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What is drip marketing?

Drip marketing is a direct marketing strategy or style that involves sending out several promotional pieces over a period of time to a number of leads or contacts.

The phrase “drip marketing” comes from a commonly used practice in agriculture and gardening called "drip irrigation." This is the process of watering plants or crops using small amounts of water over long periods of time. Effective use of resources can yield amazing results both in the garden and your bottom line.

Drip marketing was developed in response to the "Law of 29" in which many marketers believe that an average "prospect" will not turn into a client until they've viewed their marketing message at least 29 times. While I do not necessarily agree with the Law of 29, I do believe in the need to stay in touch with your current and prospective clients in order for them to use or refer your business. In this market, there are way too many competitors out there not to.

Giving excellent service and standing above=standing apart!

The method of drip marketing can help you avoid and getting trapped into a “sell/produce curve.” This is the situation where you are selling until you find work to do, and then you are so busy doing the work that you stop selling and prospecting! Once the work is over, you start selling and prospecting again. You haven’t done the activities necessary to keep a steady flow of work coming into your company.

An effective way to use drip marketing is to consistently do something each month to keep your name in front of your current and prospective clients. By doing this you diminish the sell/produce curve and will find that you will eventually have a steady amount of business coming in the door.

One key about drip marketing is that it requires a plan of action. By creating a plan and following it throughout the year you can guarantee that you will be consistent with your marketing message all year long. I suggest that you not only develop your drip marketing campaign when planning your yearly marketing calendar, but watch what it is doing! Like they say…you can see a lot just by looking! What is working? What has given you the best results to date? What feedback are you getting from this segment of your campaign? Remember, long distance aircraft may use auto-pilots, but there is still a living, breathing human at the wheel to watch and make course corrections! Don’t be afraid to adjust the course!

As I said above, your marketing activities should be consistent throughout the year. Even when you are busy, you still need to keep a baseline of activities to ensure that you will have work for the slower times of the year. There will be months where the activity is higher and months where it is lower. However, you are consistently doing something each month to keep your name in front of your active and potential clients.

Drip marketing requires planning and execution. Part of your drip marketing plan will be aimed at your current clients. Keeping your company’s name in front of them is important because they are familiar with your company—you’ve already solved a problem for them and you want them to recommend you to a friend or neighbor if they have a similar issue or to have them call you again if they have another issue to be solved.

Next, decide who you want to target. Which potential clients would you like as customers? Include them in your drip-marketing campaign. You might decide to target specific neighborhoods, specific ages of houses or swap customer lists with a noncompetitive company that targets the same type of clients that you do. Mailing lists are available to purchase the names and addresses of your chosen target market.