Email outreach campaigns won’t work if they don’t support and pattern after your customer journey. 

 

 

You have to know what your customer needs to hear at any given time, send them the necessary message to direct or remind them of the next action, and ultimately push them through the sales funnel towards conversion and, eventually, loyalty and advocacy. 

 

 

So how do you ensure that you keep up with them? Is there a strategy that follows the customers’ journey with your business, so you’re sending relevant, effective emails?

 

 

Yes, there is. And it’s called the drip outreach marketing campaign strategy. 

 

 

The last thing you want to do is to waste your marketing budget, sending the wrong messages at the wrong time. You might even annoy the recipients, as they’ll realize how useless or irrelevant your emails are—considering them spam. 

 

 

So, in this article, we’ll give you all the information necessary to understand and implement a drip outreach marketing campaign. The more you know, the more you can guide your customers via emails.

 

 

What is a Drip Campaign and How Does it Work?

 

Drip outreach is an email marketing strategy where you send a limited number of emails automatically, on a predetermined timing, based on actions that the customer takes or where they’re at in their journey. Each message is carefully crafted to build upon the audience’s action or previous outreach and move the reader towards a desired action. 

 

 

Businesses use drip marketing to stay connected with their audience in a personalized, targeted way, following and nurturing their actions and behavior. It’s especially useful if your business runs on a subscription or gated-content model, as a drip outreach campaign will improve customer retention, where 90% of consumers are more likely to buy from companies that remember them.

 

 

Here’s how it helps you:

 

• Automation: You can automate the emails to maximize efficiency. 
• Lead nurturing: Keep in touch with customers and be attentive to their needs.
• Perfect timings: You can send the right messages at the right time according to your sales cycle.

 

You can think of drip outreach marketing like this: every time you reach out to a customer, it’s like giving a little drop of information. Over time, those drops add up and create a steady flow of communication that keeps you top-of-mind. And if you imagine watering a plant slowly, those drops are necessary to help the customer “grow” to become a loyal purchaser and advocate. 

 

 

Of course, the keys to a successful drip campaign are to keep it personal, know your audience’s interests and needs, and deliver the content they want when they want it.

 

 

How to Plan a Successful Drip Campaign

 

Before diving into a drip outreach campaign, you have to determine your objectives, including:

 

1. 1. Choose Your Trigger: Choose which actions or date your drip campaign will be based on. Will it be based on subscriptions or during sales?
   2. Know Your Audience: Define different audiences and segment the corresponding emails that are relevant to them. You can have groups like first-time purchasers, regular purchasers (2 purchases in the last 30 days), customers that left items in their cart, etc.
   3. Set Your Goals: Know what you want to achieve so you can track your progress, see what’s not working, and adjust your strategy. For example, if you have people deciding not to purchase at the last minute, focus on abandoned cart emails and promotions to nudge buyers to complete their purchase.
   4. Draft Your Emails: Next, write all the emails you need for every stage of the buyer journey. We’ve written a guide on writing emails for outreach campaigns. 
   5. Implement Your Campaign: The best way to implement a drip marketing campaign is by working with experts that have perfected the strategy. You’ll need to know how many emails to send, when to send them, who to send them to, what to check about the campaign’s performance, and how to adjust accordingly. 
   6. Maintain Your Campaign: Regularly maintain your drip campaign because your message will eventually be outdated and it will get old. Change it up every now and then so that the drip messages stay updated to your goals.

 

 It’s pretty straightforward to set up your drip campaign but what’s most important is maintaining it. Besides updating the message, see what works and what doesn’t work so that you can improve your campaign every time. Find out how you can continuously improve your content to keep nurturing your audience.

 

 

How to Organize Your Drip Emails

 

Organize your drip outreach emails to ensure that you’re sending the right message each time.  Similar to new friendships, impressions and continued perception matter. 

 

 

How will you introduce yourself? How will you keep the conversation going? How will you keep them interested and engaged? Every message you send is a critical customer touchpoint—don’t blow it by sending the wrong emails at the wrong time. 

 

 

So, what steps in the sales cycle should you craft a message for?

 

1. Welcome Message: Send a confirmation email when a customer creates an account with your business. And do better than a monotonous “thank you for your transaction” message—thank them for stopping by and even offer a coupon or discount for their next purchase. You want to make them feel like they are appreciated; they are not merely there to give you money.
2. First Purchase and Post-purchase Message: When your customer makes their first purchase from your website, send an email to say thank you for choosing your company. You can also use the opportunity to ask for feedback and give tips to improve their experience. 
3. Re-engagement or Follow-up Email: When a customer initiates contact but you haven’t heard from them in a while, send a follow-up email to continue the conversation. For example, say something like, “We haven’t heard back from you! Are you still interested in planning your event with us? Because we sure are interested in your idea.”
4. Abandoned Cart Email: In 2021, almost 70% of the carts were abandoned and transactions weren’t completed. Imagine all the opportunities that are missed—but this isn’t the end. Send reminders that communicate urgency, like, “Hey, the items in your cart are almost sold out!” And if you feel like they’re not working, know that statistics say the third abandoned cart email can generate up to 69% conversion—you can’t pass this up. 
5. Promotional Email: When several weeks have passed since a customer’s last purchase, send an email to remember them and show appreciation for their support. Then, create a sense of urgency and exclusivity through a limited-time offer. It won’t hurt to remind them of how much they’ve enjoyed their last purchase, too, so they consider you again.

 

 

Drip Outreach Marketing to Support Your Buyer’s Journey

 

With a drip outreach campaign, targeting your audience properly and effectively has never been simpler. Keep your audience in the loop and show them you care to keep that relationship going. You won’t be sending random emails—you’ll be sending strategic emails that support your buyer’s journey, which ultimately and directly fuels your bottom line profits.

 

 

Have you been looking for ways to improve your email marketing campaign? Contact us at ScaleUpSales today to find out how we can work together to achieve your targets. We can help you with drip campaigns too, of course. We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again.