Are you confused by the process of nurturing leads through email? You’ve come to the right place. In this guide, we’ll discuss the basics of creating a lead nurturing campaign from setting up a landing page to targeting the right audience. Let’s get started.
4 Benefits of Creating a Lead Nurturing Drip Campaign
Let’s be honest. Setting up a drip campaign is not the easiest thing you’ll do this week, so before we delve into the mechanics of creating an email drip campaign, let’s look at why you should bother in the first place.
1. Automate Your Interactions
Once you set up your drip campaign, everything works on autopilot. You don’t have to manually compose or deploy emails every time someone subscribes to your list. You assign triggers and your emails are automatically sent when those specific conditions are met.
2. Reap a Huge Return on a Small Investment
While you’ll need to invest your time upfront to create your drip campaign (email content, triggers, send schedule, etc.), you only have to do that one time. Once you’ve set up your campaign, you can send out those same emails to hundreds or thousands of people.
3. Introduce Yourself
Have you ever struggled with what to say to your subscribers once they’re on your email list? Creating a lead nurturing drip campaign can solve your problems. Use a series of pre-written, scheduled emails to introduce yourself to your new audience.
4. Stay Top of Mind
It’s easy to neglect your email list after the initial “welcome” series. With a lead nurturing campaign, you can continue to reach out to your subscribers and build a relationship with them. You can also build trust. Most people aren’t ready to buy right away. They need to trust you first. After receiving relevant and valuable email content via your drip campaign, your leads will begin to trust you.
7 Types of Drip Campaigns
There are several different drip campaigns you can use to nurture your leads. Let’s discuss the most popular types of lead nurturing drip campaigns below:
1. Welcome to My Email List
I have no doubt that you’re already familiar with this type of drip campaign. It’s one of the most popular and for a good reason: When someone signs up for your email list, you should always acknowledge their subscription. People have come to expect the signup confirmation email.
But don’t overlook this golden opportunity with a boring, perfunctory “you’re in” email notification.
Take this chance to set expectations and warmly welcome your new subbies. In the How to Run a “Welcome to My Email List” Drip Campaign section below, we’ll dive into the details.
2. Customer Onboarding
Similar to the type above, the customer onboarding drip campaign is about introduction. However, here’s the difference between the two:
A welcome drip campaign is more general and sent to anyone who signs up for your email list.
A customer onboarding drip campaign is specifically crafted for new customers who’ve signed up for your service. They require a special approach. They don’t necessarily need to know you, but rather they need to know how to use your service. Instead of building trust, your goal with this type of campaign is to build knowledge and app engagement.
3. Transactional
Transactional emails are sent for many different reasons, including (but not limited to):
- Order confirmations
- Order cancellations
- Receipts
- Password resets
- Privacy updates
- Feedback requests
- Failed payments
- Credit card expirations
- Renewals
- Free trial endings
Here at Stunning, we focus on preventing failed payments that inevitably lead to churn. When you use Stunning, your customers can receive a series of emails that prompt them to update their billing info— before their payment has a chance to fail. You have complete creative control over the content of these emails, and can also schedule when you’d like for them to be sent.
To learn more about our dunning and pre-dunning emails, check out this link.
4. Ongoing Nurturing
Stay top of mind while providing your subscribers with valuable resources. You can create several different lead nurturing campaigns, each around different goals. Your goal may be to:
- Educate the lead about a problem (and show how your service is the logical solution)
- Build trust in your brand through case studies and other forms of social proof
- Provide interactive training through an email course with the aim of converting a lead into a customer
You can create multiple drip campaigns and set up a trigger where your leads go from one drip campaign to the next automatically.
5. Promotional
Every now and then, you’ll need to send out a special announcement to your email list. Perhaps you’re debuting a new service or you’re adding more functionality to a current service. Whatever the case, you need to get the word out through email. Use a drip campaign to send out a series of emails that builds excitement beforehand and provides motivation to buy once the service is available for purchase.
6. Shopping Cart Recovery
Shopping cart recovery, a.k.a. the cart abandonment email, is actually a type of transactional email. However, we’ll look at this type of email separately. A shopping cart recovery is more nuanced than a password reset email (and arguably more important). You have an opportunity to close a sale with this type of email which is huge.
Depending on your industry, shopping cart abandonment can hover around 80%. However, by deploying a well-timed and carefully worded email, you can rescue up to 10% of otherwise lost purchases.
