Triggered emails are becoming increasingly popular due to better conversion rates. According to the Blueshift Labs report from 2020 on trigger-based marketing, triggered emails are 497% more efficient than batch emails. If you have been experimenting with various digital marketing strategies and not experiencing the expected conversion rate, it is time to try the trigger marketing way. Please read the article until the end, as its content will help you get started.
What Is Trigger Marketing?
It is an advanced marketing technique that continuously monitors users’ actions on apps or websites and sends marketing emails to push users to subscribe to your emails or complete a purchase. Digital marketers usually list triggers and feed the data to an automated messaging system. When the system notices any of the triggers in action, they send SMS, email, WhatsApp texts, or in-app notifications to engage with the user.
When to Use Trigger Marketing?
It is a marketing tactic where the businesses push the customers to remind them to subscribe to your website, download eBooks, visit your website more often, like/comment on your social media handles, buy products, and so on. Hence, if you notice a customer who has not engaged with your app or website for a long, it calls for a triggered email. All you need to do is identify good triggers that value the marketing lifecycle.
Examples of Trigger Marketing
Special Occasions
If you are a customer of big restaurant brands, banks, retail channels, and online shopping sites, there is a high chance that you will get an email or SMS on your birthday from those brands. This is a classic example of trigger email marketing.
Forgotten Shopping Carts
If customers abandon a shopping cart on any eCommerce platform, an automated system will send a personalized email with a link to that shopping cart.
Promoting Events
Businesses organizing webinars or live events often run a promotional campaign with event countdowns and registration discounts.
Welcome Emails
When new users sign up for a newsletter, create accounts on apps, subscribe to a service, or buy a product, brands reach out to them with a “Welcome Email” to show appreciation.
High-Intent Content
Sending a listicle of the cool gaming desks when users read video game-related content on your website or blog.
How Can Trigger Marketing Help Businesses to Thrive
Address Customers’ Personal Needs
Personally, dealing with a customer and making them buy something adds to the overall sales from your website. Now, if you can do this to all the users of your platform, you will see tremendous growth in sales revenue apart from regular sales. You can achieve this by utilizing trigger emailing tools.
Work on Leads
You can engage with leads by sending out promotional, event-based, real-time, etc., trigger emails. There is a possibility that the lead will convert to a customer.
Retain More Customers
When customers are about to leave your platform, engage with them through personalized SMSs, WhatsApp texts, emails, and app notifications to persuade them to stay with you. Sometimes a retention promotion works well.
Avoid Repetitive Emails
You keep sending batch promotional emails, and the customer would think you do not care about their preferences. It also looks repetitive and reduces your credibility. Instead, choose any trigger marketing types to give individual attention to your customers.
Increasing Brand Awareness
When you send personalized trigger emails to a consumer, there is a high chance that they will speak about this in their close groups. Hence, more people will know about your brand through word-of-mouth marketing.
Respond to Real-Time Behaviors
Benefit from real-time customer behaviors like a user needs a VPN subscription or wants to buy a smart home product. Send a personalized offer to close the sales immediately when you get such a hint.
Build Emotional Relationship
Trigger email marketing on special days and events creates an emotional relationship between the business and the customer. Hence, the consumer may buy the next product on your platform instead of another.
Interactive and Personalized Experiences
There is a high chance that you will impress the customers through personalized, timely, and interactive emails with product/service suggestions or promotions.
Save Time and Money
You could save much money and time by shifting your marketing tactics to triggered emails rather than running public Google Ads or bulk email marketing campaigns.
Improve Conversion Chances
If you can immediately reach out to a customer through SMS or email about their abandoned shopping cart, there is a high chance that the user will pick up from where they left and buy the item.
Types of Trigger Marketing
Behavior
Expert marketers observe the behavior of the consumers and accordingly trigger a marketing email to increase the chances of conversion. For example, a customer frequently visits your website to read about data privacy and VPNs. Utilize this behavioral pattern to send marketing emails for a listicle of the best VPN solutions and attach affiliate links to earn a commission on the purchase.
Events
Events-based trigger emails are highly engaging since it gives a positive brand image. An individual customer would think that the brand cares about them. You could choose special public events to send out triggered emails. For example, New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Fourth of July, and so on. Recently, businesses are also celebrating personal events like birthdays, anniversaries, etc., by sending out personalized emails. Such emails are a great way to introduce new products and service offerings to the customer. You could also attach a personal promotion code that customers can use on their next purchases.
Emotional
This type of trigger marketing focuses on customer emotion and sentiment. The focus of the triggered email is to create an emotional connection with the customer by hints of belonging, reliability, trust, care, loyalty, etc. Such an emotional relationship between the brand and customer increases engagement and conversions.
Engagement
This type of trigger marketing focuses on direct contact with the customer on social media or via emails, SMS, or app notifications. For example, send a WhatsApp message to the customer if the subscription expiry date is near.
