Often time, L&D experts function as order takers, hence they develop one-off learning solutions that are assembled quickly without an in-depth thought to the process involved. For instance, if a drip marketer were to contact a new user, perhaps because they visited the website or filled out a form without establishing a correspondence, what do you think will happen? Of course, nothing! Since the user wasn’t engaged, it can be assumed the marketing team failed to understand the user’s needs and pains. It can also mean that the team wasn’t able to deliver valuable content and neither were they able to nudge the user along the marketing funnel and subsequently failed to close the deal.

Now apply the above scenario to L&D. L&D takes the order and offers training, the new prospects come, view, take a quiz, and thereafter leave. This marks the end of the process. But should that be the case? Of course not. Hence this article is aimed at bringing 7 tips that will benefit the learning industry. Let’s get started already, shall we?

Understanding Drip Marketing

Every marketing expert relies on drip marketing to keep track of their prospective clients. Hence drip marketing or campaign is a series of activities done using several marketing tools, channels, and media to deliver content. It’s not merely about the use of emails, but can also be done via word of mouth and even influencer marketing.

For instance, a drip marketer can share a video on social media, a prospect sees it, likes it, and fills a form. Once the form is submitted, the marketer shares a white paper via email. If the prospect becomes inactive for a while, the marketer tries raising the interest of the prospect. The marketer offers relevant content based on the prospect’s needs, thereby nudging such person along the marketing funnel.

Creating a Drip Campaign

There are five simple rules to follow in creating a drip campaign. These include:

  1. Know your target audience
  2. Coordinate your message
  3. Commence drip marketing
  4. Set appropriate timing and frequency
  5. Evaluate and readjust

Engaging Learners via Drip Marketing

Drip marketers make use of drip campaigns to keep track of their prospects. They have automated campaign emails that are usually sent out on a schedule, based on the actions taken by the prospect. Such action could either be making a purchase or attending a webinar.

This same drip marketing concept can be incorporated in L&D. This will help engage learners not just for one learning session but also on a continuous learning basis. A perfect example would be the on-boarding process, here drip campaign can make all the difference.

Leveraging on Drip Campaign to On-board Learners

No doubt, the on-boarding process is one of the most important training process of an organization. The tone of the training in the first few days or weeks can make or mar the employee’s experience and performance on the job.

However, the concept of meeting new people, mastering new concepts, and new products can be quite overwhelming. More so, no two new hires are the same as they are all a product of different environments, different ideas, and knowledge about a company’s products and services. Yet we take everyone through the same on-boarding process.

To make things easy, there is a need to leverage on a drip campaign, you need not completely overhaul everything, you can simply add elements that will enable you to share apt and role-specific contents.

Application of Drip Marketing in On-boarding Learners

A practical application of a drip campaign can go this way: a company begins a competitor training by first kick-starting a face-to-face session to cover the first six competitors. The learners in turn receive six emails, all different from the other with each of the mails giving details of the competitors.

The content of the emails is tailored to the new employee’s job role. Hence, this means that the marketing hire will receive different information than the sales rep. This approach in turn increases the interest and level of engagement. These emails are followed by an automated chat box message to market an asset that the competitor distributes. This could either come in the form of white paper or a webinar. Finally, there is then a face-to-face session that marks the end of the competitor on-boarding, setting the tone for successive sessions.

Leveraging on Existing Marketing Tools

One of the many advantages of drip marketing is that it enables you to leverage your existing marketing tools. With drip campaign, you can set up the campaign just once, thereafter the platform then triggers ‘drips’, which stops only when you tell it to. This is not to say you won’t monitor and update, but this is only normal with every other learning program.

Also, drip campaign helps you keep a record of your leaner’s activities. This can be done through tracking of the email opening frequency, the article click-through rate as well as the engagement level.

Putting the Leaner First

It’s important to leverage on the steps already taken by the marketer in creating a drip campaign, relate it to your everyday work, and then think about the learner first. Think of ways of engaging the learner and other alternative channels that can be explored to teach on a new product or service. Consider how you can space out the content over time with a little bit of repetition.

The answers gotten from reflecting and researching on these suggestions will come in handy in your next learning project.

Wrap Up

We have not only brought you one but seven tips that can help those in the learning industry to better utilize drip marketing. Now, all that’s left is for you to do your part and play your own role by implementing these tips. So, try out these concepts for your next learning project and see how your learner will be delighted and invigorated.