Follow-ups significantly improve your chances of landing meetings with prospects. But, tracking prospects and follow-ups manually is anything but efficient.
That’s where drip email campaigns come in. It’s a consistent, measurable, and scalable way of sending sales email follow-ups to prospects with high buying intent.
Drip campaigns can be done with a few clicks with the proper email sequencing tools. However, it isn’t plug-and-play. You need a tailored strategy that fits your sales process.
We’re here to help you discover just that. By the end of this guide, you’ll have all the tools necessary to create your winning drip email campaign. Let’s start with the basics:
- What is a drip email campaign?
- Why do we need a drip campaign?
- Best tools for drip email campaigns
- How to automate drip email sequence
- Creating your drip email strategy
What is a Drip Email Campaign
Marketers often use drip emails to nurture prospects subscribed to your email list. We get these prospects through inbound sales strategies like SEO, social media, or paid advertisements.
Let’s say you have a high-value case study. Prospects must provide their business email and subscribe to your newsletter to download it. From here, you can start your drip campaign.
A typical example of a drip campaign would start with a welcome email the moment a prospect subscribed. After three days, you could email them asking to check out a blog.
But it can’t just be any topic. It needs to be valuable and relevant to your prospects. That’s because we want to stay top-of-mind as we push them further down the sales funnel.
Are Drip Emails Necessary?
Drip email campaigns are versatile. The uses go beyond simple newsletter subscriptions. You can start drip campaigns for re-engagement, cold email follow-ups, or promoting new products.
Not only are drip emails necessary, but they’re also integral across all your email marketing endeavors. If we want to make the most out of our drip campaigns, we need the proper tools.
Best Tools for Drip Email Campaigns
There are hundreds of email tools that can do a basic drip campaign. It all comes down to preference and what you need to do.
As a rule of thumb, you want email sequencing software that’s intuitive, includes powerful analytics, and provides the necessary tools for scaling. Here’s what we recommend:
Instantly.ai
Instantly provides users with unparalleled warmup features, an intuitive user interface, and personalizable drip email automation. If you ever hit a bump, our chat support will always be there to help you in a pinch.
With Instantly, your sending accounts get the highest deliverability thanks to its unlimited warmups. This means each email in your drip campaigns is sure to land in the primary inbox, not the promotions tab.
Once sending accounts are warmed up, you can create drip campaigns with Instantly’s “Sequences” tab. If you’re already in a niche such as marketing, SEO, or TikTok agencies, you can use sequencing templates ready for personalization.
Our tool is also one of the most cost-effective tools in the market. Pricing starts at $30/month for our Growth plan, which already includes unlimited sending and email accounts, advanced scheduling and sequences, and email reputation detection.
LeadLoft
LeadLoft is a great option if you plan to supplement your drip email campaign with SMS and calls. Users also get LinkedIn and email automation for personalized sequences. Unfortunately, it does come with a hefty monthly fee.
Pricing for LeadLoft starts at $100/month. However, the plan already includes several features that cover everything from lead generation to customer management. Some of the main features include power dialing, Zapier integrations, and outreach playbook templates.
For drip emails specifically, LeadLoft users can create “Playbooks” to enroll leads. Each playbook can be adjusted to fit specific parameters for the drip campaign, such as sending schedules, time zones, and time frames.
Moosend
As mentioned, drip campaigns are versatile. You can use it in several business capacities. That requires you to learn how to create drip emails for different scenarios. With Moosend, you don’t have to create everything from scratch.
Users gain access to dozens of templates for drip emails, some especially useful for eCommerce. There are sequence templates for abandoned carts, on-boarding, and even re-engagement.
For $24/month, it’s a steal price if you want to focus solely on nurturing existing clientele. The only downside is that Moosend doesn’t have outbound sales features besides nurturing. You’d need a separate tool if you want to run cold email marketing or outbound sales campaigns.
Leadsquared
Leadsquared is a tool similar to Moosend that prioritizes nurturing existing customers through automated email marketing. However, Leadsquared offers more features when it comes to marketing in general.
Aside from trigger-based email automation and email tracking for drip campaigns, Leadsquared can also help with Facebook and Google Ads. It also supplements inbound sales strategies like lead capture page optimization.
When users enter your site, Leadsquared can qualify leads by scoring them based on their engagement with site content. But as you might’ve guessed, these features come with a steep price. Leadsquared’s Basic plan, which includes marketing automation, starts at $400/month.
Hubspot
One of the most established names in sales automation is Hubspot. If you’re looking for a CRM and a follow-up tool, Hubspot has you covered. Users can create personalized email marketing automation based on your customer’s lifecycle stage, run A/B tests, and create custom reports.
It’s one of the most robust marketing automation tools in the market. There’s a lot you can do, even with the free plan. However, the price for scaling does jump significantly if you want to avail premium features.
Hubpsot’s Marketing Hub Professional plan comes in at $800/month. This includes unlimited actions, omnichannel marketing automation, and email reply tracking. But if you just want to run drip email and general email marketing campaigns, there are always cost-effective alternatives.
How to Automate Drip Email Campaigns With Instantly
With Instantly, creating sequences for your drip email campaigns can be done with just a few clicks. Sign up for free so you can tag along!
We’ll be running through how to create your own campaigns, how you can use our sequence templates, and how you can add subsequences for your drip campaigns.
Creating Your First Drip Email Sequence
To start your first drip campaign, click on the “Campaigns” icon on the left side of your Instantly dashboard and click “Add New.”
