The aim of every email marketer is to get into the prospects’ hearts and stay there forever. And they are ready to do anything to reach their aim. The result is clear: their techniques bring no profit and the spam reports skyrocket day by day.
One of the main reasons is that they are not using drip emails but using bulk ones. So what’s the difference in these two types of emails? And what to choose, bulk or drip emails?
What is bulk emailing
Bulk emailing is the process of sending one email to large groups of recipients at once. The email is truly generic and really looks like spam. I’m sure you’ve received such an email at least once. What is even worse about it: you’ve even never subscribed to the sender’s mailout. So he or she has simply parsed or bought a list of email addresses and sends messages right and left. Not that pleasant, yeah?
An irrelevant content, a poor subject line with spam trigger words turn people away from the main goal, drive them to clicking the Unsubscribe button, and finally report spam. And the worst: people even don’t see the email because it is already in the Spam folder (the ESP has classified it on its own).
Bulk email is like sending an email just for the sake of it. It doesn’t matter to whom or what the aim is, there’s no connection between the prospects needs and what is written in the email copy. Sending such campaigns is like blasting out in the air and hoping to hit some kind of target, but there is none.
Nowadays, this strategy is used not that much as it yields a very low conversion rate on the one hand and high spam and unsubscribe rate on the other hand. Contemporary prospects expect targeted and personalized emails that provide them with relevant information according to their needs and problems. So it’s time to speak about drip emails.
What are drip emails
Drip emails are a set of scheduled, targeted, and highly personalized emails that help in increasing email engagements and boosting conversions. The main difference is that email drip campaigns are automated with triggers, delays, and schedules. So the messages are sent according to the schedule and the prospects’ actions. You will never look like a spammer, how awesome is that?
Marketers have found that personalization and automation show better results as they help deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. So today, marketers pay more attention to getting information about the prospects. It supports professionals in segmenting leads and, consequently, helps in creating relevant emails, the ones that look like real face-to-face communication.
Bulk and drip emails compared
We’ve compared these two types of emails and collected them in one table. Save it to the bookmarks so you will have it at hand any time you need it.
| Bulk Emails | Drip emails | |
| Subscribers list | As a rule, purchased or parsed lists of email addresses. | Highly-targeted and segmented lists of prospects. |
| Personalization & target | Non-targeted and non-personalized emails. | Segmented lists of email addresses, thus targeted and personalized emails. |
| Email copy | The same email is sent to the entire customer base. | Different emails are sent (according to segmentation and personalization). |
| Schedule | The email sent once. | An email chain is sent according to triggers, delays, and schedules. |
| Automation | No | Yes |
| Results | High spam complaint and unsubscribe rates. | Low unsubscribe rate. High ROI. |
As we can see, bulk emails are not that targeted and specific as the drip ones. Thus, the bulk messages don’t work as good as drip emails do.
5 tips to not get to the Spam folder
It doesn’t matter, whether you use bulk emailing or email drip campaigns, no one is spam resistant. So, here are some tips for you to keep ears open.
- Check the sender’s reputation regularly. You need to always be aware of the sender’s reputation. When it goes down, you need to change something in the campaign.
- Clean the email list regularly. There can be invalid emails or emails for which your offers are not relevant anym
- Don’t send irrelevant emails again and again. There is a good chance to be marked a spammer and get in the Spam box.
- Be patient with links and files. Links play a crucial role in determining the sender’s reputation. If the links lead to a questionable site, well, the email will possibly be blocked. Add only links and files with additional information about you, the company or the product. Don’t place any links in the subject line, don’t include shortened links (they are suspicious to the ESPs because some spammy content may be hidden in it), and only use a reputable file hosting service.
- Include a visible unsubscribe link. Firstly, this is a requirement under the CAN-SPAM Act and GDPR. Secondly, it allows recipients to unsubscribe from a brand’s emails if they aren’t interested instead of marking the emails from you as s
What to choose?
A single email with zero relevant information will not make your business better. And automated email drip campaigns come into action. They have been proven to perform better toward reaching the business objectives, for example:
- Personalized emails
- Regular communication with prospects
- Scheduled email campaigns
- Time-saving
They will help your brand see a spike in its ROI, get higher engagement and higher open and click-through rates. The catch is to do it in a way that does not backfire and you’ve got to be careful about not getting to the Spam folder.
