens after a new potential customer registers for your email newsletter? Does their email
Create a small drip campaign with a series of three scheduled emails. All three will be quick to write, and can automatically get sent out by your email provider when someone new registers. The first email will welcome them. The second
The first email gets sent as soon as the registration goes through to thank the new subscriber. According to the marketing software company, Emma, welcome emails have an average open rate of 50%, which makes them 86% more effective than email newsletters. Yet, only 57.7% of companies welcome a new subscriber with a “Nice to meet you” email. Another reason why welcome emails are so important? Subscribers who get them show 33% more engagement in the future with the brand.
Next, send a follow-up email three days later packed with great content. If you have analytics set up on your website, you already know what your highest performing posts are. Share them! Make sure each post is set up to be optimized as part of your sales funnel.
The third email, sent a week after the
Wouldn’t you want an offer so successful? Think about what offers you can include. If you ever wrote an ebook, could you sell it for a significantly lower cost? Maybe it’s available on your website for $19.99, but subscribers can get it for the price of $4.99.
Once you’ve mastered the basic drip email campaigns, do more
There are many reasons to send email blasts to your subscribers. If you feel confident that you’ve mastered the basic welcome string of emails, try your hand at creating new campaigns Here are a few ideas to incorporate into your sales funnel.
- Birthday emails have a 60% higher conversion rate over other non-birthday emails. Set up your email capture form to ask for birthdays, or populate that into your CRM, and allow automated emails to send cheery wishes to your leads and clients.
- Anniversary emails are a great way to thank customers for their continued business while gently reminding them to renew or repurchase (if necessary). We don’t mean wedding anniversary notes, but that would be fine to celebrate too, especially if you’re in the wedding industry.
- Thank you emails generate much higher revenue than other email blasts. Every time you close a deal, send a campaign of appreciation. It’s also a good idea to send thank you emails to prospects after a meeting.
- Product launch or sale emails are a must-send. You can’t rely on advertisements and press releases to do all the work for you, especially when you have a built up list of interested and nurtured subscribers waiting to hear from you.
And remember, these campaigns don’t simply schedule a one-time email. Drip email campaigns send out multiple messages at set periods of time. If you’re sending a birthday email, start one month early with the first email, schedule the next one in two weeks, and the final one on the day of