Some days marketing feels like shouting in the dark. Wouldn’t it be great if you could tailor your marketing to each individual? Or better yet, create an automated system that can help guide the customer for you and still maintain positive customer service relations?
Great news. You can!
It’s called Trigger Marketing. Trigger Marketing is a way of communicating with customers at preplanned intervals based on their wants and needs. It takes planning, data analysis, and the occasional wellness check to ensure your customer is receiving the right content in the way that is most beneficial to them.
See, the key to trigger marketing is setting up a strong foundation that is always there, easy to update, and consistently pays for itself by keeping the customers engaged. It provides measurable results, and even better, it shows you where you can step up your game to provide the help your customers need.
Anyone can set up a trigger marketing campaign. It takes research, time, and patience. There are tools that make this easier and some companies who automate this process for you.
We’ve broken down the six key aspects of Trigger Marketing:
- Identify your critical business needs and strategic imperatives.
What are the challenges your customers face, and how can you alleviate them? Focus on the customer. What are you trying to do for them? What kind of services do you provide? If you don’t know what your customers struggle with (or are a new business trying to establish a solid customer base), send out an anonymous survey with the following question:
“What is your biggest struggle with _____?” Fill in the blank with something specific to your niche. For instance, if you own a clothing store and want to know how to help your customers with their shopping experience, ask them “What is your biggest struggle with buying clothes?” Their answers may surprise you.
- Collect and Analyze the data.
Look for problems and gather data to find solutions. Are there customer retention problems? If so, what data can you analyze to give you that answer. Do you have a low newsletter subscriber list? If so, what can be done to build it? Your trigger marketing is only effective with a solid mailing list. While gathering data, make sure you look outside your own organization as well. Government findings, independent researchers, public data, and more can be used. Every customer interaction is a piece of data necessary to building an effective marketing stream. Once you’ve gathered all the data, look for trends. What you think they need may be nowhere near what they actually need. Remember that.
- Create a Plan.
Figure out your trigger points. How often does your customer want to hear from you? What type of design works for your customer base? Figure out your roadmap. When you have someone sign up for your newsletter, how long until they receive the first email? What will be in it? How long after that will they receive an additional email? Remember that every piece of content you give them needs to engage them. It needs to be one of three things: informative, necessary for business, or let them know how much you appreciate them.
- Install the Campaigns
Once you figure out your plan, the next step is creating your engagement framework. Most composition engines can automate this process. If you have a customer who only shops online, it would be better for them to receive online-only notices, discounts, and coupons, whereas someone who shops exclusively in your store would need in-store coupons, etc. Every engine is different, but you can, in essence, tag each person with their interests based on where they signed up, their shopping history, etc. The sky is the limit. FYI, for someone who shops both online and in person, they would have both triggers so they could receive both online and in-store notices.
- Inspection
You have to have a control group for both the individual campaigns and the global group. They are your comparison. These benchmark groups provide trend insights and improvement suggestions. Learn from the data gathered by those groups and adapt accordingly.
- Review
Always review. Trigger marketing allows you to automate, but it needs to be adjusted consistently. It’s not a build it and forget it project. Instead, make it part of your marketing culture. Establish evaluation dates. Make sure the information they receive is accurate.
A well-oiled trigger marketing machine can generate a steady amount of revenue while maintaining a hands-off positive customer experience. Take the time to research and evaluate as you build your marketing campaign and the rewards can be incredible.