There’s no doubt that drip marketing, or more specifically closed-loop marketing, are vital tools for B2B marketers. Because of the long buying cycle in the B2B space, marketers are faced with the challenge of keeping in touch with prospects over extended periods of time. One of the best ways to do that is using drip marketing. The regular delivery of scheduled messages containing high quality content helps to ensure that the company is seen as relevant, and that it is top of mind when the buyer is ready to make a purchase.

Closed Loop Marketing works even better, because the communication is finely tailored to each specific contact and is based on that contact’s previous actions and on where they are in the buying cycle. This is the type of fine tuning that makes sure your communications are never seen as spam and that the material you deliver is timely and useful to the recipient. It is also the type of fine tuning that is best done via marketing automation systems, because if you have more than a handful of prospects in your database, doing it manually is nearly impossible.

Drip marketing CAN get annoying and spammy if you’re not careful though, so keep in mind the following tips for doing it right:

1. Provide value. Dripping messages to your contacts will not work and could in fact backfire and result in opt-outs if the content is perceived as not helpful or as low quality. Make sure the messages your contacts receive are truly helpful. Your goal is to avoid being seen as a company that pushes hard to sell. Instead, you want to be seen – and to be! – a trusted source of information that helps your prospects to solve business problems and to achieve their business goals.

2. Be relevant. Generic email blasts don’t work – even if the content is high quality. In addition to being top notch, the content you deliver to prospects needs to be relevant to them and to their particular business needs. This type of segmenting is of course easier to manage with a marketing automation tool. [http://www.etrigue.com/Products/Professional/]

3. Remember the importance of timing. How aggressive you should be with a prospect always depends on where they are in the buying cycle. We said it before: If they are looking at you to justify the purchase of another product, you had better get in there NOW. If they are three months out, put them on a moderate drip program, and if they are way out, nurture slowly and follow up with a periodic qualification call.

Drip email marketing, when done right, is one of the most effective ways for B2B marketers to nurture leads. To get it right, you need to do it right, and doing it right is easier with a reliable sales enablement or marketing automation tool.