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5 Email Campaign Best Practices for Animators

ben marvazi 2020

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Email drip campaigns are a valuable addition to an animator’s marketing toolbox. They are a series of automated emails sent to animation leads and clients over a period of time. 

They enable you to generate leads by showing how you can help solve their problem, enticing animation leads to keep engaging, and proving how you stand out from the competition. It takes some time and effort to set up, but once you’ve got it up and running, it automatically does its thing.

This article will dig deeper into the different types of email drip campaigns, their benefits, and the five email drip campaign best practices for animators.

Different Types of Email Drip Campaigns

1) Welcome Emails

This type of email reaches the inbox of your animation leads once they complete the subscription process. It introduces your animation services to your leads and serves as the first communication in this new stage of your relationship.

They are sent automatically based on the user’s behavior and action. It can be a simple “Hi, nice to meet you!” or a product introduction email where you offer a discount to provide immediate value to your potential animation client.

2) Onboarding Emails

This type of email is the second most important email your clients receive. They are somewhat similar to welcome emails, but they provide more hands-on information about your animation service. 

It’s a crucial educational tool and can pique users’ interest by sending them blog posts, videos, or case studies.

Celebrating clients’ achievements by sending a happy customership anniversary greeting or a birthday greeting with a discount code is another way of providing more information and showing appreciation.

3) Reactivation Emails

This type of email is great for re-engaging inactive animation clients, whether they haven’t been opening your emails or fail to click-through once they’ve read them.

It encourages subscribers to become active again, which results in more engagements and eventually more sales.

If ever people unsubscribe from you, remember that it’s not bad news. It’s a cost-effective way to see who is engaging with you, get feedback from those who unsubscribe from you, and clean your mailing list.

4) Post-Demo Emails

This type of email re-emphasizes the value of your animation service while showing animation leads what the next step is.

Following up is a sales imperative. It helps lead your animation prospect down a path to a prosperous partnership. It takes at least five follow-ups after the first meeting for a sale to be successful. That’s why having a solid follow-up strategy is a must for those who don’t respond right away.

Sending video testimonials from past animation clients can be a great content idea for your post-demo emails.

5) Confirmation Emails

This type of email is sent to a user after purchasing your animation services or signing up for a program. It reassures the user that their request has been received and is being processed. 

It also reinforces the connection between you and your animation client. You can send registration confirmation emails, subscription confirmation emails, or order confirmation emails.

Confirmation emails are usually triggered by the user’s actions — such as website activity purchases. They are only sent to subscribers who are interested in your content.

For example, someone who requested a free quote, downloaded an ebook, signed up for an account, scheduled an appointment, or visited your website.

With the help of specific triggers, drip campaigns turn your animation leads into animation clients.

Benefits of Email Campaigns for Animators

1) Increases Awareness

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With the saturation of the animation industry, some animation leads are possibly interested in your services but need more lead nurturing before going down the sales funnel.

Through email drip campaigns, your animation business will be top of mind once a lead realizes they need animation services because you’ve kept in regular contact. This also makes it easy for your existing animation clients to refer your animation services to their connections.

2) Builds Engagement and Community

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Drip campaigns have a positive effect on customer engagement and show a 119% increase in click-through rate. They serve as a conversation between you and your animation leads, allowing you to share information, increase anticipation, and build trust.

Nurturing these leads through regular communication and personalized messages allows you to engage with them better and more efficiently.

3) Generates More Revenue

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Email drip campaigns have emerged as the highest-performing marketing channel. According to DemandGen Report, automated email workflows show a 20% increase in sales opportunities.

With email drip campaigns, you can automatically send your animation leads the information they’re looking for every step of their buying journey. They are highly effective in lead conversion since most people need to see an offer several times before making a final decision.

How to Do Email Drip Campaigns For Animators

1) Identify Your Campaign Audience

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Before starting your email drip campaign, make sure to think about who you want to target. 

Targeting allows you to personalize your drip campaigns and give your animation leads the information they need at the right time, which can help generate more revenue.

To identify your campaign audience, you need to segment your list by dividing your list of subscribers into different groups based on their needs, interest, purchase history, or stage in the sales funnel.

You can also analyze data from your existing animation clients and look for trends such as their demographics (age, gender, family, and geographic location).

Here are some list segmentation tips that can help you identify your campaign audience:

  • Email Engagement Level. Identify your active and inactive subscribers. For those who actively open your emails, you’d want to send your latest offers and deals. Then, you can create a separate specialized campaign designed at re-engaging inactive subscribers.
  • Sales Funnel Stage. Someone at the top of the sales funnel should be receiving different emails from those at the bottom. If subscribers are new, nurture them first with educational and valuable content and save the sales pitch for later. If a subscriber is a loyal follower, you can get away with long texts by sending discount codes or free cheat sheets.
  • Website Behavior. This is another way to get more information about your leads’ interests by tracking their active time on site, menus visited, icons clicked, and more.
  • Subscription. If you offer monthly or annual subscriptions on your animation services, send them a friendly reminder for subscription renewals. If they canceled their subscription, send them a special offer should they change their minds. This is a strategy to make sure your business keeps generating revenue.
  • Business Industry. It’s most likely that the people on your email list work in various industries. Use this type of email list segmentation to learn about your potential animation client by asking them to fill out custom fields in your forms. This is a way to provide them with specifically targeted content about relevant animation services for their business.

