The Very Versatile Drip: Your Guide to Drip Marketing

[ Maximize your drip marketing campaigns ]

Best Practices Guide
for Drip Marketing Campaigns
A white paper by Pardot

Pardot.com | 950 East Paces Ferry Rd Suite 3300, Atlanta, GA 30326 | P - 404.492.6845 | F - 887.287.8952 | © 2012 Pardot LLC. | All rights reserved worldwide.

Executive Summary
All marketing organizations focus on acquiring and retaining
customers while increasing overall sales. A growing number of
those are implementing drip marketing campaigns to automate
lead nurturing efforts and free up valuable sales and marketing
bandwidth.

Effective drip marketing campaigns can help automate
your lead nurturing process, stop funnel leakage, and
increase overall sales.

In this white paper, you will learn how to best utilize drip
marketing campaigns to maximize your company’s marketing
efforts.


Drip Marketing Best Practices

Drip marketing works by building
awareness and recognition slowly over
time.
Drip marketing refers to the series of deployed marketing messages sent to prospects in
a specific sequence over a set period of time. As your targeted prospect sees your brand
repeatedly, he becomes increasing engaged and eventually acts on your message. The
deliberate messages you send out at set times in your drip campaign help increase prospect
engagement and keep your brand top of mind.

The most common drip marketing channel that marketers use is email, although it can also
include more traditional methods like direct mail and tele-prospecting and relatively new
channels like social media. Targeted messages (aka ‘touch points’) are sent out to a segmented
pool of prospects at different stages in the sales cycle in the hopes of hitting a prospect at the
exact moment they are ready to exit the research phase and enter the buying phase.



Drip marketing is based on the “Law of 29”*
which states that the average prospect
will need to be exposed to your marketing

29
Law of message 29 times before they convert.
Nearly all companies utilize some form of marketing campaigns to generate leads. These
campaigns can be range from cold calls, TV ads, events, websites, display campaigns to

webinars, emails, and direct mailings. While most marketing teams attempt to evaluate
campaign performance and optimize, few are leveraging drip marketing campaigns that
provide a precise sequence of marketing messages that will most effectively drive leads.

While 29 might be a higher than expected number, the essence of the rule is true - turning
prospects into paying customers takes time, careful planning and (typically) multiple ‘touches’.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/law-of-29.asp



Leads lost to sales funnel leaks and
bad leads are often indistinguishable
from each other in typical marketing
campaigns.
Progressive companies are realizing that this lack of separation is an expensive mistake that
needs to be fixed, and are working hard to slow or prevent funnel leaks. Companies that are
not cognizant of sales leakage are quickly losing ground to more savvy competitors and will
continue to experience diminishing return on investment (ROI).

Common Reasons for Sales Funnel Leaks
Obsolete sales and marketing structures

Poorly defined customer segments

Flawed lead qualification standards

Low follow up rates by sales teams

No procedures in place for baking cold leads into warm leads.



Three Reasons You Should Drip
Drip marketing an important combatant to the traditional challenges that face lead
generation and nurturing campaigns. Drip marketing campaigns allow marketers to
define, plan, execute and then track campaigns while implementing best practices and
predictive modeling. Effective drip marketing campaigns can automate your lead nurturing

Drip Marketing Can
campaigns while improving customer loyalty, revenue, and ROI.

1. By implementing appropriate drip marketing programs, you can close the gap between
Close Gaps the sales team (which tends to be skeptical of leads generated by marketing), and the
Improve Reporting marketing teams (which tends to distrust sales’ ability to close on those leads).
Discover Benchmarks
2. By improving reporting capabilities, companies can evaluate specific campaigns and
more accurately attribute leads. By improving attribution, companies can expect to see
improved ROI and higher follow up and close rates. The improved reporting also helps
discover benchmarks, helping to improve forecasting, budgeting, and helping to grow
respective marketing ands sales budgets.

??It allows marketers to continuously learn, refine and optimize campigns maximize sales.??

3.



Ways to Leverage Drip Marketing Campaigns
While the most common type of drip marketing campaigns is the ones that nurture leads through
to the final sale, there are several other ways to use drip marketing programs to help your
organization run more efficiently.

