The drip-drip effect in marketing
Cast your mind back to the last big purchase you made. My guessing is that you didn’t press the purchase button immediately after discovering the product. You probably did your research and experienced doubts before it hit your bank balance. Here, Richard Stone, founder of technical PR agency Stone Junction, explains how to help your customers overcome those doubts.
It is unusual for a potential customer to convert based on one marketing experience — it’s like expecting to become the hulk after one gym session.
That’s why it’s important to incorporate every tactic in your marketing arsenal to keep a potential customer in the buying conversation.
This is where the drip-drip effect comes in.
As Gary Vaynerchuk, American businessman and author, said:
More contact means more sharing of information, gossiping, exchanging, engaging — in short, more word of mouth.
How does the drip-drip effect work?
In marketing, the drip-drip effect means frequent, small exposures to a product or service, which gradually accumulate over time and result in a conversion.
For example, you might be introduced to an item for the first time while scrolling through social media advertising and think, ‘I could use that widget in my next project’, but your thought process doesn’t extend beyond that.
Then, you might receive a marketing email from that same company and remember that you thought that product was cool… Then forget about it again!
Next, you might come across an informative video which delves deeper into the product’s features and benefits. Suddenly, you find yourself further down the sales funnel.
Then, you read about the product in the media, on your phone while commuting and that finally gets you to convert.
Often, it isn’t a lack of interest in a product or service that determines a sale or not. People lead busy lives, so persistence and reminders are key. Think of customers like a tube of toothpaste — the interest is there but they need squeezing to get anything out of them.
If you combine all your marketing tactics such as PR, content, social media, email marketing, retargeting ads, video and so on — all these drips accumulate over time to make a puddle. The puddle being a conversion. Maybe I should have said mighty lake. You get the picture.
How many drips does someone need?
The goal in marketing is always to try and convert with as few touches as possible. This can be done by producing high quality content for each medium. But the length of the buying process is also determined by the individual — every customer is different — and by the buying scenario.
For example, how many exposures somebody requires to convert could be determined by a product’s aspirational or functional purpose. Compare, a manufacturing director with a factory they want to be ten per cent greener in five years, and someone who needs new bearings for their broken-down machine.
The person with the broken-down machine is going to convert a lot more quickly, because that part is essential for the business to function. Similarly, you’ll obviously deliberate a lot longer over buying a yacht than a carton of milk. Unless you are Elon Musk, possibly, in which case, give me a call to spend your marketing budget.
Re-engagement and persistence
Think of marketing like a machine with many different cogs. While some cogs won’t stand out, they all complement each other to make the machine work as a whole.
A particular marketing tactic might not create a direct sale, but without question, the things you can’t measure complement and contribute to the more attributable tactics.
So, get in that gym and keep going back. You can be the Hulk if you want to, it just takes time.
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