A Continuous Presence
IT marketing is like that old parable about a woman who nags and nags and nags a man of authority until he finally gives into her just so she’ll quit bugging him. This is a harsh way of defining a marketing strategy, but it is a reality. Here’s the thing: you have to have a legitimate “in,” but should you make your marketing something which perpetually puts you in front of the eyes of prospective clients, you will likely secure a good number of them eventually.
There’s something called the “law of 29” and it is emblematic of what can be called “drip marketing.” While the law of 29 can be a little extreme and may not be the best marketing solution, there is certainly knowledge to be had from this technique. Basically, there are certain marketing professionals who don’t believe a client is likely to sign on with an MSP until they’ve seen IT marketing materials pertaining to that MSP at least 29 times, or in a steady “drip,” if you will.
A Small Drip Makes a Big Impact
A slow drip can fill up a great basin over time. Regardless of when your marketing campaign takes root, with every drip of data you send the way of the client via marketing, you plant a little seed. Who knows when it will flower?
But consider some aspects of human nature. When it comes to politics in America, except for national elections at four-year intervals, most people just vote for the politician whose name they’ve heard or seen before. This name carves a subconscious niche in the mind which indicates familiarity. As a result, except for that minority of the population which is politically active, the majority of people are going to vote with their memory, rather than their political leanings.
In the same way, most clients your marketing team will be reaching out to won’t be the tech-savvy type. They’ll generally know what they want, but how that is achieved will be something they care little about. As a result, provided you can get before prospective clients on a regular basis, you’re likely to secure them eventually. Just keep dropping your information before them.
Drip-Marketing Methods
Content writing can be very effective for this, as it allows a sort of “voluntary” drip. Especially with content optimized around SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, there’s a propensity to draw a lot of prospective clients using principles similar to the drip technique. Basically, customers who need the services you provide will do searches that you’ve anticipated with your keyword selection. Articles pertaining to your business will thus crop up in front of them regularly.
Also, the way Google algorithms work these days, if a prospective client does a search which is even tangentially related to your operations, social media sites will start showing that individual ads which hearken to the services searched for. If your business is one of the ones the client sees, it’s almost like being able to double-down on your market reach.
There are other things you can do to facilitate the drip technique. Several examples include:
• Consistently getting in front of clients at regular intervals
• Nurture existing leads to facilitate larger purchases
• Don’t neglect snail-mail, postcards, newsletters, brochures, etc.
• Also, don’t neglect email and digital brochures, newsletters, etc.
• Considerable marketing fronts
You want to conduct drip-marketing campaigns on two fronts: one which focuses on the inception of new clientele, and another which focuses on maintaining those you’ve already managed to secure. The key here is being continuously relevant and easily remembered.
To that end, you want to have certain branding techniques which incorporate slogans, as well as brand logos, into aesthetically-pleasing, easily remembered signs. If you see a big yellow “M,” you think about burgers. If you see some crazy mermaid chick silhouetted in green, you think of coffee. If you see a red check mark, you think: “Just do it.” McDonald’s, Starbucks, Nike— all have easily-remembered slogans and logos. Their marketing campaigns have grown so ubiquitous, everybody is familiar with them. Your IT marketing should do the same thing but in your target market.