Free Trial Programs (offer free trials, and get those that try to convert)

Customer Renewal (automatic emails reminding customers to renew)

Loyalty (send out ongoing emails and requests for feedback)

Up and Cross Sell Programs (grow your average order value)

Employee Onboarding (HR intro emails, benefits selection process)

Event Communications (annaul holiday party, client user groups)

Customer Training Programs (90 day onboard training, webinars, tip sheets)

Client Billing (clients with outstanding invoices, regular monthly billing)


Tips for Creating Compelling Emails

Tip Sheet: Subject Lines
There are three parts to creating effective email campaigns: compelling subject lines, creative copy, and powerful Calls To Action (CTA). Your
email campaign’s subject line is going to be the first thing your prospect sees, and the one that will deternine if your email even gets opened,
nevermind read.

Be creative! Use enticing subject lines that suck your prospect in: “Learn About Marketing Automation with Our Vendor Neutral
Guide” is much more interesting than “Open to Read About Marketing Automation”.

Use friendly, targeted language. Formal language turns people off, and sets the tone for your entire campaign. “Dear Danny: Find
Out How Your Neighbors Saved More Than You on Their Auto Insurance” resonates more than “We Have a Unique Offer for You”.

Remember your sense of urgency. Creating a sense of urgency, or some form of time limitation, in your subject line is a great way
to increase your open rate. “Order in the Next 24 Hours to Save” and “Only 3 Days Left to Order” both convey a sense of
time limitation and compel action.

Don’t use your company name in your subject line. Firstly, everyone can tell where your email is coming from. Secondly, some
email clients limit your subject line to a scant 50 characters or less so don’t fill it with your company name.

Run away from “spammy” content. Words like “Free” and“100% Satisfied” are spam triggers. Less well-known triggers are phrases
like “Apply Online” and “Bargain”. The last thing you want to do is get your email ISP added to a blocked list.



Tip Sheet: Email Copy
The second piece of creating compelling emails is the actual creative ad copy for your campaign. This will be your chance to sell your prospect
on your product.

Personalize your message. Be sure to include your prospects’ first names, and ideally, their preferred nickname if you have that
information. You can segment your lists to target prospects based on location, product preferences, and where they are in their
lead life cycle. Personalization builds trust in your emails, and in your company.

A conversational tone works best. Remember to write as if you were talking to a friend. That doesn’t mean you should use slang or
street jargon (proper grammar is still important!), but it does mean you should stay away from phrases like “Dear Sir” or “Madame”.

Use dynamic content. Are you emailing current customers? Then be sure to leverage their past website usage or purchase
history to send them customized messages. Are they new customers interested in white papers? Then be sure to let them
know where your site’s resource library is so they can read other white papers if if they’d like to.

Write with a purpose. Remember where your prospect is in their sales cycle. Are they still in the research phase? Or, have they
already gone to your pricing page and requested more in-depth information. Each prospect requires customized attention.

Include information about who you are. For example, an email sent by the actual sales representative who will handle an account
is much more effective than a generic sender (i.e. “sales@yourcompany.com”).



Tip Sheet: Call to Action Ideas
The final piece of creating compelling emails is the call to action for your campaign. This is the moment where you convince your prospect to
take action, whether it be a purchase, download, or even a free trial.

Sign up for a webinar. Webinars are becoming increasingly popular and are effective lead generations tools. You can
create webinars that target current customers with subjects like product features and road maps, or you can try to cast into
new customer pools with more general, informational webinars that touch on topics like best practices for your industry.

Download a piece of content. One of the most common ways to nurture leads is by creating a targeted piece of content
about your company or its industry. Data sheets, case studies, and white papers are all powerful pieces of marketing
collateral that resonate with prospects.

Build your reputation. Industry-centric articles and blog posts that get read and shared can increase your
company’s brand equity, build trust, and help position yourself as a thought leader for more than just prospects.

Generate a response. The key to any email marketing campaign is to generate your target response. Your C2A is the pinnacle of
your efforts and should call out your requested action as boldy and succinctly as possible. Great ways to do that are with powerful
phrases like “Download Now”, “Sign Up Now”, and “Try It Free Now”.


5 Winning Drip Marketing Tips

1. Target Your Campaigns

Tailor your campaigns so that they target each segment of your prospect list with precise,
personal messages. Listen to your prospects, understand their needs, and create messages
Segment Your Prospects By accordingly.

Buying History The deeper your segementation goes, the more customized your marketing messages can be.
Job Title Customized marketing messages are the ones that perform best. You can segment your lists

Industry and messages according to things as diverse as buying history, age, gender, location, product
interest, and where they are in their lead life cycle (simply researching vs ready to purchase).
Location
Product Interest B2B Persona-targeted messaging!



