Drip marketing is one of the most popular and effective marketing strategies today. A drip marketing campaign is about planning a series of pre-planned messages to be sent at different time intervals to the customers and clients.
It lays a foundation for a firm’s marketing strategy and slowly builds the customer base. It is a complete process, from nurturing a new lead and welcoming new customers to keeping existing customers engaged. Here is everything you need to know to design your drip marketing campaign!
The Essentials :
1. Trigger
A trigger is a reason you need to start the drip marketing campaign. These vary based on your needs and the kind of business you’re doing. Some of the common triggers are:
* A new customer/subscriber
* A newly generated lead
* A prospective customer who is mid-way in his purchase journey
2. Conditions
Conditions in the campaign refer to the time and platform your company will follow to communicate with the triggers. For instance, a welcome message will be sent to new subscribers immediately as they subscribe to the portal or make a purchase. Other messages about follow-ups will also be queued up in sequence as defined in the conditions. These conditions would guide the campaign’s course of action.
3. Actions
During the campaign, you can use different communication methods depending on the purpose and need. These are called ‘actions’ and can range from traditional emails to recently trending SMS texts, Instagram DMs, and even push notifications.
Now that we are aware of the essentials needed to plan our Drip Marketing campaign, here is a step-wise guide to creating an effective one –
Step-1: IDENTIFY YOUR TRIGGERS
It would help if you decided on the motive i.e., the ‘trigger’ of the drip campaign. For certain online businesses, drips are sent to remind the shoppers about items in their carts. It is generally used to send automated messages to welcome new subscribers, nurture existing leads or follow up on current clients.
Step-2: CHOOSE TARGET AUDIENCE
Once you know your motive, the next step is to identify the target audience for the campaign. Depending on the audience, your targets would be either customers who have already made a purchase or prospective customers who have visited your website.
Step-3: CHOOSE PLATFORM FOR COMMUNICATION
Next, you need to select the platform for communication with a specific motive to convey and a target audience to communicate. You can use traditional emails or upgraded social media platforms like Messenger, WhatsApp, or even SMS. The latter will be more convenient if you’re looking to set up a platform for two-way communications. These are precisely the platforms through which ‘actions’ are sent.
Step-4: DRAFT MESSAGES
Now that you have all the prerequisites for the campaign, you need to draft the messages to be sent to the target audience at different points of the customer life cycle. You should specify which message is designed for each audience and the time intervals at which they are to be sent. Such specifications are the ‘conditions’ that will mold the course of the campaign.
Step-5: START THE DRIP CAMPAIGN
You are set to begin your drip marketing campaign with all of these in hand. But your work doesn’t end here. You should track the campaign’s performance and keep analyzing it throughout the process to gauge its effectiveness.
Conclusion
With the above-explained know-how, you can also up your company’s marketing game! Drip marketing campaigns successfully establish a company’s motives and attract customers. Their automated messages have infiltrated the minds of the customers. Several online shopping sites have used drip pricing and drip marketing strategies to improve sales. Even prominent streaming platforms like Netflix have established themselves using such campaigns as their foundation.