Cultivating Clients using Drip Marketing

When you have found a potential customer or want to retain the clients you already have, as a small business owner, you can use a variety of marketing strategies to stay on the customer's radar. One of these strategies is called drip marketing. If used properly and cultivated carefully, this can build a strong customer base and improve brand recognition.

Set Goals
As with any customer relationship marketing plan, it is important to set goals at the beginning of a drip marketing campaign. The goal can range from promoting brand recognition to increasing the number of repeat customers that use a service regularly. Businesses with reasonable goals have greater success. While instant gratification is a natural tendency among companies trying to survive and succeed, it is often the slow and steady approach that builds trust among potential clients and provides quality lead generation with long-term financial rewards.

Which Media to Use
There are several different media for sending marketing messages to clients. The most popular is email. Well-accepted for its low cost and strong saturation, email campaigns are only effective when you have the right contact address and sends a message that people want to read. While email messages may oftentimes wind up in someone's junk mail or trash bin, part of a drip marketing strategy is to make sure that that doesn't happen. Opt-in programs and discretionary use of contact information help to ensure a higher success rate. Other media for this strategy include a social media approach and direct mail advertising. While they are more time consuming and can be more expensive, they are also more effective for certain audiences.

Timing
The most critical aspect of a successful drip marketing campaign that has a solid contact base is the timing. While a pre-determined time frame for each stage of the campaign is easier to set up and maintain, many businesses find that targeting potential and return clients based on their behaviors creates a more successful conversion rate. Bombarding a contact at the wrong pace or the wrong time can serve as a turn-off rather than an incentive. As a result, this marketing method is often best left to the professionals, rather than the do-it-yourself approach for business owners.

Message
Part of the success of this strategy comes from giving your clients and potential clients information they don't already have and sharing details that they don't already know. Carefully formulated messages that educate the consumer can help businesses to achieve their goals over the long term. Describing high quality products and services with in-depth detail for higher line investments is typically more effective than pounding potential clients with information that they already know about lower level purchases.