Tired of low open rates and even lower response rates?
We feel your pain.
There are only so many unopened emails someone can take before they start crying on the inside.
But don't lose all hope yet - there's still time to turn things around.
Deep down, you know that too, which is why you took to the internet to find inspirational drip email campaign examples that could kickstart your creative juices.
And it was a fantastic idea because it landed you here on Ringy.com (btw, we're the makers of a solid sales CRM), where we've pulled together a detailed post that touches on:
Sound like just the thing you're after?
Awesome, let's raise a glass to the search engine that brought you here and then dive in.
Drip marketing is the love child of automation and personalization.
And to salespeople and marketers, that is one beautiful baby.
If we had to define it, we'd say a drip email campaign is a series of automated messages sent to a targeted selection of prospects at strategic intervals.
The sender's business objective defines:
Here's a simple sequence to give you some drip email examples:
P.S. You'll hear the words “autoresponder” or “autoresponder sequence” get thrown around - don't get confused; they're just synonyms of drip marketing and drip email.
Now you have a choice:
Do you want to learn even more about drip campaigns (why they work, the main types of drip campaigns, the industries that use them, and their business benefits)?
Or do you want to skip straight ahead to the six drip email campaign examples we've prepared for you?
It's up to you and how comfortable you feel with the topic. Made up your mind?
Good - keep scrolling to learn more, or use this link to jump to the examples.
Drip campaigns can achieve 70%+ open rates and 30%+ click-through rates (CTR).
Yes, you read that right.
That's well over three times the average email rate and ten times the average email click-through rate.
But why do they work so well?
Simple.
Well, that is if you know about the Law of 29.
It states that:
“Companies must expose consumers to their products and services [...] at least 29 times if they wish to win them over.”
Now before you start arguing over the number 29 - the exact number is up for debate. Some people say it's as low as three, while others came up with a far higher number.
But that's irrelevant to us.
The important thing is the concept behind it:
People need to be slowly and steadily exposed to marketing and sales messages and given plenty of time and space to make up their minds.
The old-fashioned “dump your sales pitch and press for a sale” doesn't work anymore because consumers are more educated and well-informed than ever.
And that's why drip email campaigns work like a charm - they're the best automated tool at our disposal for gradually sharing valuable content and guiding consumers towards making the decision we want them to.
They're a million times better than screaming, “buy, buy, buy” every time you see them.
Oh, and they help you reach hundreds (or thousands) of consumers at precisely the right time without having to lift a finger, as your trusted automation software (potentially in the form of an all-in-one sales CRM) will do all the heavy lifting.
You can use drip campaigns for a nearly infinite amount of applications.
However, there are three types of drip emails that stand head and shoulder above all the others - both in terms of usage and results.
We break them down in this table:
|
Type |
Why it's used |
When it's used |
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Welcome sequence |
To make an excellent first impression and introduce “strangers” to your company |
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Nurture leads |
To win leads over by educating them with a series of creative, informative messages about how you can solve their problems |
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Abandoned cart |
To convince cart abandoners to come back and finish their order - something around 50% of people will do if you ask them |
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Essentially all industries use drip campaigns in one form or another.
They're just that useful.
But how they use them and the extent to which they benefit is different.
Let's quickly cover seven industries that can't live without autoresponders and how they use and benefit from this technology.
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Industry |
How they use and benefit from a drip email campaign |
|
Insurance |
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Finance |
|
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Retail and eCommerce |
|
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Small businesses |
|
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Law and other types of agencies (i.e., marketing) |
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SaaS firms |
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Coaches and courses |
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This table only touches the tip of the iceberg regarding how drip email campaigns can help companies improve their performance and achieve better business results.
But we won't leave it at that; we'll dive in a bit deeper with our discussion of the...
The biggest benefit of a drip email campaign is its ability to save your agents time and boost productivity by an average of 20%.
How so?
Through marketing automation.
The only two bits of human intervention required are building out the sequences (usually in super-easy drag-and-drop editors) and defining the rules.
Once that's done, you can sit back and throw your feet up as your software assistant takes care of all the hard menial work.
Even though we'd recommend you use that time more wisely and focus on closing more sales!
Brand awareness and brand values are two fundamental concepts in today's business world.
If people don't know who you are, they won't be receptive to your messaging. And if people don't know what you stand for, they're unlikely to stick around.
At least that's what the research says.
So kill two birds with one stone with drip campaigns:
Here's how Toms (the shoemaker) is doing precisely that:
They're going for family-centric, playful, and socially aware - did it shine through?
Did you know that 77% of brands could disappear from the face of the earth, and no one would care?
That's a painful stat to read.
Well, unless you're Toms or another similarly loved company that's a master of customer engagement and brand loyalty…
Don't sweat it if not.
You can use personalized drip campaigns to set off on the same journey and drive ridiculous levels of engagement and awareness by sending tailored messages perfectly suited to your audience's interests and behaviors.
Without having to manually write a single thing or spend all day on Google Analytics.
The cherry on top is that if you manage to increase customer retention by only 5%, you'll boost your profits by 25% to 95%.
The old saying goes, “location, location, location.”
And it's just as relevant today as back in 1944 when Harold Samuel first said it.
If you want to win a person over and make the sale, you have to be in the right place at the right time. There's no going around it.
In a digital-first marketplace, autoresponders help you do exactly that.
If you want proof, then be patient for a couple more minutes, and you'll get everything you desire in our six drip email campaign examples.
There's one more point we forgot to mention in the previous benefit:
With drip campaigns, you won't have to sit on your thumbs for ages in the right place, waiting for your lead to show up.
You can delegate this painful task to your friendly marketing automation robot, who'll pass on your message when the stars align.
And the best thing is that your customers will never know it wasn't you.
