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    What Are Email Triggers And How Can You Use Them To Nurture Customers?

    Email Triggers For Nurturing Leads

    Written By Jason Rowse - Digital Marketing Expert

    Updated: 09/01/2021

    Email triggers help marketers send pertinent content to the right subscriber at the correct time. These are customized messages triggered by specific user actions. Purchases, cart abandonment, and membership expiration are strong examples of triggers. 

    Read on to uncover the top five examples of trigger emails so that you can create nurturing messages that transform leads into loyal customers.  

    Top Trigger Examples 

    This type of marketing is sought after because it wins over leads and converts them into buyers. The following trigger emails are designed to ultimately nurture buyer journeys. 

    Onboarding

    Acquiring leads is insufficient for creating booming campaigns today. It’s worth your while only when the new subscribers complete the desired actions. 

    Onboarding messages are aimed at pushing new registrants towards purchasing. This campaign works by molding a meaningful customer journey. Note that onboarding messages are poles apart from welcome emails. This is because the former paves the way for a purchase or sale while the latter merely welcomes the user. 

    An email demonstrating the specific steps for placing an order on your website with a 25% off coupon is the perfect example of an onboarding email. Because of the incentive, the subscriber is driven to buy from you. 

    Here are a few tips to create trigger-based onboarding campaigns: 

    • Alert users who haven’t enabled a specific feature on your product 
    • Dispatch congratulatory emails triggered by prospects completing different phases of onboarding 
    • Create emails that encourage brand loyalty instead of sending several trivial messages 

    Keeping In Touch

    Another goal of using email triggers is to establish a permanent link with the customer after the sale. Abandoning users after they buy from you severs the bond you worked hard to build. Trigger emails can be tailored to help users tackle challenges or to further the discussion post-purchase.

    Imagine for instance that your clothing brand sends a notification about a downloadable catalog to new users. You send a PDF copy of the catalog using email triggers for interested users who share their contact details. 

    Instead of merely sending the PDF of the catalog in the mail, add relevant questions designed to convert the lead too. Suppose you send a ‘Summer specials’ catalog to a subscriber. Next, ask if users want to know the background story of the summer collection in the same mail. The aim is to encourage the customer to stay in contact.

    Transactional Emails

    A message conveying updates about a transaction is a transaction email. This could be triggered by purchases, account registration, renewal, order tracking, and so forth. 

    While these sound boring, transaction-specific emails record high open rates of over 95%. On top of that, 65% of marketers feel transactional messages are vital for user engagement. 

    The best thing is that this ecommerce event trigger guarantees peace of mind to users by keeping them in the loop. As a result, the customer won’t be shocked if the order is delayed or held at the last delivery station. Here are the best ways to use transactional content via email triggers to nurture leads: 

    • Put the spotlight on important content: Use bold formatting and italics to highlight the text referencing the action for users to take
    • A/B test the email: Start testing given statistics show over 63% of marketers split test their transactional content 

    Getting Inactives Back

    With 99% of users checking their personal mail once a day, it’s easy for your messages to get buried amongst the sea of emails. If you notice a lack of activity from a large number of subscribers, you need to recapture leads. Put your thinking cap on and create catchy reengagement campaigns. 

    For instance, organize an email series targeted at users who haven’t purchased for over a month or two. Alternatively, set up trigger emails for people who’ve failed to login to your app for over a week or more. 

    You can put trigger campaigns into practice by offering incentives. As an example, add a 20% off coupon code for dormant users within the message. According to WisePops contributor Pawel Grabowski, including a deadline alongside the discount helps convert inactives.

    Creating Brand Advocates Through Positive Reinforcement 

    To ensure subscribers recommend your brand and its products, you need to reward the positive actions of your loyal customers. 

    The first step is to identify contacts that bring value to your brand. For example, suppose a customer brings four new customers to your business. You can then set up trigger campaigns thanking these users for their loyalty. To encourage them to continue word of mouth marketing for you, send triggered emails with discount codes too. 

    Create customer loyalty programs or referral campaigns triggered by members who fit the bill. For instance, you can reward long time subscribers with discounts or those who purchased over $5,000 worth of goods or services. 

    Bottom Line 

    Email triggers are great for leveraging the actions or inactions of customers. When you create campaigns based on common triggers, you can contour the journey of the buyer and lead them to sales.

    With the onboarding series, you create messages that pave the way to purchases. On the other hand, transactional emails keep customers posted about their orders. You can keep in touch with customers who completed a sale and get dormant users to buy again with incentives using trigger messages. 

    When taken together, these trigger-based emails can deliver spectacular results with minimal effort.