7. Re-Engagement
To maintain a healthy email list, you must be willing to cut the dead weight. Every email list needs to be reviewed periodically (generally, once every six months) to ensure that the people on the list still want to be there. You can do this by looking at your data and deleting the email addresses of people who haven’t opened your emails in a while. But another way to do is to send out a drip campaign asking if these typically low response subscribers wish to stay on your list.
I think this is the better way to handle subscribers who aren’t opening your emails. A direct plea can recharge your relationship with subscribers who’ve gone blind to your standard marketing emails. It indicates that you haven’t lost these subscribers but you definitely need to switch up your marketing tactics for this group in future emails.
Tips for Running a Drip Campaign
Now that we’ve looked at the most popular ways to nurture leads through email, let’s discuss how to craft each one.
How to Run a “Welcome to My Email List” Drip Campaign
Building an email list is one of the first things you should do. Before you create any other drip campaign, consider creating a welcome series of emails where you introduce your business and set expectations. Here’s how to do it:
Tweet ThisStart with a landing page and a lead magnet.
A lead magnet is a free gift that you offer in exchange for your site visitor’s email address. You need to offer a lead magnet because it provides your visitor with a reason to give you their email.
Create the following emails:
Welcome to my email list – Set expectations on how often you’ll be in touch and the types of emails that they should expect from you in the future.
The “best of” email – Share your best/most popular resources in this email.
The “checking in on you” email – After they’ve been on your list for a few weeks, send out an email that asks them how you’re doing so far and in what ways you can improve.
How to Run a “Customer Onboarding” Drip Campaign
Immediately after a customer signs up for your service, whether it’s for a free trial or the full version, you should send out a series of emails to welcome them abroad.
Create the following emails:
Welcome aboard – Introduce yourself and explain what types of emails you’ll send over the next few days/ weeks. Give them a heads up on the content of the upcoming emails.
Tour guide – This email should be sent on the heels of the first email. Get your new user into the app right away. In the email, show them where to go to complete their profile/ registration (if applicable), how to get started with your service, how to access your knowledge base, how to contact customer service, and how to connect with you over social media.
Social proof – Show them how others have successfully used your service. Providing mini case studies can help your new customer see different ways to take advantage of your service.
How to Run an “Ongoing Nurturing” Drip Campaign
Continue to engage your subscribers by providing educational emails.
Create the following emails:
How to/tutorial – Show your subscribers how to successfully accomplish a task from beginning to end. Depending on how many steps are involved, you may wish to spread out the tutorial over the course of multiple short emails.
Case studies – Share success stories from your current or previous customers. This can help your subscribers build trust in your product.
How to Run a “Promotional” Drip Campaign
Before you debut a new service or feature, let your subscribers be the first to know about it.
Create the following emails:
Get ready! – In the days or weeks before your new service debuts, send out an email to your list of subscribers. This exclusive news will build excitement.
It’s here! – Spread the good news with your email subscribers and also highlight benefits and features of the new product in this email.
Promo code – For those who may have clicked and didn’t buy, send out a follow up email with a special single use promotion code or coupon. Be sure to attach an expiration date to it.
How to Run a “Shopping Cart Recovery” Drip Campaign
People abandon carts for a lot of reasons— from price checking to technical problems on your website that prevented the sale. Send out an email right away to capture that would-be lost sale.
Create the following emails:
Hey, you forgot something! – Remind your customer that they still have something in their cart on your site. Show the actual item in the body of the email to provoke sentimentality. Send within the first hour after abandonment.
Don’t forget about your item – If they didn’t bite in the first attempt, send a follow up email within 48 hours to remind customers to buy right away. You may wish to attach a limited time coupon or promo code to inspire immediate action.
Testimonial – Show how other customers have found success through this item. This is a “Hail Mary” email, but it can work.
How to Run a “Re-Engagement” Drip Campaign
Don’t say goodbye before you attempt to re-engage your subscribers with a drip campaign.
Create the following emails:
Are you still there? – Send a simple email that asks the subscriber if they’d still like to receive emails from you.
Knock, knock? – This is a follow up email that you’ll send only to those who didn’t respond to the previous email. Play on urgency to get a quick response. For example, you can say “If we don’t hear back from you in the next 24 hours, we’ll be forced to say goodbye forever.”
Bye, bye, bye – This email serves as your final email to the subscriber who’s gone silent. Be sure to offer them a chance to re-activate their subscription.
Additional Resources
Before you go, check out these related posts:
- The SaaS Guide to Closing a Sale
- 6 Essential Ways to Improve Your SaaS Conversion Rates
- Creating a Memorable and Lead-Converting Customer Experience