For business owners, anything that improves workflow or boosts customer engagement is worth its weight in gold. And something that does both of those things? That’s a must-have. That’s just what email automation triggers offer businesses. A highly valuable feature, marketing automation triggers can simplify your marketing efforts and improve your conversion rate. In the complex world of modern marketing, they play a vital role in your campaigns and can turbocharge your email marketing; and with competition for customers more fierce than ever before, it’s not hard to see why so many companies — and all of the world’s largest businesses — have made the humble automated email trigger a foundational part of their operations.
What is an automated email trigger?
So what is an automated email trigger, anyway? The automated email part will be pretty clear (the emails are sent automatically, without the need for human action), but what about the ‘trigger’ part? You can think of that in terms of action. When the customer takes a particular action, such as signing up for your website, they’ll receive a specific email that correlates with that action. In this example, they may automatically receive a Welcome to [Company Name] email.
There’s no shortage of email triggers you can set, and that’s why marketers love them. They cover all the bases. Some of the primary benefits of automated email triggers include:
- Increase conversions
- Reduce your cart abandonment rate
- Nurture your leads.
They all provide instantaneous communication with your customers. Rather than having to wait until your business hours before they can receive an all-important email, it’ll be automatically sent to them, whether it be 3 pm or 3 am.
The bottom line? They’re valuable. All companies that use email marketing (which, in this day and age, should be all companies) will have at least some need for automated email triggers. And in all likelihood, your business can make significant use of the much-lauded, highly valuable marketing feature.
How do you create marketing automation triggers?
Setting up automated email triggers is easy, provided you have the right email marketing software. With Instiller, you can create a whole host of automated email triggers. It wouldn’t be quite right to say “the sky’s the limit,” but it’s pretty close to it.
The actual type of automated triggers you’ll set up will depend on the type of business that you run. But there are some triggers that are pretty universal; most businesses will want to send a welcome email (or series of emails) when someone opens an account on their website.
But as we said, there are plenty of ways to use automated email triggers as part of your marketing campaigns. One of the best ways to see the impact of the tool is to identify where you usually lose leads, and then create a specific email trigger that brings the customer back into the fold at that particular point. For instance, do you have a high cart abandonment rate? Then a well-timed email reminding your customers that they have not (yet) completed the checkout process would be effective.
What are the types of trigger based emails?
If you’ve been painstakingly writing all of your emails yourself, or have been having to hit ‘send’ every time you want to send a marketing email to a customer, then you’ll already recognise the need for trigger based emails.
And once you’ve stepped into this effective, time-saving world, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever step out of it. As we said: it’s effective! And can be a game-changer for businesses that have been using outdated methods. There’s a place for tradition in the business world, but sending emails is not one of them.
Need some inspiration for what types of trigger emails you can send? We’ve got you covered. Note that this is far from an exhaustive list — it’s just the most common uses.
Abandonment emails
These emails are for customers who have signalled an interest in your brand/products, but who have not yet completed a purchase. With trigger emails, you can send a well-timed message to these customers gently reminding them that, hey, they still haven’t clicked the ‘buy’ button. You can break down abandonment emails into subcategories, including:
- Cart Abandonment (for shoppers who added a product to their cart but didn’t complete checkout)
- Product Abandonment (for shoppers who have viewed a product several times)
- At-Risk (customers who have repeatedly made purchases but have not in a while).
Product emails
Abandonment emails use customer behaviour as the prompt. Product-based trigger emails use your store’s inventory as the basis for the emails. For example, you may automatically send emails when:
- You have new products in stock.
- The price of a product decreases.
- Stock levels are running low.
- A product is back in stock.
Onboarding emails
Onboarding emails help to welcome new users to your brand. These emails are typically sent when a user creates an account with your brand. Types of onboarding emails include:
- Registration confirmation.
- Welcome emails.
- Introductory emails that function as customer support.
Why is trigger based email marketing important?
Trigger based email marketing is important because it helps businesses achieve many of their marketing goals. And they do all those things while also saving you and your employees time. In all: there’s a lot to love. Some of the key advantages of trigger email marketing include:
- Improved customer experience.
- Increased revenue.
- Improved customer loyalty.
- The emails are relevant, which increases the open-rate.
Best practices for your email marketing triggers?
Ready to unleash the power of automated email triggers? Follow these best practices for excellent results:
- Use personalisation whenever possible.
- Include a clear call to action.
- Ensure the emails offer value to the recipient.
- Test the effectiveness of your emails and make adjustments when necessary.
- Write concise, easy-to-understand emails that respect your customers’ time.
As we’ve seen, there’s a lot of power in utilising email marketing triggers. If you’re ready to get started, then be sure to claim your free trial of instiller.