Comprehensive guide to drip marketing

The terms “marketing automation,” “drip marketing,” and “trigger-based emails,” and their many permutations, have likely come up in conversation at nearly every marketing-related networking event you’ve attended in the previous few years. However, it seems that even though most companies are aware of it and understand its significance, not many people are actively employing it. Even stranger, some people use their marketing automation software just to send emails, thinking that drip marketing programs and email campaigns are the same things. That’s why we’ve consulted experts from a New York digital marketing agency and prepared a thorough guide to drip marketing. Hopefully, it will help you make the most of your promotional efforts.

Drip marketing – everything you need to know

Current marketing trends show that drip tactics, such as signing up for a free course or participating in “challenges” on LinkedIn, are omnipresent. Combined with social media marketing, it can truly do wonders for your brand’s visibility. But what is drip marketing, and how does it work?

We’ve been exploring drip marketing here at Digital Dot long enough to recognize its advantages and disadvantages. That’s what gave us the idea to write this comprehensive guide to drip marketing and explain why it’s useful, and how you do it effectively without driving away potential customers.  So in this article, you’ll find out:

• What is drip marketing?
• What are the benefits of drip marketing campaigns?
• Is lead nurturing the same as drip marketing?
• Limitations of drip marketing

1. What is drip marketing?

Drip marketing is a form of automated marketing in which content is sent in stages via email to potential customers. The idea is straightforward. You set up a system to send out a series of emails to your contacts at regular intervals over a period of time you choose in advance.

These are always activated when a potential customer does a desired action. For instance, subscribing to a newsletter or a specialized mailing list, or downloading a white paper are all examples of such actions. Drip marketing stands out from the crowd because of its exclusive medium (email) and time frame. A campaign can consist of sending emails to contacts once every three days for two weeks.

2. What are the benefits of drip marketing campaigns?

There are many benefits to drip marketing for both the consumer and the business. For instance, customers first know they’ll get quality work or at least something new and interesting. This is typically sent over a short period of time in the form of a series of emails covering the same ground or having a strong connecting theme. This is a great perk for potential customers because it allows them to learn more about a certain topic or progress through many training modules at their own pace.

On the other hand, there are benefits to drip marketing for businesses as well:

• Using a drip marketing campaign to send content that closely matches the interests of prospects is an excellent way to ensure that your campaigns are highly personalized for each prospect.
• Arousing the interest of prospects and making them look forward to receiving your content makes it easier to maintain a relationship with them over a longer period of time.
• The results of a drip marketing campaign are often much better than those of larger email marketing campaigns. Statistics show that their open rates are 80% and their click-through rates are 3 times as high.

Drip marketing strategies, which send out messages in a constant stream, are 50% more effective at generating quality leads than traditional email marketing efforts.

3. Is lead nurturing the same as drip marketing?

In marketing, “lead nurturing” refers to the practice of sending content to potential customers in an effort to nudge them closer to making a purchase decision. There are some similarities to drip marketing, but there are also some key distinctions.

• Drip marketing campaigns have a definite duration and, in most cases, a relatively brief time frame (around 2 weeks). In addition, sending more than 10 emails is not typical. However, lead nurturing takes place over a considerably longer and less clearly defined time frame. As a result, you’ll need to send much more emails.
• Drip marketing aims to reach a specified goal such as driving traffic to a specific page, interest in a training program, or demo requests from potential customers. Further, each initiative serves a unique objective. On the other hand, to progressively drive prospects along the marketing funnel, you can use a strategy known as “lead nurturing,” in which you provide long-term support to prospects on a variety of themes.
• The audience for a drip marketing campaign is significantly more limited than that for lead nurturing. Because you’re seeking to meet a very specific need, you can’t send a message to all of the people in your contact list at once. In lead nurturing, you do something similar by dividing up your contacts into subgroups based on where they are in the sales funnel. Comparatively speaking, the segments, in this case, are far less detailed than the target market for a drip marketing campaign.

4. Limitations of drip marketing

Reading our guide to drip marketing you might be thinking that’s the best way to advertise. However, although we agree that it’s fantastic, it seems a bit too wonderful to be true. It’s a really effective method, but it takes some time to put into practice. Also, it’s not something you should solely focus on but you should work on developing other marketing strategies. For instance, focus your efforts on boosting search engine optimization by hiring SEO services in New York or consider investing in PPC services.

It’s possible to miss some potential customers if you narrow your contact criteria too much. You run the risk of being forgotten by them because you are only focusing on them for a little time. Use makes all the difference, as usual. You can keep your prospects interested in the long run with drip marketing, which is why it’s a great addition to a lead nurturing plan.

The bottom line

Nowadays, it’s not enough to have experts from web design company New York build an amazing website for your business and have the customers automatically approach you. Building and growing a loyal customer base is a constant process and it requires employing various marketing strategies as well as keeping up with current trends. To make the most of your marketing efforts, we strongly advise giving drip marketing a try. We hope our thorough guide to drip marketing helped you do just that.