Description: Drip marketing refers to a system of disseminating pre-determined messages to customers over a span of time. In this article, we will discuss drip marketing fundamentals which can be used to convert prospects to leads.
Drip Marketing
Inspired by a farming practice called drip irrigation, drip marketing refers to disseminating a set of messages to the intended audience at the right time. Drip marketing can be used to turn prospective customers to lead and digital marketers often deploy tactics to leverage it to its full potential.
Drip marketing can prove beneficial for a number of factors. Actions like lead generation and engagement, customer onboarding and customer service can be performed with by following drip marketing essentials.
The time span of message dissemination in drip marketing is subjective. For some businesses, weekly reminders work well while for others, monthly and yearly engagement is better.
In this article, we will go through the nuts and bolts of drip marketing and discuss and how digital marketers can use it.
Lead Engagement and Drip Marketing
The time when shoppers would stroll onto a website and buy products left, right and centre are now gone. The average time for a prospect to become a paying customer has increased dramatically.
In such a situation, users need to be hand-held by digital marketers through the process of lead conversion.
When prospective customers arrive on a website, they have no intention of buying a product. Furthermore, they are unable to process the avalanche of information given to them upon arrival. This is where drip marketing comes into play.
Through concise content marketing, digital marketers first try getting the contact information of a prospect. This can be done by offering an email subscription to prospects, or other incentives. Once a prospect provides contact information, he/she is converted from a prospect to a lead.
After becoming a lead, digital marketers can begin engaging with them and begin the sales cycle.
In the beginning, a lead is hesitant to buy because they do not know much about a business or product. Through a series of drips (or messages), leads are made aware of a company as their gap of knowledge regarding the product is slowly reduced. These drips can include ebooks, webinars, videos or any other form of content which informs the lead about a product or service.
The Process of Lead Conversion through Drip Marketing
The main upside of drip marketing is its ability to aid in lead conversion. However, this involves a series of steps as listed below
- Choosing Target Customer
The first obvious step is to identify the type of customer being targeted. Each type of customer may require a different type of messaging. For instance, a college student would respond to a message about a mobile phone launch differently compared to a middle–aged woman working a regular job.
Thus, digital marketers have to clearly segment their audience and then develop different messages for each segment.
- Establish a basic buying cycle
Create an outline of the steps which have to be taken to convert a lead. A brief example of a buying cycle is given below:
- What is the problem you are solving?
In this step, digital marketers have to make leads realize the problem their product is solving. A mobile phone company has to explain which new problem they are solving. Maybe it’s a new feature or a low price. Once leads can clearly understand the problem you are solving, the first step is complete.
Usually, a lead should immediately understand the problem your product is solving. Do not complicate the process and be direct about this.
- Tell them about your brand
Tell the leads about your brand. Now that the leads know the problem you are solving, they would probably want to know about your brand. This may not be a big problem for top brands, but small firms and startups need to educate leads about who they are.
Point out the vision of your company. Let the leads know you better and associate with your brand on a higher level. Many startups have a loyal base of customers because they are able to sell their users a higher vision.
Each message you send is part of an overall drip marketing effort.
- Brand Evaluation
Brand evaluation is the part of the drip marketing effort where digital marketers help leads evaluate their brand. This is where a lead begins to think about becoming a customer and begins to evaluate the brand.
At this stage, digital marketers have to use drip marketing messages to make the lead see value in the brand.
- Objection
This is not a necessary stage, but many digital marketers may have to deal with this. After brand evaluation, a lead may raise an objection at the value of the price. At this stage, digital marketers again have to use drip marketing to inform the lead about the reason behind the evaluation. In some cases, digital marketers are given the power to provide discounts. The main objective of this stage is to make sure the lead chooses to become a customer.
- The Final Decision
Once a lead knows everything there is to know, the final decision lies with the lead. All a digital marketer can do at this point of time is to reinforce the messages sent during the drip marketing campaign.
- Alignment of Content and Buying Cycle
Depending on where a particular lead is on a buying cycle, digital marketers have to align the drip marketing messages being sent to them.
At each stage of the buying cycle, a lead responds to a specific kind of message. Based on this data, digital marketers have to frame messages accordingly.
Thus, each stage has a specific mail associated with them. Depending on the decision of the digital marketing team, messages are sent to the lead over a fixed period of time. Depending upon the response of the lead, digital marketers move them over ahead on the buying cycle.
- Establish Goals of the Drip Marketing Campaign
A lead can be moved ahead on a buying cycle based on the response to a message. The desired response depends on the message itself.
If a message contains a link to a website, the desired response would be the lead reaching the website. In other cases, a message might contain a giveaway ebook or the link to a seminar. In such a case, the desired response would be downloading of the ebook or viewing of the seminar.
If a lead gives the desired response, then he/she can be moved forward in a buying cycle. Every lead which moves forward highlights the success of the drip marketing campaign.
Drip Marketing- Benefits and Drawbacks
Drip Marketing has a lot of upsides. For one, it increases the reach of a brand and improves the click-through rate.
In many ways, drip marketing is based upon the principles of inbound marketing. Customers are slowly made to see the benefits of a given product and eventually turned into customers. Many inbound marketing campaigns end up ingratiating drip marketing into their strategy.
Drip marketing narrows the focus when it comes to the timing and content of messages sent to leads.
Another benefit of drip marketing is its low-cost setup. Since there is no type of advertising involved, drip marketing is virtually free of cost. There is a heavy investment of time involved, as digital marketers have to do a lot of research to frame the messages and identify the type of audience to target.
Due to its structured nature, drip marketing is very attuned to the end goals of a cycle i.e. conversions. Each message sent to a lead is framed with the simple purpose of getting one step closer to getting a customer. Since the messages are framed before the drip marketing campaign even begins, the entire process can be automated. Digital marketers do not have to spend time sending messages to each lead.
One disadvantage of drip marketing is the long process involved. For firms looking to make quick gains, drip marketing might not be a great idea as leads take a long time to become buying customers. Furthermore, the process itself is far from a cakewalk and requires a lot of work. Digital marketers have to plan the messages sent to users very carefully, understanding the segment they belong to and the stage of the buying cycle they are at.
Drip marketing can also make your brand content seem repetitive. Many firms try fighting this drawback by constantly experimenting with their messaging. Doing so again causes digital marketers to spend a lot of their time on drip marketing efforts.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, drip marketing is a useful tool to infuse a firm’s inbound marketing strategy. Despite the investment of time required, drip marketing is worth the effort and can become a constant source of new customers. If done well and overseen by skilled digital marketers, drip marketing can help new firms and startups scale their growth methodically.
About Author
Gaurav Heera is a Digital Marketing Coach and Affiliate Marketing Specialist. Founder of Delhi Courses, an Internet-Based Company on the premise of helping people change their lives.
