What is Drip Marketing?
Drip Marketing can be defined as “Targeting a specific list of recipients with a steady stream of automated email messages that educate, keep your brand top-of-mind, and encourage engagement with your organization.”
When done right, drip marketing campaigns engages the targeted sales leads in a manner that guides them to make decisions that ultimately impact the company’s bottom line and/or brand awareness.
Dell has a classic example of this. “…Dell has integrated this form of drip campaign with un-purchased shopping carts. The continued messaging is relevant to the contents that the shopper stopped short of purchasing, and continues to include direct response actions (i.e. buy now).” Everybody who has a shopping cart should follow Dell’s example. If a customer clicks “add to cart” or “buy now,” but never purchases the product, then there should be an e-mail to follow up with that customer.
As a result, according to Kapost, 60% of customers are encouraged to seek out a product after reading content about it. That is mighty large number to disregard. Make sure it is taken advantage of.
How to get started with Drip Marketing
It takes time and patience to effectively employ drip marketing, so don’t get discouraged if immediate results aren’t seen. To get started you should plan for the following:
- Figure out Your Goals for Your Drip Campaign
- Segment Your Audience(s)
- Map out Your Campaign Triggers and Email Content
- Test & Measure
Repeated targeting done intelligently over a period of time with relevant messaging will allow you to effectively nurture leads over the entire sales process. Be careful to not overdue the emails. Too many emails sent close together or unnatural triggers can cause customers to unsubscribe. Drip campaigns can keep customers informed and aware, but don’t force-feed information to them. CRM and Marketing Automation software has helped thousands of small business marketers integrate drip marketing campaigns into their sales processes.
Related: Marketing Automation Tips for Small Business
Examples of Drip Marketing Campaigns
Here are some popular examples of drip campaigns:
Educational Drip Campaigns — Consistently deliver informational emails to prospects that will help move them further down the sales funnel. This is the essence of a lead-nurturing campaign.
Promotional Drip Campaigns — Send engaged leads and customers promotional incentives to buy a product or services. (Coupons, Flash Sales, etc.)
Top-of-Mind Awareness Drip Campaigns — Send emails to engaged leads to keep them thinking about your organization throughout the sales process.
Shopping-Cart Abandonment Drip Campaigns — Send customers with abandoned shopping carts email reminders additional incentives to complete their transaction.
Re-engagement Drip Campaigns — Send emails to prospects who haven’t engaged with your marketing emails or website for a certain period of time.