It’ll prompt you to write a campaign name. Choose one that fits your drip campaign, whether that be for a newsletter, re-engagement, or follow-up.
Once that’s done, add your lead list. Next, go to the “Sequences” tab and set up the “Steps” of your drip campaign and the email copy. You can just add steps depending on necessity.
Each step can be adjusted based on user engagement or delay time between sending. The steps for each campaign should be based on what your drip campaigns aim to do. For example, a simple delay between each email would do if you’re running a newsletter.
The last step you need to do is to set up “Scheduling.” Here, you can adjust the time window of when Instantly can send your emails. Make sure to set it up to match the timezone of your prospects.
Using Sequence Templates
Instantly has a robust library of templates for all occasions. If you’re unsure how to start your first drip campaign, look through our templates and personalize them to fit your needs.
To do so, go to the “Sequences.” In the toolbar on the bottom-left, you’ll see the “Templates” icon. Click on the icon and select your category. You can even save your own templates after you’ve created your sequences by clicking on “Save” right beside the subject line.
Adding Subsequences
Subsequences elevate your drip emails by creating custom triggers based on user behavior. For example, subsequences can be triggered when a lead says a specific keyword in their reply.
After you’ve launched your own campaign or used a template, the “Subsequence” tab will appear for that campaign. Click on “Add New” to set your conditions.
Let’s say you’re running a newsletter. You can add subsequences that trigger when prospects reply with keywords like “I’m interested” or “more info.”
When Instantly detects those keywords, you can automatically send more info to prospects specific to that topic. This can also work for automated demo scheduling or meetings.
Drip Email Campaign Examples
You’ve probably gotten tons of spammy drip campaigns. But amongst all the spam, some companies do a great job with their email sequences. Here are some of the best examples we’ve found. Take what resonates, tailor it to your business, and test it yourself!
Cloudways: The Free Trial
Cloudways offers great web hosting. To show that, they offer their full features even on their free trials. But they don’t stop there. The moment you sign up for a free trial, their drip campaign begins. Here’s how they masterfully convert free trial prospects into paying customers.
Step 1: Onboarding Email
After signing up for a free trial, they send their onboarding email with a link to their “Getting Started With Cloudways” page that contains everything a beginner should do.
Step 2: Simple Reminder + Nudge Toward Next Step
The next step for Cloudways is to get prospects to migrate their website hosted on a trial account to a live server. That’s obviously the next step—and it's still free. But people still tend to forget this part. So, Cloudways also sends a link to a quick guide on how to migrate.
Step 3: Reinforcing the Nudge
Their next email was a quick summary of their previous guide on migrating a website live. Then, they reinforce the nudge by reminding free trial subscribers that it’s a “good moment for you to upgrade your account.”
Step 4: Last Call—Utilizing FOMO + Testimonials
When your trial run is about to end, your website hosted on a free trial account goes down. They emphasize that through their subject line. Then, reinforce the FOMO from the subject line with positive customer testimonials. And, finally, wrapping things up with a clear CTA to upgrade.
Step 5: Onboarding For Full Account
If a prospect didn’t upgrade to a full account, Cloudways would’ve sent a last-ditch effort email to get you to upgrade. But we won’t get that example today, won’t we? That’s the power of an effective drip email campaign.
Mangools: Incentive Driven Drip Campaign
Mangools’ email sequence uses discounts and promos to incentivize you into paying for a full service. Each email was sent two days apart during the 10-day trial period.
Step 1: Onboarding
Mangools starts out strong with a solid onboarding email containing a quick overview of their features and quick links to guides on their use.
Step 2: Offering Discounts
If you still haven’t subscribed to a full account, Mangools sweetens the pot with a discount, a bit of user testimonial, and a bold CTA.
Step 3: Utilizing FOMO
Mangools sends you a reminder 48 hours before your trial expires and even adds a countdown timer. But they still include the discount. If you don’t take action, they remove you from the drip campaign and cycle you into a promotional or seasonal campaign.
Grammarly Premium: Providing Value and Insights
Grammarly provides premium trial subscribers with valuable content with each email in the sequence. More importantly, they share insights on your achievements during the trial period.
Step 1: Onboarding
Grammarly has a pretty standard onboarding email welcoming new users and gives a quick overview of the main features included.
Step 2: Provide Premium Insights on Performance
Grammarly gives users the rundown on “premium” suggestions they had during the week and where to focus next.
Step 3: Multi-platform Installation Reminders
Grammarly reminds subscribers that their app can be downloaded on desktop and mobile. They also urge prospects to integrate Grammarly on as many apps as possible. This helps keep the app top-of-mind, no matter what they’re using.
Step 4: Key Features + Guides on How to Use Them
Premium has a lot of included features. Grammarly provides value by sending guides to prospects on how to use each effectively.
Step 5: Reminders
The last email in the dip campaign for Grammarly is a simple reminder that the trial is about to expire. They include the dates and the amount that will be automatically deducted if you fail to cancel your subscription.
Key Takeaways
Drip email campaigns are one of the most versatile tools in any marketer’s arsenal. To make the most out of your drip campaigns, remember the following:
- Always warm up sending accounts to ensure the highest deliverability.
- Don’t spam subscribers. Spread sequences out by at least a day.
- Create subsequences that trigger automatically based on user behavior.
- Always include an unsubscribe or opt-out option.
- Use a drip email campaign tool that’s intuitive, powerful, and can help you scale.
If you want a tool for nurturing leads and running outbound email marketing campaigns simultaneously, look no further than Instantly! Try it out for free today.