What is drip marketing?
Much like drops of water from a dripping tap, drip marketing is a strategy that sends, or “drips,” a pre-written set of messages to customers or prospects over time.
These messages are most often emailed, although other media can also be used. It’s an effective tool to help you keep current clients and generate new referrals. Think of it as the equivalent of saying ‘Hello, I’m thinking of you and I care.’ Because it’s automated, it saves both time and money while delivering a consistent message about your brand. It allows for automatic opt-in based on triggers, and does not require any maintenance once launched.
Each ‘drip’ is a single step within the campaign, making them the perfect tool for supporting an engagement campaign in which certain actions by the recipient will move them into the next round of email.
Automation also means that sales people can focus on selling and not on phone calls and emails. You can keep in touch with customers and prospects by sending news, interesting articles, reports and invitations to events. The objective is to keep customers open to you so that you stay top-of-mind for future references and sales. Drip marketing should be non-invasive and never be like a sales pitch.
Author and marketing consultant, Laura Lake, says that the concept of drip marketing was developed in response to the ‘Law of 29’, according to which marketers believe that an average prospect will not turn into a client until they’ve viewed a marketing message at least 29 times.
That may sound a bit over the top, but there’s no denying that drip marketing campaigns are a great way to stay on the mind of your future prospects and sales leads.
Jacqui Scorgie, channel manager for Softline Accpac, part of the Sage Group, says drip marketing messages ‘build’ on each other, providing more and more focused and specific information with each communication. Automation is the key concept here because it saves time and removes human error from the process, which increases efficiency.
“The various messages can be automated and set up so that they are sent out at a time and date specified. Specific follow-up campaigns can also be included that are relevant to the recipient, depending on the response received.
“Through drip marketing, leads can be generated and ultimately act as a catalyst for the creation of new business opportunities. It allows for sequential scheduling and tracking of e-marketing activities within each campaign and instead of sending out a blast, bulk mailer, drip marketing enables a company to refine its audience and set up appropriate marketing messages that are automated. It offers a mechanism to send multiple marketing messages, which can ‘build’ on each other to follow on from the previous ones, providing more and more focused and specific information with each communication.”
Content must be driven by the overall strategy of the campaign. “The idea is to create brand awareness. This is done by including more and more relevant information in each subsequent communication and even filtering it, based on the response received. The marketing team drives the content, which is dependent on the overall campaign and what should be communicated, as well as when each communication should be sent and to whom.”
Drip marketing provides complete visibility to senior management that will highlight the success of each campaign. “Responses can be analysed in real-time and campaign messages can be tweaked accordingly, which provides a huge advantage. The system shows users the ‘open’ and ’bounce’ rates that will further aid the team to quantify the success of the activity. It will point the marketing users in the right direction of how and where they can improve communications, as well as keep the customers and/or prospects engaged and interested,” adds Scorgie.
What the stats say
Glenn Fallavollita, author of DRIP Marketing: A Powerful New Marketing Strategy That Gets Prospects To Buy From You, researched the sales, marketing and buying process of more than one thousand sales people, businesses, sales leaders and decision-makers. He found that:
- 50% of all sales people stopped calling or sending information (for at least 9 to 12 months) to a prospect after their first unsuccessful attempt in moving the sales process forward.
- 95% of all sales people are unable to predict the actual close date of a sale with any type of accuracy; therefore, how can they realistically predict a moment in time when their least interested prospects will be ready to take the next step in the buying process?
- 75% of all first time appointments or events with a prospective buyer happen
after a sales person’s fourth initial telephone call. - In a medium- to high-value sale, it takes 15 to 30 conventional ‘drips’ (telephone conversations, face-to-face meetings, voicemail messages, personal emails, letters, etc.) before a cold prospect becomes sales ready.
These figures make it clear why drip marketing has a loyal following among many marketers and lead management experts. Not only are they convenient, but they’re also really effective.
Prospect engagement is more than content creation
You need to engage all prospects after a lead is generated, regardless of the size of your content library. That’s according to Maria Pergolino, inbound marketing specialist at B2B marketing automation software company, Marketo.
In her blog InboundMarketer, she writes that Marketo started interacting with prospects early. “The first nurturing campaign was based on blog posts and other people’s content. Marketo then added to the programme as they built out content. Now all of our nurturing tracks are infused with white papers, webinars, blog posts, analyst reviews, and more.” This means you can be ready to use marketing automation even if you don’t have a library of content available for lead nurturing.
Creating an Ocean
Here’s Pergolino’s example of a simple three month drip campaign:
- Day 01: Thank you for requesting the VoIP paper, including link to paper
- Day 15: Information about the future of VoIP, as posted by an analyst on their website
- Day 30: Summary of a longer blog post about VoIP that your company did, with link to the post
- Day 45: Information about big industry announcement, like X number of companies switching to VOIP, and linking to a post about it on a news site
- Day 60: Summary of a video that your company participated in, even if not on your site, including link to the video
- Day 75: Information about new books in your industry and why they may be interesting to read, with links to the books
- Day 90: Summary and link to another popular post by your company on your blog
Because each of these emails is html and has links in the emails to content, you can collect opens and clickthroughs as you would using your own content.
Pergolino says that it’s not all or nothing. “You can still have a successful demand generation programme that includes lead nurturing and scoring even if you only have one white paper or one webinar. By not focusing on the quantity of content you have, you can focus more on the quality of the pieces you do produce.”
Case study
Lead Generation Campaign
Business Communications Group CEO Rebekah Donaldson explains how a systematic approach to B2B lead generation helped a US business, Peak Cost Containment, get clients
Challenge: Meet more prospects
In early 2010, a US business cost reduction expert, Van Haas, launched a successful consulting practice, built relationships with referral partners, and honed a valuable service: analysing companies’ spending patterns and showing them how to reduce expenses. To grow, he needed to talk with more potential customers. He contacted Business Communications Group and they discussed B2B lead generation options. Peak’s website was not generating any leads. Haas needed help to:
- Map the right route to follow with marketing efforts
- Attract high quality leads without high-price advertising
- Cost-effectively nurture prospects, clients, and partners
Mapping the right route seemed tough because of all the marketing and advertising options available.
Solution: Attract the best prospects with inbound marketing
Haas was shown the value of creating a marketing roadmap and launching inbound marketing. A 12-week lead generation campaign was recommended, including:
- Overall marketing planning
- A campaign to start qualified leads rolling in
- Preparation of lead-nurturing and sales materials
Strong value proposition as the foundation
In addition to finding the keywords that Peak’s prospects were likely to search on, Business Communications Group conducted an analysis of Peak’s approach toward its audience. Haas received coaching on the competitive advantages that he should leverage, and challenges in audience perception that he might have to overcome. He staked out a clear market position and value proposition.
Pulling in new leads
Business Communications Group developed search optimised web content such as case studies, executive briefs, blogs, press releases and emails to spread the word about new developments. They provided lead handling recommendations and custom templates for delivering proposals. They also helped Haas source the best professional networking and social media activities.
Prospects appreciate thoughtful nurture emails
‘Lead nurturing’, a series of emails that get automatically sent to leads after they first convert, deepened understanding and trust. Haas sent emails with decreasing frequency. Each had a different offer, such as links, answers to frequently asked questions, and an offer to analyse expenses. Haas got a 21% click-through rate. And nobody unsubscribed, which means he was conducting true permission marketing.
- Results Conversions average 20+ leads per month
- Visitors who came to the site from organic search had a conversion rate of more than 3% by August 2010. Within six months, Peak had 130 leads.
Source: Business Communications Group LLC, www.b2bcommunications.com
