The most successful marketing campaigns utilize data to nail the audience, the offer and the timing. But too often marketers rely on static “facts”. This person is a parent. This person has a child. This person has a certain income. It’s too easy to settle in with these safe, stable data points and forget there is a whole world of consumer-driven activity data that marketers can wrap their arms around – at scale – to take their performance to the next level. We’re talking about trigger marketing programs.
Who Is Your Best Potential Customer? Hello Customer Data!
Earlier in my career, I developed a data-driven marketing program focused on identifying and targeting customers who had made a specific purchase. By analyzing our customers’ spend habits and customer behavior patterns, we were able to predict when they would require subsequent purchases to complete their project.
The goal of the program was to get an offer in the customer’s hands before they shopped with a competitor. In addition, speed and highly relevant messaging related to the project the customer was working on were important. This approach also considered various stages of the customer journey, engaging leads with personalized messaging and timely information.
The result? The program generated double-digit response and increased engagement by a significant margin. The program’s success was based entirely on identifying a key event and responding when it occurred. This is what trigger marketing is all about. Being there in the right moment!
Trigger marketing involves monitoring customers or prospects for key events and, once those events occur, engaging in a meaningful way to generate a response. Let’s brainstorm a few types of events or data points that could help your brand put a relevant and timely trigger marketing program on autopilot.
What is Trigger Marketing?
Trigger marketing is a dynamic marketing strategy that leverages automation to send targeted messages to customers based on specific triggers or events.
These triggers can range from customer behaviors, such as browsing a website or making a purchase, to significant life events like moving to a new home or celebrating a birthday.
By using these triggers, businesses can deliver personalized and relevant content that enhances customer engagement, increases conversion rates, and drives sales.
This approach ensures that the right message reaches the right customer at the right time across critical touchpoints.
Benefits of Trigger Marketing
Trigger marketing offers several benefits that can significantly laser-focus your marketing campaigns. Here are some key advantages:
Increased Relevance
By delivering highly relevant content and timely marketing messages based on customer behaviors, actions, or specific events, you can ensure that your communications resonate with your audience.
Personalization
Leveraging triggers such as browsing history, past purchases, or demographic information allows for personalized communication, tailoring messages and offers to individual preferences.
Improved Customer Engagement and Retention
Targeted messages based on triggers can significantly boost customer engagement, leading to higher conversion rates and improved customer experience and retention.
Enhanced Customer Experience
Trigger marketing campaigns provide a seamless and personalized experience, ensuring that customers receive valuable information, promotions, or recommendations when they are most likely to find them useful.
Higher Conversion Rates
The targeted and timely approach of trigger marketing increases the likelihood of conversion, reaching customers with relevant offers or reminders when they are in the consideration or purchase phase.
Cost-Effectiveness
Trigger marketing campaigns can be highly efficient and cost-effective. These automate the delivery of messages based on triggers to optimize resources and focus on reaching customers who are most likely to respond positively.
Types of Marketing Triggers (With Examples)
There are several types of marketing triggers that businesses can use to deliver targeted messages to customers. Here are some of the most common types:
Behavioral Triggers
These are based on customer actions or behaviors, such as browsing a website, adding items to a shopping cart, or making a purchase. For example, sending a follow-up email to a customer who has abandoned their shopping cart.
Life Event Based Triggers
These are based on major life events such as moving to a new home, weddings, graduations, or having a baby. For instance, sending relevant messages during this period – such as a congratulatory message with a special offer to a customer who recently got married.
Engagement-Based Triggers
These are based on customer actions like clicking on a specific product or signing up for a newsletter. An example would be sending a discount code to a customer who has shown interest in a particular product.
Time-Based Triggers
These are based on specific dates or times, such as holidays, birthdays, or anniversaries. For example, sending a birthday discount to a customer on their special day.
Location-Based Triggers
These are based on the customer’s physical location, such as sending a push notification to a customer’s mobile device when they are near one of your stores.
You could fuel your trigger marketing campaign by…
First-Party Data
This is data that your brand captures directly from customer-initiated activities.
By leveraging marketing automation, you can use this data to automate marketing actions, such as key response activities in marketing channels (email / SMS), website visits, purchases, or any other activity that your brand has the ability to capture directly through customer engagement.
Second-Party Data
This is data that is captured outside of the customers’ direct engagement with the brand but very similar in nature. Think of it as first-party data captured by someone else, perhaps from a co-marketing partner. Just like first-party data, it may include marketing channel engagement detail, website visits, or purchase activity that the second-party has agreed to share with you.
Third-Party Data
This is the data you can buy – like what Speedeon delivers. As it relates to trigger marketing, potential triggers may include key moments like birthdays, moves, engagements, weddings, or having a baby.
Even more interestingly, you may also be able to tap into the online actions people are taking too, like searching for specific products, services, or even shopping around with your competitors.
Besides the data, think about the customer journey to answer these questions too…
- Could this trigger generate incremental customer engagement or sales that otherwise wouldn’t have happened?
- What business rules could I apply to fine tune performance? Are geographic parameters needed? Are there certain audiences I should suppress or exclude? What about inactive users?
- Will my marketing messages reach the consumer at the right time? If speed is key, which channels should I use to ensure that the message is received while the consumer is in-market for the product or service? If I go with direct mail, what postage class is required?
- How can emotional triggers foster connections with customers? Personalized messages and milestone discounts can establish trust and brand loyalty, enhancing engagement and encouraging purchases.
- What approach to take around purchase history? Is my product suited for repeat sales?How can my product enhance a customer’s life?
Measuring Trigger Marketing Success
Measuring the success of a trigger marketing campaign is crucial to understanding its effectiveness and making data-driven decisions to optimize future campaigns. Here are some key metrics to track:
Open Rates
The percentage of customers who open the triggered email or message. This metric helps gauge the initial interest in your communication.
Click-Through Rates
The percentage of customers who click on a link in the triggered email or message. This indicates the level of engagement and interest in your offer.
Conversion Rates
The percentage of customers who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a service. This is a direct measure of the campaign’s effectiveness in driving sales or leads.
Customer Engagement
The level of interaction and engagement with the triggered content, such as likes, shares, or comments. This helps assess the overall impact of your campaign on customer behavior.
Customer Retention
The percentage of customers who remain loyal to the brand over time. This metric indicates the long-term success of your trigger marketing efforts in building brand loyalty. Do note! Customers prefer personalized experiences over generic marketing.
That’s where Speedeon comes in with marketing automation.
We’re writing a blog post about this topic, because, well – we love trigger marketing programs. We know they can deliver immense, ongoing value for brands. How do we help others?
DATAWATCH Intel
Think of this like putting a Ring doorbell on your database. With DATAWATCH Intel, we ingest a list of your customer and/or modeled prospects. We then monitor these individuals around the clock for key life-event triggers. This could include moves, the birth of a child, engagements, marriages, birthdays as well as other potential indicators that suggest that someone is primed to engage with your brand.
DATAWATCH Intent
With DATAWATCH Intent, Speedeon takes things up a level. Not only are we monitoring your customers or ideal prospects for offline, real-world changes, but we’re actually on the lookout for key digital signals and behaviors, like visiting certain types of sites or searching for the types or products and services your brand offers. By leveraging multiple communication channels such as emails, SMS, push notifications, and social media, we enhance user engagement and effectively reach out to users, especially when addressing low engagement levels.
As soon as we see a trigger for your customer or prospects, you’re alerted, and the data is ready for you to use in your marketing programs. If you’ve been trying to have an edge over how to create personalized content, this is it!
Click here to find out more about Speedeon’s DATAWATCH offering! Or simply click the button below and connect with us.
