Event Marketing through Email Drip Campaigns
An email drip campaign is the process of setting up emails in advance that will be automatically sent to guests at specific times and dates. Once you've written the emails and used your email service provider's facilities for scheduling them, you can go on to your other promotional projects in the knowledge that your subscribers will receive those messages precisely when you want them to. Drip email campaigns can be an extremely successful promotion for any event of any size as long as you follow some of the basic rules.
Tell Them How Many & How Long
Drip campaigns are more successful if you inform your subscribers in the very first message how many will follow and when the last one will arrive (which is generally the day before your event). This way your subscriber will know right up front what to expect and may actually anticipate the information in a crescendo of interest up until your event. They're called drip campaigns since you provide content on a slow and steady manner, so never overwhelm your subscribers with a shower of too many emails too fast.
Be Original
There are many "canned" pre-written generic email messages you can readily obtain for your event and you're wise to stay away from all of them. Your event is unique, so write passionately about all the reasons your subscriber should attend.
Keep It Short & Simple
The most effective drip email messages seldom exceed four sentences. Your subscribers don't want to read your entire event schedule with the extensive bios of all the participants. That is data they should be able to access on your linked website. Just give them a nugget of valuable information in each drip and then go on to the next one.
Segment Your Subscribers
Leverage every single byte of data you have on your subscriber base to create unique drip campaign content. If, for example, you're promoting a concert of a singer from the disco era you can focus on the nostalgia angle of their original hits to the older subscribers, and completely ignore that aspect and concentrate on the duet they just released with a current pop star for your younger crowd.
Lighthearted but Not Edgy
Unless you're promoting a comedy improv, never go to the extremes of hilarity or self-deprecation in your email drip campaign content as that can be severely misinterpreted by your readers. This is not to say that your messages can't be fun; you can experiment with a Top 10 List, some funny quotes from your participants or other content that draws your audience in and creates anticipation for your event.
Give Your Audience Reasons to Attend
People are busy and barraged by demands on their time so you have to provide the subscriber with all the reasons why your event should be on their "Don't Miss" list. Lay out the specific value that your event offers and the overall entertainment and/or informative aspects that they will not be able to obtain anywhere else.
Tell Stories
The best event drip emails are not just a sequence of sales pitches, but narratives that are preferably carried over through the entire campaign in a consistent tone and sequence. Let the story of your event and the fascinating background of your participants unfold gradually and build to a crescendo right up until your last email.
Dovetail into Social Media
Your email service provider will be able to provide ample ways for your drip campaign to interact and integrate with your social media presence. Consider your drip campaign and social media pages to be complementary and synergistic so that the information on each is a seamless extension of the other.
The key to conducting a successful event drip campaign is to ensure that the content is actually useful to the reader and that it drives them to attend the event. Cut out the fluff, get to the core of your event, and don't send any more emails than you absolutely have to in order to get your point across and you'll see the results in your event's attendance.