Has anyone ever told you that an incredible 79% of leads never convert into paying customers?
It's a sad but true part of our jobs as salespeople.
We need to accept the fact that the majority of our leads will not convert.
But we can still look at the glass 21% full and do everything in our power to nudge that statistic to 22%, then to 23%, then to 24%, and eventually maybe even to 30%.
How?
By leveraging drip campaigns, automation, and personalization to achieve 80% more sales at a 33% lower cost - all the extra nurturing and attention pays off, and it puts your less caring competitors to shame.
Did we just say lower costs?
Guilty as (not) charged.
Drip email campaign software is surprisingly cheap.
Take our sales CRM, Ringy, as an example. It only costs $99 a month, and it gives an unlimited number of users access to a wide range of features that go from SMS and email drip campaigns all the way to built-in VoIP.
And what do you get when you get a ton of benefits for an affordable monthly fee?
That's right - the research puts it at a 10% or more increase in revenue (and profits).
Alright, that's enough benefits; let's whip out the examples you've been waiting for.
Before we start, we'd like to mention two things.
One:
Please note that you're absolutely encouraged to use these six examples as drip campaign templates for your company.
Just remember to customize them and not copy them. That would be bad.
Two:
|
Criteria |
Why it matters |
|
Creativity |
|
|
Impact on recipients |
|
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Ease of reproduction |
|
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Business results |
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Inspirational power |
|
More often than not, free trials don't convert into paying customers.
And our friends over at Salesforce are well aware of this uncomfortable truth.
That's why they use a personalized three-email drip campaign template to attempt to convince users to reach out to a sales representative and sign up for the paid version.
This way, they stop users who simply forgot to use the free trial from churning.
This is what it looks like:
Email 1
Email 2 (if no response to email 1)
Email 3 (if no response to email 2)
Clever, right?
Sometimes customers leave you for the competition, and other times they simply want to take a break and save money.
But don't give up without a fight.
Take a page from Netflix's book and try an email drip campaign template focused on winning them back by demonstrating your superior value.
So how does Netflix do it?
By sending out this chain of drips for three months after a user cancels:
Email 1 (the cancellation)
A series of emails highlighting new shows and movies (along with the user's favorite picks)
The final win-back email
This campaign aims to show lost customers how much fun they're missing out on and how easy it is to start watching again. Genius.
The Kewl Shop, a women's fashion eCommerce site, uses automated drip campaigns to redefine the weekly newsletter.
And it works - they achieved 22% revenue growth in just 12 months.
How did they do it?
By creating a drip campaign made up of around 50 (yes, fifty!) emails and sending it out, one email per week, to every new customer after their first purchase.
This strategy works because:
This means it's perfect for maximizing customer retention and lifetime value.
Running from zombies is a pretty engaging activity in its own right, but Zombies, Run! didn't stop there with its creative business idea.
They decided to develop a captivating drip email campaign template and use it to communicate and develop a strong bond with their runners.
Here's what it looks like:
They send these personalized and targeted drips out whenever a runner reaches a specific milestone - the example above is for 25km - and each individual email focuses on triggering emotions (hence the handwritten note) to keep the user immersed in the app.
A++ for creativity.
Voices, a job search website for voiceover actors, sends out drip campaigns to over 50,000 people every single month.
That's a lot of drips.
So what's their secret to keeping so many people in their database?
A welcome sequence that establishes trust, builds a solid initial relationship and shows their contacts how to use their site like a pro.
They achieve these goals through:
Trello shows us that you can combine SaaS with Xmas.
All you need is a jolly email drip campaign template, plenty of Christmas cheer, and a creative muscle that wouldn't look out of place on Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Their “Twelve Days to Trello” campaign was a 12-part email campaign in which they sent out a simple holiday-themed message on each of the 12 days of Christmas.
Their users found it helpful, relevant, and worthy of a flurry of clicks and shares.
In other words, it was the perfect way to end the year and start the new one!
You only really need two major communication tools to implement something similar to the drip campaign examples we've just run through.
So should you simply start blasting them out from your company phone?
You could, but that wouldn't be the best use of your time, and you would be shooting in the dark in terms of analytics and insights.
You'd be much better off investing in either an all-in-ones sales CRM or standalone drip email software.
Let's find out which is suitable for you.
You should pick a sales CRM if:
If any of these applies to you, then open up the following links to the six best drip CRMs (prices as of October 2021) and have a look at your options:
However, if you're happy with your current CRM and don't mind paying a bit more for the convenience of staying put, you should go for standalone drip email software and integrate it into your CRM.
The two best options (prices as of October 2021) are:
This is our seven-step process:
It depends on your specific campaign and your business goals.
But as a ballpark figure, aim for anywhere between three and twelve emails.
After your final drip email, you should move any unengaged contacts off your central database and either discard them or add them into a re-engagement list for later use.
We recommend you track the following metrics when you try to recreate the success of the six drip email campaign examples we've covered above:
Great question, especially since you didn't see any mistakes in our inspirational drip email templates collection!
Here are the five common errors to avoid like the plague:
Believe it or not, we're nearly done for the day.
We hope you're feeling confident about finally breaking out of your emailing slump.
On this side of the screen, we're 100% convinced you're ready to create campaigns with sky-high open and conversation rates (as long as you follow the footsteps of our six drip email campaign examples).
Do you know what would make your drip email templates even more effective?
A proven sales CRM or a standalone drip email platform.
And if it's a CRM you need, do yourself a favor and request a demo of Ringy.
We'll pull together a personalized presentation and show you how we can transform your drip campaigns from a simple chain of messages into an outreach strategy that'll land you in a 5-star beach resort the next time bonuses come around.
P.S. Check our customer reviews to uncover our clients' results and opinions.
