Email Marketing Automation: 3 Drip Campaign Ideas You Need to Try

3 minute read

Upland Admin

Every marketer has had to balance day-to-day execution with “big picture” strategizing. More often than not, execution wins, usually by a pretty large margin. So how do you find the time to get more strategic?

Email marketing automation is the answer. Automating your program can free up the time you used to spend on execution so you can spend more time focusing on the big picture: realizing email marketing’s high ROI.

One great way to automate is to set up drip campaigns. For anyone who isn’t familiar with these, a drip is an automated message campaign that triggers email sends based on elapsed time, user actions, and more. We strongly recommend using drip campaigns. They’ll not only save you time; they’re also much more effective. Triggered messages average 152% higher click-through rates than “business as usual” marketing messages. Why? Because they’re responding to a user’s activity and are thus more relevant to them.

Our clients use automated drip campaigns for all kinds of reasons. Here are a few ideas you should definitely try to boost your email ROI:

  1. Welcome Series – Sony Rewards: If you don’t have a welcome series, we urge you to go create one right now. Sony Rewards customers receive an immediate welcome email when they enroll in the program followed by an onboarding series. Sony personalizes the emails according to whether the customer is current or new and how they registered. The emails are responsively designed for mobile. Their welcome series has been a huge success, averaging a 24% CTR.
  2. Nurture Series – NASCAR: Nurture series are a great way to stay in touch with your fans. NASCAR realized this and launched an award-winning email campaign to promote their Raceday Scanner. It allows fans to get into the race car with their favorite driver and hear live, streaming audio. Before Talladega race weekend, NASCAR notified their subscribers of a Raceday Scanner free trial. In an email personalized according to the recipient’s favorite driver, subscribers were able to listen to audio clips from their favorite drivers right from the email. After the race, recipients received a “buy now” special discount on the Raceday Scanner subscription for future races. This nurture series resulted in a 72% increase in subscriptions and tens of thousands of trials of the Raceday Scanner product.
  3. Winback Series – Fashion Co: Sometimes, you need to reclaim the hearts and minds of unengaged subscribers. This retailer was facing list fatigue and competition from other retailers. They created a drip campaign that targeted inactive recipients and utilized updated creative and retargeting. The result was increased engagement from reactivated customers, contributing to an overall 164% increase in email-related sales.

Excited to start setting up some drip campaigns? Our new Drip Planner tool makes it easy to create, visualize and manage the entire campaign in an easy-to-use dashboard. Click here to see it in action.

And if you’re looking for ways to automate your entire email program so you can spend more time on what really matters, download our Automation Solution Guide, “Automate Your Way to Email Marketing Paradise.”

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