B2B Email Drip Campaign Ideas and Examples

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Are you a bit intimidated by email drip campaigns? Does it seem like your competitors already have it in the bag while you’re on the outside looking in?

In a couple recent posts I tried to simplify it, and this article is no different.

I’ll show you a few real-world B2B marketing examples and give you some templates to make the transition to marketing automation as easy as possible.

Let’s get rolling!

B2B Drip Campaign Example #1: XOsoft


Let’s start simple, with a time-based “keeping leads warm” email.

This is the foundation of what I like to think of as your ‘lead net” – an automated system which has your back, ensuring no leads fall through the gaps.

The email below was sent quarterly, and increased conversions by qualified leads to 60%:

b2b email drip campaign

Here’s how you’d set an email like this up in a marketing automation platform (like Wishpond):

b2b email drip campaign

Beyond this, XOsoft got a bit more in-depth…

b2b email drip campaign

Though it might look somewhat complicated, this diagram actually shows you a pretty straightforward marketing automation workflow – all based on the conditions and behavior of leads.

Let’s go a bit deeper….

B2B Drip Campaign Example #2: NEA (National Educational Association):


As you might notice with XOSoft above, it really helps to map out your entire workflow (we like to use big whiteboards and hold a group meeting to discuss possible lead actions, conditions, etc.)

Here’s the NEA’s workflow in diagram format:

b2b email drip campaigns

The goal of this email drip campaign was to encourage current members to add a beneficiary to their complementary life insurance plan.

As you can tell (just look at the text without borders) there are over a dozen “pivot-points” where the behavior of a lead determines the next email they receive.

Again, mapping your workflows before-hand will save you a huge headache when creating them within your marketing automation platform.

Note: The three examples in this article are from a Marketing Sherpa ebook which, though it’s a few years old now, still shows automation best practice.

B2B Drip Campaign Example #3: Jaspersoft


Drip Campaign Strategy:

Triggered by a lead’s conversion to a free trial, Jaspersoft’s drip campaign was set up with best practice in mind. They sent five emails over a 30 day period:

  • Thank you/Welcome
  • Tools to help you use the software
  • Links to online documentation
  • Links to forums for support
  • Final email offering sales rep contact to discuss professional edition

Jaspersoft sent leads into numerous different sub-campaigns (with 40 possible paths) based on their behavior.

A Wishpond example:


Similar to Jaspersoft above, I created a hypothetical drip campaign that we might use to nurture our own leads into sales.

Here’s a snapshot of three emails (in chronological order) we’d drip to leads who downloaded a landing page ebook:

Email #1: Beginning of drip campaign – Thank you and simple education content:

email drip campaign

Email #2: Middle of drip campaign – Advanced education content
email drip campaign

Email #3: End of drip campaign – Soft-sell close
email drip campaign

Like the real-world Jaspersoft example, leads would also be funneled into different sub-campaigns based on their behavior.

For instance…

  • If a lead opens an email but doesn’t click through, your drip campaign needs to respond accordingly.
  • If a lead replies to an email, the “Sent-from” address needs to be monitored and leads manually moved based on the reply.
  • If a lead accelerates their movement through your sales funnel (say, by viewing your pricing page or VIP demo page twice in two days) they need to be automatically moved to a “hot-lead” campaign and nurtured accordingly.

Enabling lead-scoring is a great way to ensure that your early-stage leads are receiving early-stage drip campaigns and late-stage leads are receiving late-stage drip campaigns.

For instance, set a condition of your early-stage drip campaign to be such that if a lead’s score becomes greater than 20 at any point in the campaign (say, by visiting your pricing page twice in two days),they’re removed. Set another campaign’s conditions such that any non-converted lead is placed in a late-stage lead nurturing campaign as soon as their lead score reaches 20.

Here’s what that setup looks like:

b2b email drip campaign

When this set of conditions is met by any lead, they trigger a drip campaign. If at any point in that workflow’s timeframe the lead no longer meets these conditions (for instance, their lead score becomes 20), they are removed from the workflow.

Equally, you’d create a separate (late-stage lead) drip campaign based on a free trialler whose lead score becomes 20 while they’re within the trial period:

b2b email drip campaign

5 Drip Email Templates


Here are five B2B email automation templates your business can use to nurture your own leads into sales. Just fill in the text in the brackets with what’s prompted and you’re good to go!

Email #1: Introduction and Thank You:

b2b email drip campaign

Email #2: “Providing Value:”

b2b email drip campaign

Email #3: Showing your Personality:

b2b email drip campaign

Email #4:Encouraging Free Trial Completion:

b2b email drip campaign

Email #5: Touching Base:

b2b email drip campaign

To download these five lead-nurturing email templates as editable PDFs, click here.

Wrapping it all up


Hopefully seeing some real-world workflows as well as some examples in-platform has helped you get a grip on how you can use drip campaigns for your own B2B company.

I highly recommend you map your campaigns before you start, as otherwise you’ll end up wasting serious time (as well as, at least in my experience, creating a complicated mess of crossed-wires).

If you have any questions about getting set up, or about marketing automation in general, don’t hesitate to reach out in the comment section below!

Related Reading:

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