E-mail Drip Campaigns

E-mail marketing is one of the easiest forms of online marketing to misuse and abuse. By the early 2000s, unsolicited e-mail blasts were so prevalent and e-mail users so frustrated with hoard of junk mail that it took an act of congress to address the issue, and even after the passing of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, the problem was far from solved.

Yet, research has proven that e-mail marketing, when done correctly and targeted towards the right audience, can produce one of the highest rates of return on investment (ROI) out of all other forms of online marketing. But how does someone go about crafting an e-mail marketing campaign that won’t get caught in prospective customers spam filters or be discarded without ever having even been opened?

The answer: create a targeted e-mail drip campaign.

“What is an e-mail drip campaign, and how is it different from a standard e-mail blast?” you may ask. An e-mail drip campaign is a series of e-mails written and designed to persuade people who have visited your website at least once but did not buy anything or retain your services to return to your site and complete the customer conversion process. An e-mail drip campaign consists of several auto-responder e-mail messages that will go out to a prospective customer automatically when he or she takes a particular action on your website, such as filling out a form to request more information about your company, or downloading a free e-book.

Benefits of e-mail drip campaigns:

• More likely to be opened than regular e-mail blasts (see details below)
• Less likely to be caught in spam filters or violate the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003
• Can help reach out to customers who would otherwise be lost (see details below)
• Messages are written to come across as personalized to each customer
• Messages are sent out automatically on a schedule so you never have to worry about sending them on time

Explanation of benefits

The fact that the recipient of these auto-responder e-mails is someone who has already visited your website and has expressed interest in your products or services by filling out a form or downloading something from your website is the key difference between an e-mail drip campaign and a standard e-mail blast. E-mail drip campaigns are a form of permission marketing – in which your marketing efforts are targeted to someone who has given you permission to send him or her promotional messages via his or her actions on your website. Permission marketing tactics ensure that your promotional messages are expected and that they go to people who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer. E-mail blasts, on the other hand, are unsolicited and sent to people at random whose contact information was often purchased from a third party.

E-mail drip campaigns can also be used to address specific situations where you are likely to lose prospective customers such as abandoned cart issues (for e-Commerce websites.) In the case of an abandoned cart, the entire e-mail campaign will be focused on reminding the customer that he or she added items to his or her online shopping cart but never completed the checkout process, and offer incentives for completing the process such as coupons or exclusive promotions.

Other common types of e-mail drip campaigns include:

• Company newsletters
• Asking for a product review after purchase
• Holiday and seasonal marketing campaigns

How do I setup an e-mail drip campaign?

To properly configure and launch an e-mail drip campaign you will need an auto-responder e-mail program and the expertise of someone who knows how to use that program. If your site is e-Commerce enabled, it may already have rudimentary e-mail drip campaign capabilities or support add-ons to enable drip campaigns. Having someone experienced in configuring e-mail drip campaigns also will help you avoid costly and embarrassing mistakes such as:

• Having a sale be announced several weeks before it is actually supposed to occur
• Sending an e-mail with the subject line “You won our giveaway contest!” to every single customer on your mailing list
• Having jumbled Java Script code display in the message text instead of the link to review a product

Niche Marketing PR is ready and waiting to assist you with e-mail marketing and setting up your first e-mail drip campaign so that your profits grow and mistakes like these don’t happen.