Reaching customers automatically and personallyHow to use trigger mails for the customer journey
Everyone is familiar with this situation: when browsing in an online store, something quickly ends up in the shopping cart, but is not ordered after all. The customer may have found the product cheaper somewhere else or may not need it so urgently. As a store owner, you don’t want to give up so quickly, so a newsletter lands in your mailbox a short time later with the products you didn’t buy and similar recommendations. A discount code is also included to increase the incentive. This is exactly what trigger mails are.
Trigger mails are generally understood to be occasion-related mailings. These do not have a fixed sending time, but are triggered by a specific event and offer matching content. The aim is to encourage the recipient to take action and to achieve the highest possible response rate. Trigger mails are therefore a good supplement to normal newsletters, which tend to be more broad-based. Trigger mails score especially with a high topicality and the personal reference and are therefore closer to the customer. Trigger mails are therefore a good means of accompanying the customer along the customer journey. This makes it possible to build up a long-term relationship and strengthen customer loyalty.
The advantages of trigger mails
The combination of automation and a personal approach is one of the main advantages of trigger mails. Large companies in particular lack personal customer contact. By tailoring processes to customers and their needs, the personal touch is still maintained along the customer journey. On the other hand, the workload of the company’s own employees hardly increases, even if the customer base continues to grow.
Since notifications are always directly related to an event, the relevance is greater than with normal newsletters. As a result, trigger mails also achieve higher open and click rates.
The area of application for trigger mails is diverse. For example, industry- and company-specific processes can also be mapped with event-related mails.
This is where trigger mails come in
User onboarding
A classic example of trigger mails are user onboarding campaigns. New registrants receive a welcome e-mail directly after registration. On the one hand, the recipient knows that his registration was successful and, on the other hand, it is a nice attention. Companies can use the user onboarding directly to draw attention to current offers, services and products or to encourage people to get to know the product range by means of a small welcome voucher. In principle, it is worth creating multi-stage welcome campaigns. In this way, you stay in the customer’s mind longer and can use various offers to find out where the new customer’s interests lie and optimize subsequent newsletters accordingly.
Service mails
Service mails have become a matter of course and are also expected by the customer. This way the customer knows that his action was successful. If no confirmation is received, customers tend to be irritated and think that something may have gone wrong. Typical trigger mails in the service area are purchase and shipping confirmations, but also confirmations for appointment bookings, inquiries or changed data as well as reminders for upcoming events count among them. In other words, any action for which the customer receives a confirmation or reminder.
Image source: reallygoodemails
Behavioral mails
Behavioral mails are preceded by a certain action or behavior of the user on the website. For example, the website visitor is looking for a red bag and also takes a closer look at some models. However, he does not buy a bag. A short time later, the visitor then receives a personalized newsletter with the viewed bags and similar models. In the best case, two models are even cheaper and thus increase the incentive to buy. Another means of increasing interest can be a (suggested) shortage, for example, if the mailing still shows that only three of a bag are currently available. Behavior-dependent trigger mails also include the shopping cart abandonment mails described at the beginning.
Personal occasions
Trigger mails for personal occasions are particularly popular with customers. Birthday and anniversary mails show a certain appreciation and thus strengthen customer loyalty. Trigger mails with a personal design tailored to the recipient make a special impression. A small gift in the form of a voucher is always well received. By the way, birthday mails are among the mails with the highest opening rate.
Image source: reallygoodemails
After-sales
To increase customer satisfaction and encourage repeat purchases, after-sales campaigns are recommended. A request for evaluation of the few days after use or purchase of simpler products and services can be the first step. Depending on the evaluation, further steps can be taken. In the case of satisfied customers, appropriate cross-selling or up-selling mails can be created for the previously purchased product or service. In the case of dissatisfied buyers, it is advisable to first win back the customer’s favor by making appropriate improvements or special offers before attempting to develop the customer further. This is particularly important for premium products. A customer who has bought a particular brand of car and was satisfied with the product and service is very likely to remain loyal to that car brand. This is why extensive after-sales campaigns are particularly effective for high-priced products. This keeps the customer loyal to your company and gives you the opportunity to extend the customer journey.
Reactivation mails
Trigger mails are also used to win back supposedly lost recipients in the form of reactivation mails. In this case, the focus is on special advantage offers with high relevance, which are usually designed as multi-stage campaigns. For example, if a customer has been inactive for six months, he or she receives a mailing with special offers tailored to his or her needs. Shortly thereafter, another newsletter is sent with a coupon. Such campaigns can be continued as desired in a fixed process. If the reactivation mails do not lead to the desired success, other channels can also be included in the campaign.
Image source: reallygoodemails
Conclusion
With their recipient-specific services and content, trigger e-mails offer a successful supplement to normal newsletters, ensuring greater relevance and a high level of customer loyalty. However, in order to be able to use trigger mails, the appropriate prerequisites must be created. In addition to a professional email marketing tool, this also includes interfaces to CRM and store systems. In addition, tracking consent is required on the part of the recipient. With a good degree of frequency and variety of recommendations, nothing stands in the way of successful trigger mails!
We are happy to support you with your trigger campaigns!
About AGNITAS
With E-Marketing Manager (EMM), AGNITAS offers intuitive marketing automation software for creative multi-channel campaigns via email, web push, SMS, fax and print. The award-winning software meets individual data protection requirements as an in-house or SaaS solution and flexibly adapts to customer needs. From open source to high-end, there is a suitable variant for every budget.
When Martin Aschoff founded the company in 1999, AGNITAS was a pioneer of email marketing in Germany. Today, AGNITAS is one of the most renowned and innovative providers of high-quality marketing automation software, which is used around the world for customer-oriented communication.
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