2. Make It Painless

Make it easy and painless for prospects to express their preferences regarding frequency of
messaging (ex. weekly vs daily), the type of content they want to receive (new product features
vs new offers), and how they want to receive your messages (email vs phone vs Facebook).

When you effectively communicate your message, you build trust in your emails and your
company.



3. Make your emails compliant
Before the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003
(CAN-SPAM) was passed, the relationship between advertisers and prospects was cloudy and
undefined. States had different laws about what steps consumers had to take in order to
stop receiving emails from an advertiser, and there was a general lack of defining parameters
around emailing consumers.

To make sure all of your email communications are CAN-SPAM compliant, be sure to
follow their guidelines by:

Informing prospects how to opt-out of receiving your emails

Not including deceptive or misleading subject lines

Offering a return address for your business (a PO Box is acceptable)

Not using false or misleading information

Disclosing that the email is an advertisement



4. Test, Measure, and Test Again
Test, measure, and test again! Be sure to test your campaigns’ effectiveness and continuously
evaluate them. Review you campaigns goals versus their overall success metrics, and work
to improve any possible roadblocks. For example, if your prospects not opening your emails
or responding to your messages, it’s a good bet that your message or email list needs to be
Quick Tip tweaked.
Be sure to test one element
at a time when you start to Evaluate your key email marketing metrics often to glean as much insight into your campaign’s
test new elements in your performance as possible. A few key metrics to consistently review are:
emails. Changing more
than one element at a time Open rate - the more people that open your email, the greater your chance of success
dilutes your ability to Click through rate - once someone has opened your email, are they following your CTA?
properly attribute sucess or Opt-ins - are people opting in to receive more emails from you?
failure. Unsubscribe rate - are too many people opting out of your emails?



5. Use Your Full Toolset

Be sure to use your marketing automation suite’s full toolset. While some people only use a
few of the basic tools in their marketing suite’s arsenal, they are at a disadvantage. The more
tools you use, the more robust and effective your marketing campaigns will be. Why send out

Drip Marketing Tools a simple email campaign when you can send one that also synchs to your social media posts,
and lands on a customized landing page?

Autoresponder emails Autoresponder emails - Autoresponders are a great way to get a tracked touch with prospects
Event triggered emails and lead them to other sections of your site.

Dynamic content
Social connectors
Event triggered emails - Scheduling emails that are triggered after a prospect takes a particular
action (i.e. after an ‘event’) such as visiting a pricing page, can help you stay top of mind and
CRM Integration build trust with your prospects.

Dynamic content - Dynamic email content allow you to personalize and customize your
messages to your prospects.

Social connectors - Adding social sharing widgets to your emails increase your followers while
you can extend your reach with bit.ly and custom short URLs.



Tip Sheet: Drip Marketing DON’Ts
Here are seven things to NOT do with your drip marketing campaigns

Don’t keep sending your prospects drip messages when they have entered the purchase phase.

Don’t overlap your lists! Keep your message unique and tailored to each list.

Don’t overdrip! Don’t be a nuisance – remember less is more when it comes to email marketing.

Don’t send ‘salesy’ content – send helpful, meaningful content instead.

Don’t repeat messages – as great as your latest 10 Top List is, sending it once is more than enough.

Don’t make it impersonal – emails are impersonal by nature so you need to work hard to personalize your messages.

Don’t email your entire database – segment, and target each as deeply as possible.


Conclusion

Adopting a drip marketing program will
help your sales team generate more
qualified leads, and stop the leakage
caused by outdated sales and marketing
methods.
With effective drip marketing tactics in place, your marketing team will
be able to maximize your lead generation and sales opportunities while
minimizing costs.


[No hassle marketing automation]

About Pardot Contact Us
Pardot is an on-demand marketing software company that increases sales and Tel: 877.3.B2B.ROI
maximizes efficiency for companies with complex sales cycles. Tel: 404.492.6845
Fax: 877.287.8952
Pardot offers an industry-leading marketing automation product that
Online: www.pardot.com
manages prospect interactions such as site visits, email, forms, and more.
The on-demand suite solves the integration challenges faced by B2B
marketers today by allowing you to control formerly disparate online and Pardot LLC
offline marketing tools one central interface. Pardot syncs with select CRM 950 East Paces Ferry Rd
vendors and is available on the salesforce.com App Exchange. Pardot was Suite 3300
founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Atlanta, GA.
Atlanta, GA 30326

The Very Versatile Drip: Your Guide to Drip Marketing

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