A main component of what makes inbound marketing work is the email drip campaign. Drip campaigns can be referred to as lead nurturing campaigns or workflows. Basically, a drip campaign is an automated schedule of emails (drips if you will) sent out to sales prospects at specified times, with the intention of guiding them through the buyer’s journey. Hubspot offers a marketing automation platform for creating engaging and effective email drip campaigns, targeted and segmented to fit your audience. Of course, the success of drip campaigns is measured in a variety of ways, and these four tips will go far to make your drip campaigns more effective.
Make it Personal
Unlike many other types of ad campaigns (for instance, highway billboards), email drips allow you to personalize your efforts to cater to the specific preferences of certain segments of your targeted population. Demographics, place in the buyer’s journey, and other information allow you to create specific emails that are tailored toward a specific group. Drip emails might be timed on a calendar, or they might be triggered by certain user actions—all with the benefits of automation.
Read More: 10 Reasons Nobody Reads Your Inbound Marketing Emails
Make it Meaningful
Boring headlines make for low open rates. And if those ho-hum emails do actually get opened, they quickly make their way into the trash folder after a click on the dreaded “unsubscribe” button. Successful drip campaigns share interesting and valuable information to keep readers engaged and moving forward on the journey. Powerful stories, punchy highlights from your products or services, and social proof/testimonials all work together to keep prospects on the hook as your offerings prove themselves to be relevant and useful. Don't hesitate to add peppy headlines and A/B test headlines. A prospect won't
Make it Snappy
While you do need to offer multiple “drip” opportunities to remind the prospect of what you have to offer, an email drip campaign should not drag on forever. If you go on for too long, recipients have a tendency to become immune to your messages and less likely to open them. Plan out ahead of time if you will use three or four emails to touch base to begin with. Decide when you might need to slow down and when to put on the brakes entirely if you don’t receive a positive response.
Make it Count
One way to really know if your drip campaigns are effective is by split testing them. A/B testing lets you clearly see which emails are better liked your target audience. Testing may include changing up images, headlines, format, or other trackable factors to determine what works. Your email recipients cast “votes” for what they like, simply by opening and responding to your emails—or by ignoring ones they don’t deem worthy of their time.
Performing A/B testing gives you deeper insight into your audience’s preferences, allowing you to make decisions about what works and what can be improved. Putting all of these metrics from testing together lets you tailor campaigns to fit the trends that your customers and/or prospects like best.
Email drip campaigns that are personal, meaningful, timely, and data-tested will result in higher email open percentages. This, in turn, should lead readers through the buyer’s journey and toward greater conversion rates for your marketing efforts.
