3 Triggered Email Campaigns You Should Try

Are you leveraging your email marketing system’s full potential? If triggered emails aren’t part of your strategy, then the answer is a big fat “NO.” Behaviorally targeted trigger campaigns are phenomenal at achieving the marketing trifecta: sending the right message to the right person at the right time. According to MarketingSherpa, triggered emails generate 30% higher open and click-through rates and 300% higher conversion rates than traditional campaigns. By combining personalization with automation, you can send highly specific and relevant emails precisely when they’ll achieve the best results.

Still not convinced? Here’s more good news: It’s relatively easy to implement a triggered email campaign. Below, we’ve identified three of the most effective triggered email campaigns you can put into play in a pinch.

Welcome Series

Set up a campaign that welcomes new subscribers at the start of your relationship. Welcome emails are your best opportunity to make an outstanding first impression. It’s not so much a matter of trying to win the sale right out of the gate. Rather, it’s about reinforcing the subscriber’s decision to join your list in the first place.

According to Experian, triggered welcome emails are exceptionally high performing:

• 86% increase in opens
• 196% increase in clicks
• 336% increase in conversions
• 320% more revenue per email

Welcome emails are a great opportunity to show new subscribers the benefits they’ll receive in your emails, direct them to your preference center so you can learn more about them and ask them to join you on social networks.

Abandoned Cart Emails

When a shopper abandons an online shopping cart, you’ve got a choice to make: Do you assume the customer is a lost cause, or do you try to close the sale? If this were a brick-and-mortar store, you’d probably have a salesperson hovering by the door, ready to ask the wayward shopper some questions. But because this is online, you don’t have that option…or do you?

An abandoned cart email campaign can fill in as a virtual sales clerk. By sending an email (or better, a series of emails), you can:

• Remind the shopper which items are waiting in the cart, complete with product images and descriptions.
• Let the shopper know how long you will hold the items in the cart.
• Alert the shopper of any sale items and how long the sale price will be valid.
• Send the shopper a special discount to woo him back.

These triggered emails have shown to recapture 1/3 of abandoned carts, bringing your business significant revenue it might otherwise have lost.

Thank You Emails

Although new customer acquisition is often a major goal for email marketers, it’s important not to forget your existing customers as well. One of the best ways to do this is to develop triggered email campaigns that automatically thank customers when they make a purchase. Even better than a Plain Jane thank you, you can also provide the customer with more information on how to use the product or how to get more out of the product.

For example, when a customer purchases skis from outdoor sporting goods retailer REI, the customer receives a series of emails that contain articles on ski maintenance, tips for planning a ski vacation and even snow reports from local resorts. Of course, the emails also provide information on the ski clothing and ski accessories that REI sells, providing the customer with a nice opportunity to make additional purchases, increasing transaction rates by 20%.

Of course, these three types of emails are just the tip of the iceberg. When it comes to developing triggered campaigns, the sky is the limit. Automating and personalizing your email strategy will allow your organization to be more efficient, more effective and more profitable than ever.

Get the maximum return on your triggered email campaigns. See this blog for triggered email best practices.