fbpx

Struggling to achieve personalization? Use drip campaigns to future-proof your strategy

by | Jul 21, 2020 | Analysis, Public Relations

Four out of five consumers have something in common when making a purchase—they want a personalized experience. Few options in a marketer’s toolbox create a personalized experience as effectively as drip email campaigns.

The basics of drip marketing are simple: Marketing automation platforms match emails to specific customer behaviors, like making a purchase or engaging with a previous email campaign. When a customer takes a certain action, the platform automatically sends the appropriate email. This painless solution is a win for marketing teams, but more importantly, it’s a performance win: drip emails experience click-through rates three times higher than other email campaigns.

Drip email campaigns are an effective personalization tactic that not only supports highly targeted messaging but high levels of customer engagement as well. Even more, drip campaigns rely on automation to do the heavy lifting, making them a relatively easy and hands-off tactic for the marketing and operations teams.

However, drip campaigns are not one-size-fits-all. Because they support increased personalization, drip campaigns rely on specific customer data and individual strategies that you must evaluate regularly to ensure the program is still meeting its desired goals. To get started there are several best practices to consider, some of which you can put into action immediately.

Have a goal in mind

Successful drip campaigns focus on a single, specific goal, such as downloading content, visiting a web page or making a purchase. Customers will only take action if they want something, so determine which customer action is your goal, and then customize the campaign to fit the customer profile. This is key: drip campaigns can only reach their goals when they are oriented around a specific customer segment’s needs.

For example, consider a drip campaign with the goal of encouraging customers to download an ebook. This requires the marketing team to identify the target segment’s problems, pain points, and whether or not the content offered can solve those problems or persuade the reader to take further action with the company.

Make the most of customer data

Evaluate your current data tools and ask whether or not they are adequate for drip campaign data needs. Drip campaigns are only effective if you have the technology to support customer data collection, organization, and analysis.

Your marketing technology stack should be a centralized source of the latest customer data. This includes demographic information, previous customer interactions with the company, buyer journeys and customer needs. Use that data to inform customer segments and develop your campaign goals.

Measure results

Data is essential for designing future campaigns and optimizing current ones. It’s also a reality of every marketer’s day-to-day. In a results-driven world, the more visibility and insight marketers have into the metrics behind each campaign, the better. For best results, data collection should happen at both the campaign and email level. It’s just as important to know what the customer does after they interact with the email as it is to find out how many emails it takes to inspire interaction. You need data points around open and click-through rates, subject line A/B testing and the customer journey after click through.

Data doesn’t end at the purchase. It’s also essential to know if a customer called customer support or interacted with other email campaigns after checkout.

Drip campaigns prosper with the right tools

Drip email campaigns are powerful marketing tools that allow you to send highly personalized messages to thousands of customers using timely, relevant data. And with the right marketing automation technology, the process is easy for marketing teams to implement.

However, drip email campaigns supported by marketing automation are also a tactic for future-proofing your marketing strategies. A robust, easy to access source of customer information makes further customization and targeted marketing simple. A polished strategy like this will allow you to leverage customer data to improve customer experience and elevate your brand. Best of all, drip campaigns tracked and analyzed by modern marketing automation platforms allow you to show the real dollar value behind your efforts—a welcome tool for any marketer looking to excel in a results-driven market.

Palmer Houchins
Palmer Houchins is the VP of Marketing at CallRail where he leads demand generation, brand, communications, and content marketing teams. Prior to CallRail, he worked for almost 8 years at Mailchimp, most recently serving as their Director of Integrated Marketing.

RECENT ARTICLES