When it comes to nurturing leads and keeping potential clients engaged in the ever-evolving landscape of B2B tech digital marketing, drip marketing stands out as a game-changer. But what is drip marketing and how can you leverage it? Let’s plunge in!
Understanding the Fundamentals of Drip Marketing
Drip marketing is an automated set of emails sent out at specific times or based on specific actions. These actions can be anything from opening an email to viewing a landing page on your website. Often, these actions indicate interest, whether it is a topic area or a product, that can be used to trigger an additional touchpoint(s) to take place. Think of drip marketing as an automated way of guiding leads through your sales funnel. In the fast-paced world of B2B tech, leads require consistent interactions to move from awareness to conversion. Drip campaigns ensure they receive the right information at the right time. Like nurturing a plant, it often gives you signals on when it needs water or more/less sunlight. Prospects are the same way. Their actions will often signify they are ready for the next step in the buyer’s journey or need more nurturing at a certain stage.
Solidify Audience Segments
Before diving into drip campaigns, it is important to segment your audience. Segmenting your audience can start by considering where they are in the buying process, certain demographics or behavior. After audience segmentation, you can start building your drip marketing campaigns. By segmenting, you can craft tailored email content that resonates, ensuring higher engagement rates. 80% of people are more likely to become a customer for a brand that provides a more personalized buying experience. This should be top of mind, even in something like a drip campaign. Plus, marketers who segment their audience increase email marketing revenue by 760%.
Create Relevant, Engaging Content:
Every email in your drip campaign should provide clear value, whether it’s an informative blog post, a product demo or exclusive industry insights. Value-driven content is essential in drip campaigns as it educates your audience while pushing them one step closer to conversion. While the content offered is important, so is the email design. Appealing emails with a clear structure can boost engagement. Optimizing for mobile is important too. Designing emails that are mobile-responsive increases click rates by nearly 15%. Aside from mobile optimization, it is key to use relevant images and consistent branding throughout the email design. Having visuals within your email body can increase someone’s willingness to read your content by 80%.
Focus on Timing
The timing of drip campaigns comes down to two things: frequency and triggers.
- Frequency: Avoid over-communicating with your leads. Depending on your audience and message, consider spacing out your emails. For some, a weekly touchpoint might work; for others, bi-weekly or even monthly. It is important to know how your audience responds to the frequency of emails.
- Triggers: Triggers are key to a drip campaign and getting their timing right is critical. Most often, these are behavioral triggers, meaning an email or set of emails gets sent at a pre-defined time based on a certain action. For example, if a lead downloads a gated asset, they could receive a follow-up email 1 day later with additional relevant content, or even a series of emails for the next few weeks.
When it comes to the timing of your emails, it is all about finding a balance. You don’t want to overwhelm leads but you don’t want to space out email touchpoints so much that they forget about your brand.
Measure and Refine Based on Key Data
As a B2B executive, you know how instrumental data is in understanding performance. For drip campaigns, it is key to track basic metrics such as open rates, click-throughs and conversions to gauge the effectiveness. It is also important to analyze the data to see how your audience is responding to certain email elements. Are your open rates high but the click rate falling short? This could mean that your subject line is strong and enticing people to engage, but your call to action or asset offering is not cutting it. Are the unsubscribe rates high? This could mean that the frequency of the emails in your drip campaign is too close together.
One way to understand the meaning behind certain data is to incorporate testing. A/B testing will tell you exactly what is resonating, what types of content are bringing in more engagement and so much more. Testing gives you crystal-clear data to make informed decisions to improve your drip campaigns, ultimately boosting awareness, engagement and conversions.
Looking for an in-depth guide on marketing metrics to measure across campaigns and marketing efforts? Look no further. Download our free Metrics that Matter eBook now.
Integrate with Other Marketing Efforts
Ensure your drip campaigns integrate with your digital marketing strategy. From a messaging standpoint, don’t forget to synchronize messages across channels for a unified brand voice. It is critical to remain consistent in branding elements across all channels as consistency increases revenue by 23%. As leads engage with your drip emails, use lead scoring to identify those most likely to convert and tailor follow-up communications. Lead scoring often looks different for every company, but you can use these lead scoring best practices and tips to get started.
Drip marketing isn’t only about sending emails. It’s about providing consistent, valuable touchpoints that guide leads to conversion. It’s a strategy that can boost engagement and sales.
Thinking of integrating drip marketing into your digital marketing efforts? Dive in with expert guidance! Request a free marketing consultation or contact us today to get started!
There are no comments