If you were to compare the buyer journey of today with the buyer journey of a decade ago, you'd notice a major shift took place. What was once a seller-controlled process has transformed into a buyer-powered, self-guided tour. Here are some compelling stats to further illustrate this phenomenon:
81% of shoppers conduct online research before buying. (Source: AdWeek)
The sales process is 22% longer than it was a few years ago. (Source: The Marketing Blender)
Email marketing has 2X higher ROI than cold calling, networking or trade shows. (Source: MarketingSherpa)
Pretty interesting, right? But without real life representation, these are just numbers. How do these statistics manifest in the day-to-day life of a marketer?
Let’s say Sally is a wedding photographer, and she wants to buy a new camera. In 1995, Sally may have depended upon close interaction with a salesperson to give her information and help her through the buying process from start to finish.
But if Sally were looking for a camera today, she would probably do her research about different cameras online without consulting anyone until she was ready to buy. In fact, by 2020, buyers will manage 85% of their journey without talking to a human.
So in light of this phenomenon, how should marketers interact with their prospects? How is it possible to maintain any control in the buying process when consumers are so independent these days?
The answer is drip marketing.
Why Drip Marketing?
As a quick recap for those of you who skipped your morning espresso, drip marketing is a strategy employed by digital marketers that send targeted marketing messages and material to prospects over time, which eventually (hopefully) leads to conversion. The messaging can take many forms, but the idea is to keep your brand relevant to and present in the prospect’s mind. You want to create meaningful, hyper-personalized experiences with your prospects, without face-to-face interaction. And an email drip campaign is a simple and efficient manner to accomplish this.
There are plenty of benefits to email drip marketing, but perhaps the most important are these:
1. Relevance
Since buyers are so well-informed and independent these days, it’s essential to stay relevant. With drip marketing, you’ll keep your company top-of-mind with your prospects. You may be thinking, “Is email that important for brand relevance?” The answer is yes. In fact, email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter. So it’s crucial to stay at the top of the inbox.
2. Engagement
Drip marketing allows you to make meaningful interactions with your prospects at a low cost. And engagement is no small thing. According to Aberdeen Group, on average, a lead requires 10 marketing-driven “touches” to convert from the top of the funnel into a paying customer. Drip marketing lets you hit these “touches” easily, and it provides a higher likelihood of conversion.
3. Less Effort
Now, a drip marketing campaign may seem like a lot of work, and it would be if it were done manually. Think about it: you’d have to write personalized, relevant emails for hundreds, or even thousands of individuals. That’s quite a to-do list.
But, if you have a marketing automation Philippines Photo Editor platform, you can create automated workflows that trigger emails depending on your lead’s behavior or characteristics.
In a nutshell, email drip marketing delivers personal, individualized content and responses. And with marketing automation, those messages don’t require extra work.
But how to get started, you say? Let’s take a look at how to set up an email drip campaign, step by step.
Get To Know Your Prospects
Before you start any email campaign, make sure you know who’s on the receiving end of that email cannon. You need to understand who your audience is before you can create personalized messaging.
There are a couple of tools that come in handy for gathering information. Both are typically included with a solid marketing automation platform. The first is anonymous site visitor identification (SharpSpring calls this VisitorID). VisitorID uses reverse IP lookup to identify site visitors and provide information such as page visits, page visit duration, company location, etc.