When it comes to leaky faucets, drips are bad, when it comes to marketing follow-up, drips are a very good thing if you do it right. The idea here is to slowly, or at least logically, drip out more and more information to prospects and customers as a way for them to get to know, like and trust you and your business.
Of course, you can and should also use this same line of thinking to further educate your customers, up sell and cross-sell products lines, stay top of mind, build excitement for product launches and even drip train and inform your staff. (No matter how good your communications systems are you can always reinforce your core messages.)
The easiest way to create your drip campaign is to employ smart technology that, once set in motion, keeps your campaign focuses and on schedule. Understand though that a marketing campaign can and probably should include different forms of contact including emails, letters, videos, phone calls, webinars and white papers. Remember you want to stay top of mind, but you want and need engagement too.
Campaign design
There are a handful of core drip campaigns that every business should design. There are many others that you many add once you get the hang of this, but I would start with:
Your primary lead generation – this is the campaign that you put everyone you meet at a Chamber function, people that attend your seminars, people that respond to your ads for more information and people that call because they read something about you on BigFishBusiness.com. You can create variations for industries or other factors, but start with the campaign that features the basis – “here’s how we are different” education info.
New customer welcome – the minute you get a new customer you should dump them into a campaign that sends the orientation type messages and reinforces the expectations you built in your marketing and sales.
How to refer a friend – send your customers a series of notes that teach them how to spot an ideal customer, how to talk about your business, why it’s a good idea and maybe even, what’s in it for them.
The ask for a testimonial – once you create a happy customer, place them into the series of contacts that asks them for a testimonial and maybe even teaches them how to use a customer testimonial automation system like Audio Acrobat.
1-2 Creative holiday campaigns – people love holidays so use your creativity to tap into that fondness. And don’t forget that a person’s birthday is usually a big holiday for that person.
Events and launches – any time you are promoting an event, including a new product or service launch, it’s a good idea to create a series of contact leading up to and surrounding the event. People need lots of reminders for these kinds of things.
Campaign implementation
The first step in implementing any drip campaign is to determine what kinds of contacts you plan to use. Once you know your mix, you obviously need to create the content for your emails, letters, postcards and phone calls. This can seem like a lot of work, but the good news is that once you create the campaign elements you can basically set it and forget it, knowing that your marketing machine is working day and night.
You can create and operate your campaigns on a one-user level with CRM software such as ACT! with Swiftpage automation or using more robust, multi-user tools such as Salesforce.com or Infusionsoft. Either way, you’ll get big time follow-up, lead nurturing and lead conversion when you fix your drips.
Image credit: nekidtroll
