Drip marketing and closed-loop marketing are two terms used to describe types of lead nurturing campaigns. Most people are unfamiliar with the terms, which can lead to some confusion; what do drips and loops have to do with leads and marketing? To help explain the terms and how the processes differ, below are the basics of what you need to know about drip marketing and closed-loop marketing.
Drip Marketing
Drip marketing is a content strategy designed to slowly educate sales leads while keeping your company top-of-mind. It is known as a "drip" strategy because it provides small drops of content at regular intervals.
Drip marketing is usually accomplished through email campaigns, which are typically automated. The email marketing system regularly sends out pre-planned marketing messages to leads who have opted in to the campaign.
The system can sometimes be designed to present different messages depending on the actions of each lead. If a lead does not open one email or view a particular piece of content, they may receive a different message in the next drip email than those who did view the content. This essentially segments the email list into two separate tracks.
Drip marketing can be useful for leads who are a long ways from being ready to buy, or for industries that have exceptionally long sales cycles. It keeps leads engaged without engaging the time of your sales or marketing teams.
Closed-Loop Marketing
Closed-loop marketing is a bit broader and more complex. A key aspect of closed-loop marketing is that it tracks the marketing and sales messages delivered to each lead throughout the entire sales process. It therefore allows you to attribute the revenue from each sale to the marketing actions which contributed to it, "closing the loop" between marketing and sales and determining the true ROI of each marketing campaign.
Closed-loop marketing typically utilizes marketing automation software. As in drip marketing, this means that email messages are automatically sent to leads based on predetermined rules. However, closed-loop systems are more sophisticated and are better at tailoring messages. They follow leads throughout the sales process. They know all of the online and offline communications each lead has received, as well as the actions they have taken in response. Instead of simply keeping leads engaged through regular doses of email, closed-loop systems actively work to move leads through the sales funnel quickly.
Technically, drip marketing and closed-loop marketing can be used together. In such cases, the drip marketing campaign becomes part of the larger closed-loop system. The closed-loop system records the initial source of each lead before they enter the drip marketing campaign, and continues to track and manage the leads after they "graduate" from the drip campaign and move through the rest of the sales process. The closed-loop system can then be used to determine the true value and effectiveness of the drip campaign.
Both drip marketing and closed-loop marketing can be valuable tools for managing sales of attracted website visitors. Whether you should use one or the other, or both, depends on your goals and the details of your industry and company.
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