You may have seen the term ‘Drip Campaign‘ flying around, here at Mad Mimi. Have you been looking for Mimi’s auto-responder, or ever asked yourself what, how or why Drip Campaigns? Well, good… we’ve got all your answers, right here.
What on Earth is a Drip Campaign? Is it like an auto-responder?
Yes, it absolutely is. What we call a ‘Drip Campaign’ here at Mimi is really just another way of saying “auto-responder” — which might be something you’re more familiar with.
Drip campaigns are an awesome way to send a series of interval-based emails to people, automatically, when they’re added to a specific list in your audience. Drip campaigns are great for sending out welcome emails, follow-ups or a series of emails all about a specific topic.
A Drip Campaign consists of any number of ‘Drip Emails’ that you create, place in a certain order, and specify the intervals between them.
You can activate this feature via the “Add things” button, at the top of any Mimi screen.
Click here for more “auto-responder” details.
Why would I want to use Drip Campaigns?
A Drip Campaign is different from a regular email because it’s an automated series of emails. You set it up once, and then anyone added to the specific Drip Campaign’s list, automatically starts to receive your Drip Campaign.
A regularly scheduled email is just a single email you send out to your list on a specific date. The Drip Campaign, however, will send out a series of emails, in an order and frequency that you specify, all starting at the time the subscriber signed up. You design how it works, and never have to do another thing with it!
Because it’s automated and pre-set, a Drip Campaign is perfect for…
- automated welcome emails, when someone signs up for your content
- delivering a sign-up gift download
- a curriculum, or instructional series of emails
- a quote- or thought-a-day series
- nudges, reminders, or check-ins for your subscribers
- click here for more examples of auto-responders!
How do I set up a Drip Campaign?
1. Activate the feature under “Add things” at the top of any Mimi screen.
2. Click “New Drip Campaign” and specify your settings in the “Create new drip campaign” screen. These include the name of the whole Drip Campaign, the list associated with it (CANNOT be edited later), the standard interval between emails (CAN be edited later), and whether or not the first email should send immediately.
3. Create the individual Drip Emails – this is exactly the same as composing a regular Mimi promotion.
4. Specify the mailing details for each of the Drip Emails that you create. This includes all the normal Mimi mailing details, and whether or not to send this drip immediately after someone subscribes.
Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you have all of your Drip Emails created. You can change the intervals between them, at any time.
5. Check that everything looks good, and hit “Start Campaign”. Anyone in your associated list already will be treated like they just signed up, and they’ll start to receive the drip. Anyone who is added a any point later will start the drip then.
Click here for more Drip Campaign setup details.
So how do those Drip Campaign intervals work?
Drip Campaign intervals are just the amount of time Mimi waits, before sending the next Drip Email in the Campaign. You can set the standard interval between Drip Emails right when you set up your Drip Campaign, initially. And you can also adjust them, individually, later.
For the first Drip Email, you can decide if you want it to send immediately after the person subscribes to your list, or not. For all the other Drip Emails, the interval is expressed in amount of time AFTER the person receives the PREVIOUS email.
You can change the intervals of any Drip Email by clicking on “Drips” at the top right of your Mimi screen, and then “Edit” on the Drip Campaign. Click on the “Schedule & Details” button, underneath the Drip Email you want to change. Then change the interval using the dropdown buttons at the top of that page.
Click here for more Drip Email interval details.
How do I start and stop my Drip Campaign?
When you first set up your Drip Campaign, it will be paused. You’ll have to manually start it, once you’re ready to show it to the world! You can start it from two different locations:
1. Click on “Drips” at the top right of your Mimi screen, and click “Run Campaign” under any of your Drip Campaign thumbnails
2. If you’re already in a Drip Campaign, then just click on the big orange “Start Campaign” button, on the righthand side of the page.
If your Drip Campaign is already running, you can pause it at any time, too. You can do this in exactly the same two ways as starting your Drip Campaign:
1. Click on “Drips” at the top right of your Mimi screen, and click “Pause Campaign” under any of your Drip Campaign thumbnails
2. If you’re already in a Drip Campaign, then just click on the big orange “Pause Campaign” button, on the righthand side of the page.
Click here for more on starting and stopping your Drip Campaign.
I made a regular promotion, but I want it to be a Drip Campaign!
No worries! You can actually clone that regular promotion, right into a Drip Campaign. You’ll need to have the Drip Campaign created, already, so that Mimi has somewhere into which she can clone the promotion.
On your regular dashboard, click on the little sheep icon underneath the promotion thumbnail that you want to clone to a Drip Campaign. Then select the “Drip Campaign” option, and select which Drip Campaign to clone it into — that’s it!
Click here for more details about cloning to a Drip Campaign.
How do I connect my web form and a Drip Campaign?
This is probably the most common use of the Drip Campaign feature, or really any auto-responder functionality. When something exciting happens (someone subscribes to your list), you want to react (send them a welcome email) — who doesn’t?!
In order to make sure that your ‘Welcome Email’ Drip Campaign sends automatically to your new subscribers, you just have to connect your web form to the same list that is associated with your Drip Campaign.
You can only associate a single list with each of your Drip Campaigns, but you can have several lists (or none!) connected to your web form. Click on “Webform” at the top right of the Mimi screen, and then on “Edit” under your specific web form, in order to adjust which lists are connected.
Be sure that your Drip Campaign list is connected to your web form, and your Drip Campaign is running — and you’re all set!
Click here for more web form Drip Campaign connection details.