Making your email stand out in the average business professional’s inbox is a pretty tough challenge. Most decision maker’s inboxes burgeon – attended only between a flurry of meetings and phone calls. Which is why the use of trigger campaigns amongst B2B marketers is on the rise.
Put simply, trigger marketing works on the premise that you communicate with your customers only when they’ve given you a sign that they’re ready to buy. More complex is the way in which trigger marketing works – using analytics to scrutinise customer behaviour and alert marketers to actions or changes in behaviour that might indicate the customer’s need for their product or service.
“An ‘event-triggered’ communication might be initiated through a prospect or customer clicking on a link to the firm’s website, browsing certain pages while logged in, making an order, responding to a survey or through the anniversary of a purchase, for example,” explains François Laxalt, marketing intelligence manager at Neolane. “These ‘events’ present the opportunity to quickly follow up while the contact is potentially in an enquiry or purchase frame of mind.”
Five times the power
According to Gartner, event-triggered marketing messages receive up to five times the response rate of non-targeted push messages. You’ve just got to be prepared to put in the leg-work early on to reap the benefits. “Generally you would aim to automate trigger campaigns, particularly for larger companies handling high volumes of new subscriptions and sales across a large product mix,” says Luke Griffiths, VP professional services at e-Dialog. Before any of this, you obviously need to identify and create business rules behind the trigger. “Test. Then automate. The sophistication of tools that you are using can be a dependency,” he warns.
Taking your first steps on the trigger campaign ladder doesn’t necessarily mean having to go straight to vendors for expensive off-the-shelf solutions. “Look at existing tools, such as web analytics and determine whether this can be integrated with your email marketing vendor rather than simply purchasing another solution,” advises Craig Whiston, head of client services at Coremetrics.
Similarly, a trigger campaign doesn’t necessarily rely on a CRM system to track users’ open rates. Simon Robinson, marketing and alliances director for EMEA at Responsys, points out that it’s viable to use a CRM system, such as Salesforce, but not essential. “You should consider the ease with which you can integrate your email with other third party vendors. This helps to ensure a cross-channel, holistic approach that enables marketers to reach out to customers through the correct channel and at the most influential moments of their lifecycle.”
Testing the water
Email marketing specialist, Newsweaver, worked on a trigger campaign for an Irish training company; the first steps to test the water were fairly simple. They started ‘tagging’ clicks on its monthly newsletters, which let recipients know about upcoming courses and events in relation to government IS09000 standards.
By looking at which recipients were clicking on information about which courses, it could send those recipients follow-up emails based only on more information about the specific event they had clicked on. “They took advantage of the metrics available to them – it was a hand assembled, non-automated trigger – and it got them a 32 per cent lift in registrations on their courses,” explains Denise Cox, Newsweaver’s newsletter specialist.
Somewhere down the line, automation is likely to play a part, “By having an automated process it ensures the marketing team can concentrate on the ‘value add’ elements – setting up the campaign, analysing the results and refining the process, rather than the physical deployment of details,” says Robinson.
However, starting an ill-advised automated campaign can have repercussions, as Griffiths warns. “Before we set up a trigger campaign with our clients, we always make sure that we understand exactly which points of the customer lifecycle we wish to automate. Once the process is set up, some of our clients opt to be entirely self-service; others prefer us to manage it. It all depends on the nature of the business.”
Right on time
So how do you avoid putting together an ‘ill-advised’ trigger campaign? One of the biggest dilemmas is often over when, and how often, a trigger message should be deployed.
“A key part of managing your campaign is knowing what stage the person is at in the buying cycle. If they’re downloading information on pricing, then they’re pretty far in the cycle and every hour is vital so you want to follow up immediately, which may even be with a call rather than an email,” says Christopher Doran, vice president at Manticore. “At the other end of the spectrum, if they’re just trying to search for some information via a white paper, they’re in the discovery phase, so being too aggressive can put them off. There, I’d typically recommend a follow-up within seven to 14 days with some additional information to continue the dialogue.”
Putting the power into the hands of your customers should also help prevent them from switching off, adds Griffiths. “At the point where you capture their email contact details, it is important to set up a preference capture tool so that you can establish exactly what content they wish to receive.
“By putting the power over content back in the hands of your customer, you will ensure that they are only receiving information directly of interest to them. There is always an opportunity to expand your relationship with them further down the line, but if they unsubscribe after receiving a week of inappropriate content you could have irreparably lost that contact.”
Missing a trick?
Sometimes a trigger email can be ‘tacked on’ to another type of communication email. Notification emails, for example, typically have a high open rate. “Yet surprisingly, they are one of the most under used types of trigger campaign” points out Nick Gold, UK managing director at Emailvision. “Companies are missing an opportunity here, as emails that confirm a purchase or other action are something that your contact expects to see. This is the ideal time to start a lifecycle of communication and if done correctly could lead to further interaction with the customer, he says.
“When it comes to triggered notification emails, structure is key. Best practice guidelines should be in place to ensure that they are not purely used as a cross sell tool. For emails confirming a transaction, 80 per cent of the message should refer to the purchase just made, while the remaining 20 per cent can be used as an up sell or cross sell tool. The email also needs to appear in a consistent format so that recipients associate it with your company website.”
The golden rule of the trigger campaign is that it must add value for the customer. Think of it, says Ed Weatherall, managing director at Concep, as like the beginnings of a relationship. “It’s like thinking, ‘how many times do I text or call this girl I met last night – do I wait 24 hours, do I seem desperate if I do it straight away, do I wait three days?’ There are no hard and fast rules, only constant testing and monitoring can give you the answers in the end.”
