Learn the differences between leads, prospects, and opportunities. Understand how to turn leads into prospects and opportunities.
Email drip campaign templates are prewritten guides that both B2B and B2C salespeople use to nurture leads through a series of emails. There are different templates depending on the campaign’s trigger, but all have similar formatting to effectively engage the recipient. They’re customizable to match your brand while keeping that intention clear. The more templates you have on deck, the quicker emails are sent to leads to get them to complete the desired action.
We’ve built a standard email drip campaign template for you to use as a starting point in your own creation process. We include all of the visual components to a campaign of three drip emails, including a subject line, company branding, a header, supporting copy, a final call-to-action (CTA), and notification settings. Click on our image below to see the entire drip campaign template.
The cadence in which you deliver these emails ultimately depends on your audience and what trigger was activated for them to receive a drip campaign from your company. With the help of a standard template like ours, plus an understanding of the workflow behind the emails themselves, implementing email drip campaigns can be an extremely effective email nurturing strategy.
Our template above consists of the copy that your leads would see directly in their inbox, but there’s much more to consider when creating an email drip campaign workflow in general. The format of a campaign template consists of defined parameters around who your target audience is, what the activation trigger will be, what you’ll offer the lead, and what support copy and CTA is most persuasive and appropriate for the intent of your campaign.
Your target audience is the select group of leads who receive your drip campaign. These are leads who’ve opted in to receiving some degree of promotional content about your product or service and thus are in the lead nurturing phase of your sales process. Your audience can be your entire list of leads in an attempt to make a high level announcement or a designated few who’ve activated a specific trigger.
Triggers are the actions leads take (or don’t take) that automatically start a campaign by sending the first email. They’re defined as the automation response when a specific action occurs. Trigger examples include signing up for your newsletter, adding an item to their virtual shopping cart but leaving your ecommerce site before purchasing, or completing a transaction.
An offer is the piece of content, opportunity, or physical gift presented for leads to ultimately accept or decline. It’s the direct response to the trigger done by leads. If your lead activates a trigger by leaving items in their cart, the offer can be a discount code to entice them to return to your site and complete the purchase. Identifying the appropriate offer requires thought into your lead’s experience with your solution and meeting them where they are.
The subject lines included in drip campaigns are the first single-line of copy your recipients see, after your business’ (the sender’s) name. They’re short form content that works to grab the attention of your lead to persuade them to open up the email. They introduce the more in depth content or offer that’s included in your campaign body. The best subject lines include a degree of personalization, such as addressing them by name, and create a sense of urgency.
The supporting copy in an email drip campaign template is any copy outside of the immediate header and CTA. It can be a variety of things, like a more in-depth description of the offer you’re presenting, background information on your solution in general, or client testimonials. Keep in mind most recipients will be reading this on their cell phones, so sometimes less is more.
Your CTA is the prompt you give your leads in the body of your emails to complete a desired action. It can be as simple as a request to sign a petition, to complete a form, or to watch an educational video. It’s the final directive for your lead and is usually in the form of a button to make it easy for them to navigate. Make sure your CTA is clear, concise, and visually direct to increase the likelihood of traffic back to your website and overall chances of conversion.
The typical format of the most effective drip campaigns includes components beyond the actual email copy itself, meaning your target audience and trigger are just as important to flesh out. Next, we’ll give you five unique drip campaign templates to consider using, one for each of the most popular campaign styles.
There are different types of email drip campaigns that cater to different intentions your company might have. Whether you’re wanting to welcome a new subscriber to your email list or advertise an upcoming event, we’ve created campaign templates to help you get started. The most common styles include welcome, engagement, order confirmation, education, and event marketing emails.
Use this welcome email template to introduce your leads to your company or solution at a high level. Since these are the first drip campaign leads will receive from you after signing up for your email list, they’re meant to set a tone around the value you’ll be bringing to your lead. In our template, we do just that by first welcoming the recipient, giving them a personalized product recommendation list, and then a limited time discount code to push them to make their first purchase.
When you have active customers or clients, or leads who show engagement with your site or previous emails, reward them. Engagement drip campaigns keep a steady cadence with your leads and build on your existing relationship. Our campaign template celebrates and rewards those leads with a product drop sneak peak, a free shipping discount, and a free subscription, all to ultimately point them right back to your website.
If you sell a product through an ecommerce website or even in person, this campaign template serves to update your customers about their most recent transaction with you. They’re great touchpoints for customers and help reassure them that their transaction is received. This campaign helps nurture leads even after they’ve purchased from you. The below template uses three drip emails to update customers on their order as it's received, processed, and shipped.
Use education drip campaigns to offer your leads valuable content, workshops, or courses regarding your specific solution or your industry as a whole. In the case that your solution is software, education campaign templates like ours are great aids to keep your customers informed about all its updates. This template first offers the recipient strong CTAs to watch a product recap video, sign up for a free online course, and finally, download a yearly survey.
Adopt this event campaign template if your business is either hosting or sponsoring an event to drive attendance. Whether it’s in person or virtual, you’ll want to advertise an event enough in advance to account for leads to realistically decide on their attendance and work it into their schedule. Our template breaks down notifying your lead about the invite, pushing for tickets sales, and then one last final push for tickets to be purchased to create that sense of urgency.
Each of these drip campaign templates above includes a unique and catchy subject line, header, and clear CTA. The additional information and supporting copy are more specific to your own business and give you the opportunity to be creative. For real-world examples of each of these drip campaign template styles, plus a synopsis and explanation of what they do well, check out our article for the top email drip campaign examples.
When you’re choosing and implementing an email drip campaign template, there are a few best practices to keep in mind to make sure they’re as effective as possible. This starts with clearly identifying who your target audience is, ensuring brand cohesiveness, offering true value, and making the campaign as personal for the lead as possible.
Keeping these four tips in mind when choosing an email drip campaign will increase the chances of you receiving the engagement you’re after. They also keep your audience’s experience front of mind, which helps strengthen their perception of your business as a whole.
Email drip campaign templates are invaluable tools that help build out entire email marketing strategies while also reducing tedious tasks. Once you’ve identified the best campaign style and templates for your company, import them into email marketing software that’ll help you send out your campaigns and track their engagement and performance. Check out our guide to the top email marketing software to learn which platform can best advance your email marketing and nurturing.
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