Pulling the email trigger

Triggered email marketing allows you to segment your customer base in line with specific user cues and behavioural patterns, ensuring that your communications are more relevant, timeous and ultimately valuable.

This approach is rapidly finding favour thanks to its proven ability to generate better business results. In fact, studies* have shown that triggered emails now achieve more than double the click-through rates of their more generic 'batch and blast' counterparts.

So what is triggered email marketing?

Essentially it's the process of email customisation based on any number of variables, including demographic data and past purchase patterns. Ultimately, by making use of various user-initiated 'triggers', you enable your customers to control the content they receive, thus ensuring that what ends up in their inboxes is of value to them.

So how do you go about implementing an effective triggered email marketing strategy? With so much data at your disposal, the options are endless, but here are some handy dos and don'ts to get you started.

Do: Say hello

When are customers most receptive to your messaging? Well, probably right after they've signed up to receive your newsletter. So why not try to convert them again with a series of tailored welcome messages. By offering them exclusive discounts based on which section of the site triggered their sign-up, you'll keep them interested for longer, and can look to increase your overall revenue by as much as 13%.**

Do: Get personal

Everyone likes to feel special on their birthday, so a congratulatory mailer sent along with a discount voucher once a year can go a long way towards building better relationships with your customers. It's simple, cost-effective and brings about big results. In fact, according to a recent Experian report, birthday mailers boast a 300% higher open rate than their business-as-usual equivalents, so it's definitely an opportunity not worth missing.

Don't: Make assumptions

Drawing your own conclusions about your customers can quickly see your campaign unravelling. You see there's a fine line between being intuitive and presumptuous. So don't send all customers between the ages of 25 and 35 updates about kiddies' toys simply because they're of childbearing age.
Rather take the time to get to know your customers individually by encouraging feedback and thoroughly analysing online behavioural patterns.

Do: Customise content

If you've found that 15% of your user-base clicks exclusively on the travel deals featured in your weekly mailers, don't keep sending the same old generic content.

Through their actions, these customers have told you what information they'd like to receive, and if you want to improve your click-through rates, you'd better provide it. By adding these users to a secondary database, you can re-target them with more specific travel information going forward, and increase your open rate by as much as 50% in the process.

Don't: Overdo it

At a certain point, repetitive messaging, no matter how relevant, can progress from persuasive to annoying. As a result, it's important that you set frequency limits on your triggered emails - after all you don't want your customers to avoid your website for fear of being besieged by a communication avalanche.

Do: Follow up

What ever happened to that potential customer who browsed your store for hours but failed to make a purchase? Or the guy who added an item to his shopping cart but never went through with the transaction? These are prime conversion opportunities just waiting to be realised.

So instead of sending out generic vouchers across your database, rather target these already interested users with customised reminders and discounts. Not only will this approach cost you less, but it's also likely to have a significantly positive impact on your ROI.

Do: Ask for advice

While triggered emails are relatively simple to implement using the software provided by your ESP, it's not always easy to know where to start. So in order to ensure that your emails are being sent to the right people at the right time, it's worth consulting a professional email marketing provider, who can help to guide your approach and maximise the impact of your campaign.

*According to an Epsilon Email Marketing Report, March 2013
**According to a recent test by Marketing Experiments