3 Trigger Email Marketing Tips for Ecommerce Marketers

In email marketing, an event-triggered email , often called trigger email marketing, is a message that's sent to a list subscriber based on "a customer behavior or a lack-of-action response from the customer," according to Wendy Lowe, director of product marketing for Campaigner.

For example, trigger events could be a new sign-up form submitted on your site, an abandoned shopping cart, or a customer who looked at a product or downloaded a demo. There are countless events and customer actions that marketers use for trigger email marketing.

 Trigger email marketing uses automated and very relevant emails that offer a significantly higher ROI than general email blasts. According to Forrester Research, however, despite the high ROI, fewer than four out of 10 email marketers currently use triggered messaging.

The first requirement for effective trigger email marketing is to have an automated email marketing system in place.  "Automation provides an efficient way to do trigger email marketing,” said Lowe. "It creates a plug-and-play process where you set up the parameters and let it run. Then, all you need to do is track and monitor results."

Here are three tips from Wendy Lowe to help you manage successful trigger email marketing campaigns:

1.  Pre-Determine the Triggers

Email marketing automation lets you set the time, frequency and other options for pre-determined triggers.  Triggers commonly used on ecommerce websites include automatically emailing a welcome letter when a customer registers on-site or when a customer abandons a cart on your website.

"You can also use triggered email for lead nurturing," said Lowe. "If you offer a free download or 'test-drive' on your website, you can set the email system to send out an email a couple days after they tried the service."

Other useful email marketing triggers could include the submission of a quote or warranty form, a membership renewal, reminders that products or services are about to expire, or simply to remind dormant customers who have not logged in for period of time about your business. You can also use triggered emails to up-sell and cross-sell when a customer looks at specific products or makes a purchase on your site.

2.  Keep the Message Relevant and Personal

One reason triggered email marketing is so successful is that an automated email system lets you personalize the communication and make it very relevant to the customer.

"The main priority is to work on building customer relationships," said Lowe. "Use all the automation tools and customer information that is available to you and really personalize the email so the customer relates to the contents of your email marketing message."

Start this process by using a personalized subject line. If the customer abandoned a cart on your site, mention the product they added to the cart by name. If you have more than just an email address for this person, be sure to insert the customer's name and other personal details in to the email as well.

In most cases you want to remind the customer of what she was doing on your website.  If she viewed your 'latest fashions' section, include images and relevant content from this category in the email.  Insert direct products and page links that the customer visited for added relevancy -- not generic homepage links.

3. Follow-Up Immediately with a Good Tone

Follow-up immediately with the customer, but use a good customer service tone in the email. When you contact a customer immediately after a behavior trigger, you don’t want be appear pushy or too sales-focused.

Lowe said that the first contact should be sent immediately following the customer action, then typically a second follow-up in the next day or two, depending on your business and the action.  A third follow-up should be sent in a week.  After the third follow-up, if you do not recover the customer then Lowe recommends that you abandon your recovery process for that person. 

These automated trigger emails should remain focused on building a relationship over time.  “When you follow-up right away the emails should be used to 'gently' remind the customer of the product or behavior,” said Lowe.  She also said that promotional discounts should not be offered in the first couple of emails, but you can provide incentives later in the follow-up cycle.

Getting Started

If you already use an automated email marketing system, there's no reason why you shouldn't just jump in with both feet and start using the trigger features in your platform. Starting the process is the only way you can see how your own ROI and customer loyalty could be improved by sending these automated -- yet highly relevant -- emails to your customers.  

Lowe suggested that the best way to start is to simply plan your strategy, then set your objectives and take advantage of all the tools in your automated email marketing system.  All you need is the customer’s email to send automated triggered emails in the system. 

As you add customer data and get the follow-up timing down, you can then test and tweak your trigger email marketing strategy to get the highest return for your investment.

Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG.