You have a list of businesses you want to work with, and you know one email will not be enough. People are busy, your first message lands on a bad day, or they mean to reply and forget. A drip campaign fixes that by sending a planned series of emails on a schedule, stopping for anyone who unsubscribes, so you follow up without remembering to.
This guide walks through building one from scratch for cold outreach to local businesses. You can finish a working version in an afternoon.
Step 1: Decide who gets this sequence
One drip campaign should speak to one type of business with one offer. A sequence for dentists and roofers at the same time ends up vague for both.
Write down three things before anything else:
- Who: the category and area, for example dental clinics in two nearby cities.
- The problem you solve for them: one sentence, in their words.
- The single action you want: a reply, a short call, or permission to send a sample.
If your list mixes categories, split it first. Our guide on how to segment leads for campaigns covers ways to group by category, city and whether a lead has a named owner.
Step 2: Build and clean the list
For local businesses, Google Maps is usually the richest public source: name, category, address, website and often an email on the site. You can compare options in our roundup of the best Google Maps scrapers.
Whatever tool you use, do these before sending:
- Remove duplicates and businesses outside your target area.
- Run email verification and drop addresses that fail. Bounces hurt your sender reputation.
- Check which leads have a first name and which do not. That decides how you write your greeting.
Step 3: Write the sequence
A simple, solid structure is three to five emails. Treat that as a rule of thumb, not a law. Each email should be able to stand on its own, because people often only see one of them.
| Step | Purpose | Rough length |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Specific reason you are writing, one clear offer, one question | 60 to 120 words |
| 2 | Short bump with a new angle or a small proof point you can genuinely back up | 40 to 80 words |
| 3 | Something useful: a quick tip or observation about their business | 60 to 100 words |
| 4 | Polite close: ask if someone else is the right contact, or if you should stop | 30 to 60 words |
A few writing rules that help:
- Mention something real about them, like their city or category, not a fake compliment.
- Keep one call to action per email. Ask a question that is easy to answer.
- Skip heavy formatting and lots of links in the first email.
Personalize without breaking anything
Merge tags let one template read as written for each business. In GetClient they must be written exactly as {{params.name}} for the business name, {{params.firstname}}, {{params.website}}, {{params.city}} and {{params.category}}. Any other spelling will not be filled in.
The risk is an empty field producing "Hi ,". See personalize with merge tags and plan your fallback values for missing names, or write a greeting that works without a name, such as "Hi {{params.name}} team".
Step 4: Set the timing
Delays matter more than people expect. Too close and you look pushy; too far apart and they forget you.
A reasonable starting point:
- Email 1: day 0
- Email 2: 2 to 3 days later
- Email 3: 4 to 5 days after that
- Email 4: about a week later
Send on weekdays during business hours in the recipient's time zone. If you sell to restaurants or salons, think about their quiet hours rather than office hours.
Also respect your sending account's limits. A new Gmail account should start with small daily volumes and grow slowly. Read Gmail daily sending limits before you plan volume.
Step 5: Add branches based on behavior
A straight line of emails treats everyone the same. Branches let you adjust:
- If NOT Opened: resend email 1 with a new subject line, since they likely never saw it.
- If Opened but not clicked: send a shorter follow-up that restates the question.
- If Clicked: they showed interest, so send a more direct ask, like offering two call times.
Open tracking is not perfectly reliable, because some mail apps load images automatically and others block them. Use opens as a rough signal, not proof.
In GetClient, the visual campaign builder chains steps with delays in days, hours and minutes, and lets you add If Opened, If NOT Opened, If Clicked and If NOT Clicked branches. Branches are yes or no, so plan around "did they open" rather than "how many times".
Step 6: Handle unsubscribes and the rules
Every email should include a clear way to opt out, and you should honor it immediately. Include your real identity and a way to contact you. Rules for cold email differ by country, and some places are stricter about emailing businesses than others, so check the rules that apply to you and your recipients. This is not legal advice.
GetClient adds a one-click unsubscribe link to each email and skips unsubscribed addresses automatically in later steps.
Step 7: Test, launch small, then adjust
Before you send to the whole list:
- Preview every step with a real lead, including one with a missing first name.
- Send a test to yourself and read it on your phone.
- Launch to a small batch first, perhaps 20 to 50 leads.
- Reply quickly to anyone who answers. A fast human reply matters more than any template.
After the first batch, look at what happened. Low opens point to subject lines or deliverability. Opens without replies point to the offer or the ask. Change one thing at a time so you know what worked.
If you want the list, verification, sequence and replies in one place, GetClient does that, and new accounts get 100 free credits with no card. See plans and credits when you need more.