5 Super Clever Triggered Emails to Inspire Your Marketing Automation Side
If you are a business owner and we were to ask you what you biggest pet peeve or challenge is – what would your answer be? Well, quite simple! Most business owners would agree that sending off those triggered emails would be one of the biggest challenges because they are so mundane and yet, they require so much work for that customized touch that will help the client understand the gist of a transaction or an interaction. Yet, these emails have to be sent – and they have to be sent routinely. So what is the solution? Automation!
Before we go into the great triggered emails of all time (five of them to be precise), let us understand what the triggered email really is and what it really does! If you are a business owner in this day and age, then you must have frequently come across the term marketing automation – if you are not using it already! Well, marketing automation is the art and science of creating an automated framework for functions that are carried out in tandem with the right and relevant information stored in the relevant place, for the relevant task at hand within the sales and after sales pipeline. This would also extend to emails, more than any other channel.
Now imagine having to look for that information and sending off an email to each contact, based on hours of research. These emails are to be sent when there is a sign up, or someone has shown some interest in what you may be able to offer them, or even as round up of some new offers to an existing customer, or the summary of a resolution of some issue – all quite mundane. Now, these triggered emails have been automated so that they are automatically sent from your CRM and marketing automation system with some great triggered email prompts – this is what will save your time, and make you look super professional at the same time even as a record of the conversation happens! Sounds like quite the automation happy ending.
So, what exactly does a triggered email do and how does it work? Human behavior has been studied and worked into the marketing automation functions in order for these emails to evolve and get sent out each time there is a signal or some sort of communication that pertains to the keys and fields within the specific database that is being used. A triggered email could be a notification or even carry a call for action, or simply educate the customer or potential prospect about the brand – either which ways, it stands a greater chance of making an impression and then a conversion than most social media deliverables that people to tend to scroll away from.
This would not only greatly increase your conversion rate, but it would also increase your retention rate since you would be able to pitch products and services for the up sell and for cross selling as well. This would help you get constant revenue from the existing consumers with repeat purchases and thereby, you stand to earn precious brand loyalty as well. For example, if you have a customer who has come to you for a certain product and your CRM system notes that he or she is facing a problem in some other area as well, you would be able to send out a triggered email that would carry a blog post followed by a call for action for a related product or service that could help the customer in question! That would be a great triggered email!
So let us look at five of the greatest triggered emails that you could make use of, so as to stand apart from the rest of the competition and to nurture a strong customer base in the meantime:
1. Guide: The triggered email that guides a customer would be the perfect trigger that could get the customer to give you a click and ask for more. Plus, it is a great way to ensure that the trigger email would make the customer follow the emails in a series, consistently so as to seek out new information. This guide could be for a place, a system, a process or anything else that can help the customer in a great way! It can also easily help the customer see and understand how your product or service can help out.
2. Important Details: We all know that customers often have important details that they need to store and retrieve from time to time. You could easily send them that important email in a great triggered email just when they need it. This signal could come from targeted campaigns, a questionnaire that the customer answers, a landing page that the customer reaches, or even the social media activity of the customer.
3. Address Inactive State: When the customer has been inactive for a while, you could send a shout out or an email that can remind him or her of your presence and thus begin a conservation again. This can easily bring you back into the attention span of the customer. This kind of triggered email could also be a reminder to complete some pending action in order to sign up for something or to complete a purchase.
4. Rewards: You could send triggered emails that actually reward the buying behavior of your customers in the form of points or other things that they can redeem and use for the next purchase. This will also help them immediately plan that next purchase or buy from you, so the points may be redeemed. Make sure you set an expiration date to the deal!
5. Carry on a Discussion: When you have had some form of customer interaction, you can take the discussion forward with a triggered email that is fashioned like a conversation. This piece of communication must be detailed, as personalized as your system would allow and also very conversational.