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Drip Marketing

Posted by Jason Pinto on Monday, July 13, 2009 at 2:39 PM in Business, Marketing

Drip Marketing – that term may not yet have a page on Wikipedia (although I did find E-Mail Drip Marketing), but it’s absolutely something that should be discussed as a marketing tactic.

The term “drip” alone may not always have the most positive connotations. Perhaps you think of standing under a roof somewhere, and a consistent drip of water keeps dropping on your head.

Well, there is a key word in that sentence — consistent.

A marketing department may bring in a ton of leads for a sales team. The sales force may try to follow-up with all leads. Sometimes that happens. But oftentimes, a lead will get missed. But even if the each lead is followed up one time, is that number, “one”, really enough?

Many products and services have a long sales cycle. Along with bringing in leads, marketing departments have a responsibility to help sales teams successfully push a prospect through that cycle. When it ends, the prospect will be perfectly primed to be converted into a customer.

A drip campaign can be effective. But, just like the water running off a roof, it can also become annoying. Here are a few key things in mind to run an effective drip marketing campaign:

• Mix up your channels and medias
• Provide relevant content
• Turn down the sales pitch
• Be considerate of timing

Mix up your channels and medias - this takes effort, but it’s essential. It may be easy to simply send an email each week to a person. But you risk becoming viewed as spam. There are plenty of other channels that can be used. Is the person on Twitter, or LinkedIn? If so, send them a message through that social media channel.   Send an email one week… then a social media message on week 2. Then in week 3, mail out a hand-written letter.

Provide relevant content – One wonderful thing about a drip campaign is that it can be automated. However, that doesn’t mean that every person should get the same exact piece. When they first opted into your materials, hopefully they were prompted to provide some details about them. Or perhaps you already have some marketing knowledge of them in your database. If so, put it to use! If they expressed an interest in “reducing costs”, make sure the “save money with us” link is prominent in the first email you send to them.

One great way to deliver relevant content is with personalized URLs. They are often used to generate leads. But they can work great when you need to deliver relevant materials to  someone that has already responded.

Turn down the sales pitch – This may not be easy to do. Perhaps you want to shout about all the wonderful things that your product or service can do each time you talk to someone. But if you are going to “hit” them with materials 7-10 times, they can’t all be sales-y. You’ll fail.  Rather, serve to educate… If you find a great article in an industry publication, share it. Simply say “I thought you’d find this informative, and helpful to your business”. Don’t say anything about your product or service.  People want to know that you care about them. This is one way to prove it.

Be considerate of timing - This goes both ways. Are you sending a mailer that will end up in the day-after-July-4th pile? If so, well….. you probably should have saved the stamp. But be especially considerate of your prospect. Do you know that they recently went on vacation? Or are attending a trade show? If so, you may need to hold back the next email/letter/message a few days. Show consideration, and you’ll increase the chances that someone will pay attention to what you have to say.

(17) Comments Tags Drip marketing, personalized URLs, relevant content