Marketing automation nurtures, drips, engagements, oh my

Yes, we’ve gone and done it. Taken that beloved scene from The Wizard of Oz and transformed it to discuss marketing automation. There’s a parable here, however, and our analogy exists for more than just to have you skipping and lamenting your lack of a yellow brick road.

The beginning of this stretch of the tale finds Dorothy and her friends scared of the idea of lions and tigers and bears (oh my), only to eventually meet a real lion and discover that doing so is one of the best things that had ever happened to her. The same can be said for marketing automation. Nurtures, drips and engagements can seem terrifying at first, but once you learn more about them you’ll realize this technology has the potential to be a cornerstone of your business if you use it correctly.

And best of all, you won’t have to hit anyone in the nose to learn it.

Let’s get started.

Understanding the terminology

Before we go any further, let’s cover a little terminology. Despite what you may have heard, there is a very real difference between a drip and a nurture, but both qualify as engagements.

Drip marketing campaigns — like an email drip campaign, for example — are designed to make sure contacts don’t forget about you and that you remain top of mind when a prospect is prepared to enter the funnel again. In short, when a prospect thinks (blank), you want them to think your business.

These campaigns generally take the form of a series of emails that support common themes or goals and are sent to a mass list. Personalization is always a plus here, but it isn’t mandatory. The nature of how often you send these emails depends on your audience and your business, but you generally don’t want to be more aggressive than twice a week or more passive than bi-weekly.

This is effective, albeit more passive, automated marketing.

Nurture campaigns are designed to be just the opposite. They respond to prospect engagement — such as the completion of a form in order to access gated content, for example, or even a response to one of the emails in your drip campaign. The real difference is they have a “call to action” embedded to ask them for a demo or a time to call them.

In this model, the first message should thank them for whatever action elicited the email before guiding them to the next step in the funnel. It’s up to you to be sure they don’t get lost along the way by supplying videos, links or some other clear direction here. These action points can help you qualify the lead with the proper response as well as push them down the funnel and hopefully toward a future sale. For example, if they download other content during the nurture campaign, sending them another email asking for their time to chat or show a demo is a great strategy.

Two different paths, but your CRM system is the yellow brick road that guides prospects through your marketing efforts and toward your sales base. The journey can be a long one at times, but as it was for our travelers in the famous film, the results at the end are certainly worth it.