How To Use Drip Marketing To Drive Sales
Drip Marketing is used by many of the biggest companies in the world in order to gain customers, keep customers and fuel sales.
In the product realm, think “Coke,” or “Tide.” In the company branding realm, think “Apple” or “Microsoft.”
The point of Drip Marketing is to have a constant stream of messages working for you night and day.
I constantly get comments from both authors and self-publishers about the state of over-whelm they are experiencing. There are so many marketing tasks they should be attending to, and so many channels to juggle that they feel like it is a never-ending treadmill. The truth is, that it IS a never-ending treadmill.
To be successful, marketing is NOT something you start and then finish, it needs to be consistent and persistent. No ONE marketing action produces endless results.
The FABULOUS NEWS is that many marketing actions can be put on auto-pilot. You set them up once, plug in the Energizer Bunny battery and it keeps going and going and going.
ONE of the ways you can put marketing tasks onto auto-pilot is by creating Drip Marketing Campaigns.
What is Drip Marketing?
Drip Marketing campaigns allow you to send a set of messages to your potential customers. You can send the same message(s) over and over again, or you can send a series of messages that lead your potential customers though a series of educational, motivational or sales messages. Drip campaigns allow you to consistently send marketing information on timed intervals.
The beauty of Drip Marketing is the time it will save you. Set up your Drip Campaign once and let it run for weeks, months or even years. Drive traffic to your website, or directly to your Kindle/Amazon links. Build your Social Media networks. Sell your books and products.
The Rule of Seven
The Rule of Seven has been making the rounds of marketing circles forever. It is as valid today as it was 50 years ago.
Your prospect has to SEE or HEAR your marketing message a MINIMUM of seven times before they take action.
Which means that your message has to be out there in order to be seen. You may have to tweet the same message a hundred times before someone notices it for the first time. Another prospect may have seen your tweet or Facebook message eight times before curiosity wins the day and they take a look at your book.
Drip Marketing campaigns enable you to consistently send your message out to your audience on auto-pilot.
Drip Marketing Channels
You can set up Drip Market Campaigns on many of your favorite Social Media Channels:
- Facebook (personal profile and business page)
- Google+
- Your newsletter
- Blog feeds
Depending on your time and budget there are various free services available. Generally the free services either have time limits or message limits on them. For example you might only be able to set up 10 messages in advance. There are also some “paid subscription” services that enable you to set up campaigns as much as a year in advance, or that just keep on going until you turn them off.
If you want to start setting up your own drip marketing campaigns, take a look at these two programs designed to make it easier. I use both programs. SocialOomph is a drip marketers dream come true. Buffer makes it a LOT easier but is never truly on autopilot!
SocialOomph Free and paid (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS Feeds)
Buffer Free (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+) and paid (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ and Pinterest)
Tailwind is easy and fun … queue up to one year ahead and drip drip drip your Pinterest pins and Instagram images.
I’m Curious to know …
when I mentioned the Energizer Bunny earlier in this post, did you flash on the image of the pink bunny?
Image courtesy of energizer.com
The Energizer Bunny made his debut in 1989 in a television commercial. Over two decades and thousands of drip campaigns later he still keeps on going!
You can read about the history of the Energizer Bunny here
OR watch the very first Bunny commercial!
Now it’s YOUR turn to BE the Energizer Bunny … and keep your drip campaigns going and going and going.
Melanie Rockett has been a freelance writer for over 40 years. Over those years she has written dozens of books, thousands of articles, and hundreds of video scripts. She has also developed over 200 websites along with SEO services. Her clients have ranged anywhere from solo-entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 companies. She is now semi-retired and works exclusively with freelance writers and kindle authors.
Do YOU want to become a well-paid freelance writer, or sell more Kindle books? Get regular story updates and links to Melanie’s blog by joining the Freelance Writing Zone on Medium.
