How to Develop Drip Marketing Ideas for Online Lead Generation

The Importance of Drip Marketing for Online Lead Generation

With the rise of smart phones and tablets marketers have more opportunities than ever before to reach their target audience and generate leads online through email. But for successful online lead generation, you need to come up with some drip marketing ideas that will nurture your target audience to take an action. Simply sending cookie-cutter emails to your list of contacts isn’t proper nurturing, and will probably have your target audience unsubscribing from your emails rather than making a purchase.

To help you come up with some drip marketing ideas for online lead generation, we’ve put together three main aspects your marketing team needs to focus on when creating email workflows. Emails should by dynamic and catered to contacts’ different wants and needs. When developing drip marketing ideas for online lead generation: 1) consider your website visitors online habits, 2) nurture instead of spam, and 3) base email workflows on the typical sales cycle.

Online Lead Generation Starts with Understanding Online Consumer Habits

One of the best ways to come up with drip marketing ideas is to look at your consumer’s online habits. Netflix and Amazon are great examples because they suggest products based on their website visitors’ browsing history. Your target audience will be more likely to take action if the content in your email is relevant to them.

Drip Marketing Ideas Should Be About Nurturing

Effective online lead generation is about nurturing your target audience to take an action and eventually become a customer. If someone is still learning about a product or service, receiving emails that say “Buy Now” won’t be effective until they’ve gathered adequate information to make a purchasing decision. Your drip marketing ideas need to have a nurturing cycle that first educates and then later prompts them to make a purchase.

Utilize Your Sales Cycle for Online Lead Generation

For successful online lead generation, your drip marketing ideas should be based on your products' and/or services' sales cycle. If the typical customer isn’t ready to buy for a month, the first email from your drip marketing strategy should be more aligned to offering relevant information than prompting to make a purchase. Remember that no one likes to be bombarded by a heap of emails, so try to spread out your emails and limit the number. For example, for a company whose typical sales cycle is a month sending three to four emails over the course of a thirty days would be more appropriate (and more effective) than sending six or more emails.

These three aspects for online lead generation are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to developing drip marketing ideas. To learn more how to develop an awesome drip marketing campaign, read 5 Habits of Highly Effective Drip Campaigns.