ISP Drip Marketing - continued

• Identify highly qualified leads
  By surfing every directory you can get your hands on, identify which of the 1,200 businesses already have Internet access, a website, a domain name, or anything that identifies them as potentially Internet savvy. For this example, let's say that you find 100 out of the 1,200 that meet this criterion.
• Follow up
  Send each of these 100 a $3+ United States Postal Service Priority Mail envelope, with a personalized letter inviting them to do business with you, 12 more reasons why they should buy from you, and a call to action.
• Follow up
  A week or two later, have your sales team call or stop in at each of the 100 highly qualified possibilities, to find out how your ISP can be of service to them or if they have any immediate needs or problems with their current provider.
• Follow up
  Every couple of months, send a fresh flyer to the entire list of 1,200 target potential clients stressing the most important benefits of your services.
• Leverage new customers
  As your ISP begins to grow in this new city, utilize your new dialup subscribers to refer their business friends to you, in exchange for a free month of service.
• Follow up
  Have one of your sales assistants call all 1,200 of these folks, identifying your ISP and offering to send them a free Internet Access Management report via fax, on how they can save money on Internet access costs or increase their Internet ROI.
• Follow up
  Do a fax blast to everyone who gave you permission to fax them more information, and repeat this every three weeks with a new fax of valuable information. (Be sure to respect their privacy: make it easy for them to opt out of your fax-based marketing campaign at any time.)
• Follow up
  Send a barrage of postcards to the 100 most qualified candidates—one every other day for 8 days in a row, with each one selling another key benefit or reason why they should choose you.

Continue this until you've either reached your goal—or you've set a higher goal. Every campaign will vary, along with the media vehicles that you use to reach your target market. Remember, the idea here is a consistent marketing approach spread over time. Persistence should be rewarded with an even flow of new customers.

Tip: The more media vehicles you "plant" and use simultaneously, the higher your chances to harvest a faster or greater sales reward. Don't be afraid to experiment with three or four different media vehicles simultaneously, such as personal letters, telemarketing, fax, email follow up, direct response post cards, overnight letters, or any form of direct response marketing piece.

Drip marketing applied to your existing subscriber base can also be extremely effective, because you'll be targeting people who already trust you.

You could, for example, aim to sell web design to every client who already owns a domain name that you host already—or up-sell semi-dedicated accounts to full dedicated accounts. In either case, do it by sending a series of letters, faxes, emails, calls, direct response pieces designed to educate, and lead the customer into calling you when they're ready to buy.

Keep going until
The kiss of death for ISP drip marketing campaigns is to interrupt them for a long period of time. When your target customers stop hearing from you regularly, they may conclude you are no longer in business or available. So, once you start, don't stop until you've achieved total market niche domination.

To Your ISP Success!
Christopher Knight
Founder and Managing Editor ISP-Lists Discussion Community

—End

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