Promotional
Using this type of trigger email marketing is useful when you need to increase sales revenue by the followings:
Sending promotional discounts to customers who did not buy anything for a long time.Engaging with consumers who give you the most revenue.Seasonal promotional campaigns for the public.
Real-Time
This type of trigger marketing utilizes live customer data to engage with them and increase subscriptions, footfalls, or purchases. For example, if a customer visits the Washington Monument and you have a store nearby, you can send an SMS, app notification, or email to inform them about the store. Similarly, you can trigger marketing campaigns by using real-time scenarios like weather conditions, regional festival events, etc.
Time-Sensitive
Such trigger email marketing types are helpful for eCommerce sites to boost their promotional sales campaigns. Let us consider that you are running a 7-day promotional sale of merchandise on your website at a 30% discount. Use this event to send out Time-Sensitive triggered emails to customers on the 2nd day, the 3rd day, and finally, the last day. Such trigger campaigns help customers remember the promotional sales campaign and buy something if they had planned for this discount event.
Functional
This trigger email marketing type focuses on the functions of the app or website. For example, sending a monthly statement of app subscriptions, monthly usage report, bank statements, curated newsletters, exclusive eBooks, music playlist suggestions, movie suggestions, etc., fall under the Functional trigger category.
When to Launch Trigger Marketing Campaigns
First Action
You can launch a triggered email campaign when the customer interacts with your app or website for the first time. It could be after or before registering on the platform. Here considerations should be sections the users are visiting and time spent on product comparisons.
Welcome
You should launch the Welcome campaign whenever a user signs up for your newsletter, downloads your eBook, or registers on your website/app. You could also offer a Welcome discount on purchases or subscriptions if it is an eCommerce platform. Anyways, do not miss out on saying, “Thank You!”
Onboarding
Onboarding trigger marketing is similar to the Welcome campaign. However, onboarding a customer means they have access to products or services. You could send product/service user manuals, next steps, upgrades, etc.
Transactional
After a transaction event, you should send an email, SMS, or in-app notification about the delivery of the content or shipping of the product, when the customer can expect the item, transaction confirmation, payment slips, etc.
Loyalty
You must run Loyalty trigger marketing frequently to persuade existing customers to buy or subscribe to new products/services. After 2 to 3 months, you could send an email thanking for customer loyalty and offering a discount on a new item.
Purchase
Purchase campaigns are effective if a customer drops out of a shopping cart and never returns in a few minutes. Your automated emailing system should send a customized email to the customer to complete the purchase. Probably, you could also offer a small discount to push the user.
Activation and Reactivation
When customers activate apps, products, or services, you can send out a trigger email letting them know the item details or what is buzzing in your store. You should use reactivation emails to push an existing but deactivated customer to reengage with your platform, software, app, or service.
Milestones
Milestone campaigns are relevant when you classify customers according to their active period with your app or website. Consider a user who completes one year with your app. You could send them a personalized email to thank their support and offer promotional discounts or free upgrades.
Strategies to Follow for Trigger Marketing
Buyer Persona
Understanding the buyer’s pain points, motivations, and sentiments is crucial knowledge you will need to devise a perfect trigger email marketing strategy. Dedicate resources to collect from your customers and extract the buyer’s persona.
Triggering Events and Automating Them
Feed triggering events like viewing a product page; link clicks, responses to emails, confirmation events, personal criteria, dropping out of a shopping cart, etc., into your triggered email automation system. There are no shortages of trigger events. You need to follow the customers more closely.
Problem Solution Strategy
When creating a trigger marketing strategy, think about problems and solutions, alternatively cause and effect. For instance, customers forgetting the shopping cart is a Problem, and sending an SMS to complete the order is a Solution.
Personalized Messages
Use your customer database and interaction on the app or website to produce a personalized email or text messages. When you use a customer’s name and their specific activity on the platform, it gives the business a feeling of being valued.
CRM
Use a customer relationship management (CRM) tool to organize customer data, orders, buying patterns, responses to promotional offers, recent tickets, etc.
Reduce Repetitive Tasks
Notice all the manual tasks for a month or two and list the common repetitive tasks. Then use an automated tool to perform that task and invest your time in customer engagement planning.
Improve Campaigns Regularly
You need to analyze live campaigns to identify weak points, lack of triggering events, missing personalization, missing promotional offers, etc. Resolve such errors and improvise the campaign when you launch it in the future.
Final Thoughts
Trigger marketing campaigns offer digital marketers the ultimate and potent mix of precise timing, personalization, and relevance when dealing with consumers who interact with your app or website but abandon the interaction. Furthermore, triggered emails come with automation possibilities, and various online email marketing tools offer such services. Marketers have found that triggered emails perform better than conventional marketing emails or newsletters. Are you excited about this new marketing technique? Get started right away by following the strategies and know-how mentioned above. You may also be interested in the best SMS marketing platforms for affordable relationship building with prospective and existing customers.
