Marketing on Knowde: Building Drip Campaigns

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What is a Drip Campaign?

How to Create your first Drip Campaign

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Getting started with Knowde: Using the Knowde Marketing Platform

What is a Drip Campaign?

A Drip Campaign is an automated email campaign that sends (or "drips") a message to your customers over time. These automations can be triggered by specific events (Eg. send one following each sample request) or by time intervals (Eg. send one each month), and more!

How to Create your first Drip Campaign

Let's briefly walk through how to combine various triggers, actions, and logic to create automated workflows inside your Knowde Marketing Platform.

First, we need to create a new automation.

1. Navigate to your Knowde Marketing Platform (Account Manager --> Marketing --> Campaigns).
2. Click "Automations" in the left-hand navigation to navigate to the Automations overview page.
3. Click “Create an automation” to display the automation menu modal.
4. Click "Start from Scratch" then click "Continue" at the bottom of the modal window.
   
   

Add a Start Trigger

We could begin this sequence a number of ways, but in this example, we'll show you how to begin this automation whenever anyone is added to a list.

To set that up:

• Click the “Subscribes to a list” trigger. Subscribing to a list does not have to be an explicit action for the user - subscribing to a list can also mean the user was added to your Knowde Leads list, RFQs list, etc, based on their behavior on Knowde.
  
  

• Next, choose the list from the dropdown that will begin the automation. In this example, we're going to choose "Knowde Leads”
  
  

• To prevent contacts from restarting this automation, which would cause them to receive the same message over and over, make sure this trigger action is configured to run "Once." (This option should be selected by default.)
  
  

To finish configuring this trigger, click "Add Start."

Knowde Tip:

“Runs once” means that a contact will only enter your automation once through a specific trigger no matter how many times they meet the triggering conditions.

“Runs multiple times” means that a contact will enter your automation through a specific trigger each time they meet the triggering conditions.

Let's Send your first email

To configure this action:

1. Click the "Send Email" action contained in the "Add New Action" modal. This modal will appear as soon as we finish configuring our "Subscribes to list" start trigger. 
2. Click the "create an email" link.
3. Next, type the name of the email into the field provided then click the "Create" button. 
   
   

This email name is internal and contacts will not see it. We recommend using a descriptive name that will remind you of the email's purpose. Note that you will be able to give the email a subject line (that your contacts will see) later on.

4. You will then be directed to the "Templates" page where you can select a template for your email. Knowde provides a number of templates for your use, which can be easily customized on the following screen.
   
   

Note the "Start from Scratch" option. You can use this if you have an HTML template you would like to use or if you want to send a "Text only" email message.

When you find the template that suits your purposes, mouse over it and click "Select."

5. A "Sender Details" modal will open. Here you can change the sender information and create a subject line for your email. These options can be accessed and edited later, so what you create at this step is not set in stone.

Once you've modified the sender information and added a subject line, click the "Continue" button.

Customize the email

The email designer is straightforward and intuitive. Your email is divided into blocks that can be dragged and dropped.

To add a block, drag it from the sidebar and release it when the desired position is highlighted. To remove a block, mouse over it and click the gear icon, then click "Delete this."

When you click into a block, you’ll see a variety of formatting options appear both above it and in the right sidebar. Different types of blocks have different options so spend some time exploring each block and the options available to you.

After you’ve customized the text and formatted the email, click the “Next” button in the upper right corner of the screen. You’ll be redirected to the “Campaign Summary” page.

Review the Campaign Summary page

From the “Campaign Summary” you can:

• Review/edit the message name, subject line, preheader text, and sender information
• Turn on or off “Open/Read Tracking”
• Turn on or off “Link Tracking”
• Turn on or off “Reply Tracking”
• Turn on or off “Google Analytics” tracking
• Send test emails to yourself or other people on your team
• See previews of your message
• See notifications of potential issues with your campaign that might trigger spam filters
  
  

If you placed any kind of call-to-action (CTA) in your email, turn on “Reply tracking.” To do so, click the toggle to its "On" position. This way you can use the reply to gather data on your contact's engagement as well as the efficacy of the campaign. This reporting data can be found in your Marketing Platform as well as the Marketing Performance dashboard under Insights in your Account Manager. Learn more about your Insights dashboard here.

Click "Finish" at the top of the page.

Adding a “Wait” condition

Now, let's plan the waiting period in between your drip emails. 

With a “Wait” condition, you will give your contacts time to perform your target behavior from prior emails before proceeding to the next drip email. In this case, we will give contacts 1 week between emails.

To add a Wait action:

1. Click "Conditions and Workflow" located on the right menu.
2. Drag the "Wait" action and drop it below "Send email." You can also click the node (+) under the "Send email" action to add a wait step.
   
   

3. After placing the “Wait” condition, you’ll be presented with a modal window giving you the option to choose between waiting for a specific period of time or waiting until specific conditions are met. Note that if you choose “Wait… until specific conditions are met,” you still have the opportunity to specify a time limit so you could say, “Wait seven days OR until the link in the email is clicked, then proceed with the automation.”

4. For our purposes here, the “Wait…for a specified period of time” option makes the most sense because we’re building a simple drip campaign which does not hinge based on the user’s behavior from previous emails. 

Optional: Adding “If/Else” conditions

Now that we’ve given our contacts adequate time to interact with the message we’ve sent, can can chose to split them up, based on what they did and didn’t do, and apply tags that we can use to begin other automations, create segments, and for analytics. This is not a requirement of a drip campaign, and should be reserved for moderate/advanced users.

1. Click the “+” button below the “wait” action to add an “If/Else” action or drag and drop it from the sidebar.
2. You’ll be presented with a modal window asking “How would you like to split this automation?” and you’ll be able to specify the conditions using the same interface we used to create the “Wait until…” conditions.
3. Depending on whether your contact matches the conditions you set, they will proceed down the “Yes” or “No” path.  
   
   

Creating drip campaigns using Knowde’s Marketing Platform is simple and powerful. We suggest starting your journey with drip campaigns by using simple Wait logic, and adding conditions as you feel more comfortable with the platform.