Triggered Communications Raise Email Response Rates and Conversions
Filed under: Email Marketing, General Marketing, Lead Management, List Strategy, Uncategorized, integrated marketing
There has been a lot of discussion from the recent DMA and around ICS regarding Triggered Communications. Why all the buzz? Quite simply it is driven from the successes that larger organizations are starting to see in this area.Â
While email response rates are continuing to be challenged, Triggered Communications are a key component to adding relevancy to the communications.  And just like any form of communications, the more relevant and engaging, the more likely it is that you will get your message not only opened, but responded to.
AÂ new conversation can be triggered from almost any customer touch point:
- External factors – website forms, shopping cart abandonment, customer service, etc.
- Messages – email activity (opens, clicks, unsubscribe, etc.), address change, etc.
- List – subscribe, profile update, and address change
- Link – specific link in email message
Once the “customer or prospect event” is captured, you can set a communications cadence around the key attributes of this event. These campaigns allow you to communicate with each subscriber individually based on his or her behavior or response. Because the messages are related to the specific action taken by the recipient, the conversations are natural and progressive, not sporadic and interruptive.Â
For example, a prospect clicked on an email to find out more information on your product, but did not take advantage of the offer. In the case of triggered communications, we can capture all “like prospects” and design communications cadences specific to this marketing situation.Â
These automated campaigns can be structured to follow up in a period of time after their initial response, or even so many days before the offer expires.  Content can be specific to the link they clicked, or specific to the fact that they opened the email and didn’t click on a link. Testing strategies can be easily incorporated into the process as well.
According to Forrester Research’s US Interactive Marketing Forecast 2009-2014, marketers are taking on a more strategic leadership role in organizations because of their close connections to customers and prospects.  Transactional, triggered email communications are on the rise because they improve open, click and conversion rates dramatically. Â
This builds off from the marketing foundation that a “handraiser” is one of your most effective prospect segments (from a percentage basis). Adding relevant and engaging follow-up communications will nuture leads through the sales cycles to drive more sales. Â
Give one of our account managers (or myself) a call to discuss triggered communications in more detail. Â
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