Here's the Kind of Dripping That You Want to Have

Today I want to recommend dripping. No, I am not talking about a leaky faucet or roof! That was my first thought upon hearing about this term.

Dripping is a marketing concept. Suppose you have a client who has expressed interest in your company’s services but is not yet ready to buy. How do you make him feel that his interest is valued and that you don’t want him to forget that?

On a regular basis reach out and “touch” the client, someway, somehow. The sophisticated way of doing it would be to have a pre-written set of project-type specific articles that would be sent to the prospective client by email. The key is to do it at a more or less regular interval.

Now that disembodied approach might seem a bit too impersonal for some prospective clients or for you. In that case, here's an approach that I used with one prospective client--and it worked.

The client was considering us and another company. Both companies were good.

The client was busy with his work, family, and recreational pursuits. Consequently, he was hard to reach.

I asked him for permission to simply check in by phone if I had not heard from him. He said that was okay.

Over the next nine months I called periodically to say that I was still thinking about him and his project and wondering if he and his wife had made a decision about who to work with. At the end of each message (because I never reached him!) I let him know that I would be calling again in six weeks or so.

Ultimately, we got the job. And the client told me that the reason we did and the other contractor did not was that I had stayed in touch.

Keep this in mind when someone has not yet decided to commit. Simply by “dripping” your presence, by staying in touch, you make it more likely that the contractor who gets the job will be you!