Email Drip Marketing and Social Media
Drip marketing can be defined as the a method of direct marketing that usually entails sending numerous promotional messages over a certain period of time, usually long, with an aim of increasing sales. Just like the way the term is used in agriculture, where we have drip irrigation where small water amounts are used to irrigate crops for a long period. This method of marketing mostly makes use of direct mail, emails and social media to deliver messages.
The most effective way of using this method of marketing is by producing constant messages over a certain regular period with an aim of always reminding the target market about you. This is important in reducing the possibility of getting a sell-produce curve which usually comes in when your marketing and selling is not in line. By avoiding this curve, you will keep demand for your products or services constant.
These days more and more people are using social media like Facebook, twitter, Myspace and the others. The rapid growth of these media has attracted marketers who are aiming at cashing in on the opportunities provided there. This is usually done by updating information on one of the many social media providers.
On the other hand, email drip marketing involves sending several emails constantly to certain users. One of the benefits of using this form of marketing is that it is cheap since one can send many messages to a number of people in a given period.
The social media has a large number of people who can be reached by a marketer. Posting messages on the social media is likely to produce better results because you will have reached a wide market. Though, as a marketer, you cannot ignore the fact that not all who get to see your message will be interested, but by communicating it constantly, you are likely to raise the interest levels of most of the people with time. That is of course if what you are marketing is of value to them.
The other benefit of the social media is that it is used more frequently compared to emails. In a single day, an average social network user is likely to sign in at least three times while the same person will check his or her mail once a day, that is if they are not expecting a certain pressing mail that may lead them to checking their inbox always. Given this, a message posted on the social media is likely to be noticed more by a people than as an email.
Email marketing gives a receiver a feeling that they are communicating one on one with the sender since the messages are delivered to an individual’s inbox hence bringing in the feeling of personal contact between the two. This can be a resourceful tool to a marketer who wants to target a certain group with a specific message.
The message that one is trying to communicate, the target audience and the cost will most likely determine the kind of media one chooses between the two so that he can fully gain from the drip method of marketing.

