What is a drip campaign, and what provider is best for my business?
SEAN MCCAFFREY, CONSULTING ANALYST
Drip campaigns are a customer communication approach that both large and independent businesses can benefit from. By streamlining your outreach and automating the follow-up, drip campaigns can effectively bring in new clients and help you to stay in contact with current ones.
Broadly, a drip campaign, also known as an automated email campaign, is a string of emails set up to be sent to prospective or current clients. These automated emails are based on a predetermined schedule or set of actions: for example, you can automate emails to be sent out monthly, or set a message to be sent after a client signs up for an email list through your website. Drip campaigns also may be leveraged for e-commerce businesses as a way to automatically reach customers who left items in an online shopping cart or those who haven’t visited the site lately.
Email is the most popular medium for drip campaigns, but you can leverage other mediums—such as direct mail and social media—as well.
BENEFITS OF DRIP CAMPAIGNS
When a drip campaign is used to bring in new clients, it is often referred to as drip marketing. This can be a useful tool because it gives prospective clients repeated exposure to the product or service that your company offers. This repeated exposure is proven to nurture your leads and increase the likelihood an individual will choose to purchase a product or service.
Using a drip campaign to keep in contact with current clients, in addition to prospective clients, can also be instrumental in a number of ways. This strategy allows your business to have consistent communication with clients in a personalized, targeted way. The automation also saves both time for your employees and cost for your business by eliminating some mundane, repetitive tasks. For example, by sending out automated emails to clients to remind them to schedule their quarterly meeting with your company, the whole process becomes more efficient. Instead of scrambling to identify each client that needs a quarterly meeting, remembering to send the email at the start of each quarter, and tracking your ongoing progress, an automated email completes these tasks for you.
CHOOSING A DRIP CAMPAIGN PROVIDER
There are a number of providers that offer services to help with drip campaigns, many of which offer a free package. The free packages vary for each provider; some offer more emails per month, while others offer better tracking of how users interacted with the emails that were sent to them.
Finding the right provider depends on a few different factors, such as the size of your business, the purpose of sending automated emails, and the design of the email.
Hubspot: Best for Large Businesses
A large business may prefer a provider like Hubspot, as Hubspot’s services are geared toward bigger companies. Hubspot is known for streamlining the email automation process so that a high volume of emails can be sent. It also offers a lot of customization in their services.
If a company is exclusively using a drip campaign to bring in more clients, then selecting a provider that offers high quality tracking of how users interact with their emails would be most beneficial to understand which parts of the email are driving sales and engagement. Hubspot also offers these options, making it a good choice for this purpose.
Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and SendGrid: Best Design Options
If the email design is an important consideration, pay close attention to the drip campaign providers who offer a wider range of design choices. Some companies that provide great design options are Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and SendGrid.
Sendinblue or Mailchimp: Best for Small Businesses
Most small or independent businesses should be able operate their drip campaigns with the free packages offered by select providers. Two drip campaign providers that tend to work well for small businesses and offer quite a few perks in their free packages are Sendinblue (great for mailing lists up to 300 emails) and Mailchimp (great for mailing lists up to 2,000 emails).
HOW DRIP CAMPAIGNS WILL HELP YOUR BUSINESS
Selecting a drip campaign provider and setting up email automation benefits your business in a number of ways. Not only will the automation save time, help with organization, and reengage a dormant audience, it will also help expand your client base, boost sales, and promote repeat purchases. If growth—in clients or sales—is a key objective for your business this year, drip campaigns can take your company one step closer.