2) Outline Your Goal

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The second most important aspect of a successful email drip campaign is outlining your goal. Your goal can be to:

  • Promote your animation services
  • Generate more revenue
  • Boost user engagement and conversion potential
  • Gather client testimonials
  • Get more subscribers to sign up
  • Cross-sell or upsell your animation services
  • Lower the cost of your paid ads through organic reach

When you select your goal, make sure that it’s a SMART goal. Having SMART goals makes it easier for you to stay focused, plan the remaining aspects of your campaign, and have a sense of fulfillment as you work on your animation projects.

As much as you want to reach your goals, make sure that your goal aligns with your animation leads’ want, need, or fear. Create attractive offers that meet the needs of your prospects and do a lot of research to know their business goals.

3) Schedule and Automate Your Emails

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You can send out as many emails as you think you should, but pace yourself. You want to be consistent but not come off as aggressive. 

Don’t send out more than one email per day. It can be four to eleven emails that are sent four to seven days apart. This gives your animation leads and clients time to breathe and better digest your content.

Make sure your email drip campaign ties together smoothly. As much as possible, try to write all of the emails in one sitting, and schedule to send them later on.

Drip campaigns are very convenient and time-saving. After composing the content of your emails, automatically send it with the help of different email marketing automation tools based on your segmented list at the schedule you set.

For instance, SendPulse offers contact management and advanced segmentation capabilities. They can help animators identify the right animation leads for drip campaigns and send more relevant emails.

4) Follow Basic Email Writing Tips

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Getting your animation leads to open and read your email is your primary goal so always use a compelling subject line. Write the subject line first to set the tone of the entire email.

Place the important words at the beginning since 50% of emails are read on mobile phones. Highlight the value you have to offer to pique the reader’s interest and use logical words related to the topic of the email.

Then, create relevant and personalized email content so that your leads won’t feel like they’re wasting their time reading big blocks of insignificant text. Seventy-four (74%) percent of marketers say targeted personalization increases ROI and revenue. A great way to personalize your email is by adding your animation leads’ names in your email.

Make your email even more valuable by including a CTA that directs them to a landing page to download your lead magnet. A few examples you might use would be:

  • “Subscribe” Button. This invites users to receive updates about your animation services and doesn’t commit to a purchase.
  • “Learn More” Button. Use this when you want to give your potential animation clients a little more information, so they’re prepared to avail of your animation services.
  • Social Sharing CTA. This encourages users to share a piece of content with their friends. It’s a low-commitment way for animation leads and clients to engage with your brand.
  • Sales-Focused CTA. This gets potential clients to avail your animation services right away. A “Contact Us” button is one of the most popular sales-focused CTA.

5) Analyze and Test Your Campaign

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If you noticed your emails aren’t leading to conversions, it’s time that you try new email techniques or formats through A/B Testing. It’s a way to compare two versions of a variable to figure out which campaign variation performs better.

You can A/B test your email drip campaign’s call to action, subject line, email layout, subject line, body, offers, closing, images, and images.

After running the two versions of your email campaign, analyze the results by paying attention to the following metrics you need to track:

  • Clickthrough Rate. This gives you an insight into the percentage of email recipients who click on one or more links in your email campaign drip.
  • Conversion Rate. This shows how many recipients click on a link in your email and perform the desired action, such as filling out a form or purchasing your animation services. 
  • Forward Rate. This lets you know the rate at which your email recipients forward your email campaign with others who aren’t on your mailing list yet.
  • Open Rate. This percentage shows how well your email was able to grab your animation lead’s attention with your subject line or whether your emails reach your subscribers’ spam or inbox folders.
  • Unsubscribe Rate. This helps you visualize if you need to change tactics and nurture leads more at a time when they most likely leave. 
  • ROI. This tells you the overall return on investment for your campaigns and shows how email marketing drives real and tangible results.

Evaluate the results and make careful changes to your emails to give your users a better experience reading your emails and eventually push them down the sales funnel.

It’s possible that your email drip campaign won’t lead to an increase in sales after one A/B Testing. You might want to test more email versions to get emails that not only give you more open rates and click-throughs but higher conversion rates as well.

Why Email Campaigns for Animators are Essential

Email drip campaigns are great for animators to engage with and learn about their animation leads and clients. With the saturation of the animation industry, drip campaigns can help animators increase awareness of their animation services.

It can also bring positive effects on customer engagement and build a community that generates more revenue.

Before starting an email drip campaign, outline a persona for your target audience and be sure to have SMART goals to determine how many emails you’ll send and how long your campaign will be. This can help you stay focused on the entire campaign.

Also, include a fresh piece of content in your email to get your animation leads more interested in what you have to offer. 

Once you’ve written your email, use an email marketing automation tool to save time and connect your campaign to different social media channels. 

Lastly, keep track of the performance of your campaign and optimize it according to the results of your metrics.

An email drip campaign is a matter of trial and error for animators, so don’t be afraid to test a combination of formats, more research, and valuable offers to see what works best for you.

For more tips and information about animation and its business side, download a copy of our free marketing cheat sheet and sign up for our awesome free masterclass.

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