6 Ways to Use Trigger Marketing for Better Targeting

In comparison to regular email marketing, triggered emails have a 70.5% higher open rate.

This speaks volumes about how trigger marketing is in vogue in today’s dynamic business environment. As the name suggests, this form of marketing triggers automated actions directed towards the need or the intent of the customers.

Remember how you received a reminder email a day before for a webinar you registered for? Well yes, that special attention that you receive as per your interests is a strategic marketing action called trigger marketing.

Why is Trigger Marketing Important?

Extensive competition has led to customer needs changing in a jiffy, which means you need to up your game as well. The best way to do so is by addressing the need of the right person, at the right time, and at the right place. This makes trigger marketing all the more important for many reasons including:

1. Addressing Personal Needs of the Customers
A study says that personalization yields 26% more opens. It indicates that customers choose businesses that offer value to them and sending triggered emails affirms them that you care about informing them about your products, services or any recent updates promptly.

2. Nurturing Leads
Do not be disheartened if your leads do not immediately convert. Wondering why? Because if not today, constant nurturing with relevant information definitely helps them to remember you and also increases the probability of them turning into customers later on.

3. Enhancing Customer Retention
Sending re-engagement emails play a vital role in re-capturing the attention of inactive users. Since it’s five times more expensive to acquire a new customer than keeping the existing customers, it is better to work a bit harder on making the existing ones your brand advocates.

4. Obviating Operational and Repetitive Emails
The automation workflows that strengthen trigger marketing ensure that you don’t pester the prospects with standardized or repetitive emails or waste time on the ones that are unlikely to convert. Since companies using email automation earn 53% more conversions, the automated emailing process is bound to give a midas touch to your marketing campaign.

5. Fostering Brand Awareness
Trigger emailing increases your brand awareness even if your prospect does not convert. Treating your potential customers well and showing that you care leaves a positive impression of your company and they will, in all probability, remember you when they are ready to buy.

Types of Triggers in Marketing
Often, third-party or external sources are also used to gain information about customers to keep a track of their likes and dislikes based on their activity online. Triggers in marketing are divided into 4 categories:

1. Behavior-based Triggers
As the name suggests, these triggers are dependent on the behavioral pattern of a prospect with your marketing touchpoints. As you monitor their online behavior and send them relevant messages, you develop a personal connection with your customers. Triggers like site search usage, on-site validation, offers, and advice fall under the behavioral purview.

2. Engagement-based Triggers
Deriving customer engagement seems to be a Herculean task in the present era of extensive competition, isn’t it? Engagement-based triggers spark curiosity among consumers, thus, increasing engagement and conversion rates. Sending a reminder to your customers that their subscription is about to expire or interacting with them on social media platforms are the best engagement triggers.

3. Event-based Triggers
Have you considered using events such as the brand’s anniversary, new launch, or customer’s birthday as an opportunity to offer short-term exciting offers to the customers? It could be the perfect way to attract customers and remind them that you care. Such event-based triggers based on the principle of scarcity are more likely to be availed.

4. Emotional Triggers
A customer makes a decision based on many conscious and subconscious emotions. If you understand the psychology of emotions and human behavior, then you can make your customers connect emotionally with your brand. By using emotional triggers like trust, belonging, leadership, etc, you not only engage and do business with them but also retain them in the long run.

How to Use Trigger Marketing Effectively for Your Business

1. Understand your buyer persona
With 80% of customers more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences, it is clear that knowing your buyer persona while using marketing automation is important.
You will be able to craft better trigger marketing strategies if you think through the lifecycle stages, pains, and motivations of your target audience.

2. Consider all probabilities
The best way to reach your ultimate target is by strategizing that ‘if’ X event occurs, ‘then’ do Y. By considering all the probabilities of the actions that your prospects may take, you would be able to gauge their mindset better. Have a plan B ready for each possibility.

3. Find the right trigger
All your marketing efforts might go in dismay if you do not recognize the right triggers such as actions taken on the website, criteria met in the database, responses to past emails or campaigns, etc. These are concrete indicators that the software can use as a green light to execute automated actions based on the customer’s behavior.

4. Determine the right actions
This is the ‘then’ or ‘action’ part of the equation where you perform common marketing actions like sending an email, categorizing the contact in the database, etc, to keep your customers informed and interested.

5. Go the ‘personalized’ way
If your marketing action includes sending an email or campaign enrollment, ensure that it caters to your customers’ immediate needs as every customer is unique based on their preferences. If you can provide value to them at every step of their buyer’s journey, then voila!

6. Eliminate repetitive marketing tasks
Having heard a lot about the importance of personalization, if you still send the same email over and over again to multiple contacts, it might not generate the expected results. Use marketing automation to focus on high-impact tasks that can increase productivity and performance.

Key Takeaway
Trigger marketing is the present and future of the marketing domain as it is the most effective way to engage prospects and retain the customers with automated marketing actions. So, if you are on a spree to make your prospects travel their buyer’s journey with you, ensure that you treat them with the right destinations. Now, get strategizing!

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