If you don’t know what drip marketing is, it’s likely that you’re at least familiar with the practice. Drip marketing is the process of sending messages to prospects and customers at regular intervals based on certain behaviors or lead status. The term drip marketing refers to the steady process of ‘dripping’ your messages to your prospects. The term drip marketing is derived from the process of drip watering in irrigation. If you dump a bucket of water on a plant, the plant will drown and die. Yet if you give the plant drops of water over time, the plant will get the water it needs yet it won’t be overwhelmed. That’s the idea with drip marketing. By sending regular messages at appropriate intervals you won’t overwhelm your prospects and you’ll successfully nurture each one until they’re ready to buy what you’re selling.
Techniques for Drip Marketing
The most common mediums that are used for drip marketing campaigns include:
- Email: Email marketing is cheap and with the use of autoresponders, can be programmed to send specific emails to specific individuals over time.
- Direct Mail: Although it costs a little more, sending your prospects and customers communications through snail mail is still very effective.
- Social Media: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can be used in drip marketing campaigns by scheduling and timing updates to post at certain times.
Now that you know what drip marketing is and how it can be used in business, you may wonder how to use it in your own campaigns.
Tips for Drip Marketing
If you’re not sure how you can use drip marketing in your business, the following are a few tips that will help you keep your prospects interested until they’re ready to get their credit cards out.
Keep Your Name Out There: When sending out perfectly timed messages, make sure your company’s name is prominent and you may want to use visually themed email messages so as to create a visual cue for your prospects and customers. The more your customers remember you, the more likely they are to choose your company when they are ready to buy.
Benefit Your Prospects and Customers: Make sure your drip campaign includes benefits for your customers and prospects. If you are sending out email messages, you may include tutorials that they can use in their own businesses. This will cause your prospects to look forward to your communications, and that’s just what you want with drip marketing.
Marketing Automation
Drip marketing doesn’t sound all the difficult, unless of course you’re talking about hundreds or thousands of leads in a database who are all at different stages of the buying process. With drip marketing, you need to send timed messages to various demographics and various leads depending on their behaviors and activities. But when you have that many leads, it’s nearly impossible to keep all of your messages straight. That’s why many business owners choose marketing automation software that comes with drip marketing capabilities already installed. With lead management and lead scoring, your drip marketing campaigns can be planned perfectly across many demographics and across many platforms.
Drip marketing is extremely effective, just as using drops of water works beautifully when it comes to irrigation. With drip marketing, you will remain on your prospects’ and consumers’ minds and you’ll be more likely to secure their business when they’re ready to become actual buyers.
