The term “drip marketing” is based on the agricultural concept of drip irrigation. It is a direct marketing strategy in which marketers send out their promotional messages to a selected audience over a period of time. People in business development and marketing jobs will agree that there is a need to stay in touch with current and potential customers in order to have them purchase from you when they finally decide to buy a given product or service.
Drip marketing involves consistently doing something each month to keep yourself on your customers’ minds. Some of the specific tools that you may use to accomplish this are postcards, newsletters, electronic newsletters, brochures, and more.
Email drip marketing makes the process of staying in touch with your online customers much easier. It is especially useful for marketers as they no longer have to call up or knock on the doors of their prospective customers. You can easily send a series of emails to either current or prospective customers who have subscribed to your campaign.
But how do you ensure the continued interest of your customers in your email marketing campaigns? The content of each email in your campaign can make a huge difference to its success.
- Each email must deliver real value to your customers.
- Ideally, each message should converse with the customer in a way that keeps him or her engaged and looking for more such messages from you in future.
- Being direct may not help here. Blatant self-promotion may defeat the whole purpose of your campaign and may even annoy your customers.
- Always respect the space of your customers — an option to opt-out from receiving further emails will be appreciated by recipients.
- Keeping in touch with your potential and current customers over a period of time strengthens your relationships with them and tells them that you are thinking about them.
- Long-term and consistent messaging brings balance to your marketing activities.
- Because drip marketing is a long-term activity, it brings continuity to your communications with your customers. It ensures that the relationship with the customer doesn’t simply end with the closing of a sale.
- Drip marketing distributes the costs of your marketing campaigns over a period of time and thus does not overburden your budget at any one time.
Drip marketing can be a great tool that marketers can use to catch their customers’ attention and create a positive impression of their organization. Watering your prospects slowly but surely through drip marketing will help you and your organization reap the fruits of marketing success in the long run.
