What is a DRIP marketing campaign? Should I be DRIPPING?
The image of a dripping sink can be unpleasant- drip, drip, drip. Most homeowners aim to stop the drip as soon as they can hire a plumber.
But Marketers often embrace drips – drip marketing campaigns that is.
What is a drip marketing campaign?
A drip marketing campaign has a similar regularity of a dripping sink, but when set up well it has the consistent messaging that marketers love. In a drip marketing campaign, you set up a regular schedule of messages that go out on a regular basis to a specific audience.
The drip schedule is set by the marketer. Often it is organized by time; for example, every week another campaign is sent.
Courtesy of Pardot.
A very common drip campaign is for new registrations to a website. Such a drip campaign may go like this:
- Day 0 (immediately after registration)- Welcome email goes out
- Day 5 – Next email reminds user of ‘most commonly used features’ on site
- Day 10- Next email highlights the site’s blog and other useful content
- Day 15- Next email offers a special coupon
This drip can continue for 2 weeks, 2 months or longer.
The value is that the customer is “touched” regularly with timely info but with no incremental effort. It also can move a prospect through the sales funnel toward conversion.
Advanced campaigns
In addition to using time to drive the messaging, marketers can use behaviors or customer attributes to drip specific messages. These are called “triggered” campaigns.
For example, if your customer has signed up but has not placed an order in 30 days, you can “drip” or “trigger” an email that highlights the site’s ordering capabilities and offers a limited-time 20% coupon.
Another good behavior-based trigger could be for a customer who has not logged in to the site in a specific time frame. You could email them a “see what’s new” email that includes a special gift.
Most productive “triggered” campaign
Commerce site operators have long known that abandoned carts are the most productive drip or triggered campaigns you can send.
Example of abandoned cart email.
A buyer has shown interest in products (by putting them in their cart) but did not “check out” those products. Perhaps the buyer decided against them; but often the buyer simply got distracted and forgot to check out. A triggered email that reminds the buyer of this “abandoned cart” will often result.
Recapture rates can approach 30%. Check out this case study.
How can I set up a drip or triggered campaign?
Basic email marketing systems like Constant Contact offer basic drip campaigns.
Triggered campaigns require access and, ideally, integration with your website or other systems. Pardot, Mind Matrix, and Marketo are leaders in marketing automation systems which feature triggered emails.
As April showers come this spring, be sure that your faucets are not the only thing dripping. Rather be sure your marketing is dripping timely, relevant messages to your customers and prospects.
