Hands down, loyal customers are the most important aspect of a business.
There’s no shortcut to earn loyal advocates. You can only earn them through unparalleled service, top-class products, and continuous value addition throughout their lifecycle journey.
However, the nurturing process doesn’t cease after acquiring customers. That’s just the beginning.
Besides, with the internet flooding with online stores, it’s become even more essential to constantly keep engaging with the customers.
Sending trigger email campaigns is one way to nurture customers. It is an effective strategy to transform first-time buyers into loyal followers.
Trigger emails accompanied by marketing automation can come in handy to motivate your customers and take action. It requires a whole lot of planning and continuous hard work to retain customers’ attention and faith.
After all, triggered email marketing is almost synonymous with driving engagement. They are meant to focus on delivering value every single time it lands on your shopper’s inbox.
So, what’s the deal with trigger email marketing? Let’s grab a bite and go through the basics.
What are trigger emails?
As the name suggests, trigger emails are meant to drive customer action. These types of emails are directly delivered to your shopper’s inboxes based on their shopping behaviors.
The trigger-based emails are divided mainly into two categories: segment and event.
In the case of event-based trigger emails, few actions are performed by the customers both within and outside your application or store trigger emails. For instance, an order confirmation mail reaches their inbox whenever a customer completes their purchase.
Segment-based trigger emails are sent to a segment of customers who fits a defined set of pre-made business conditions. For instance, if someone enrolls for your “Regular Plan,” and someone who enrolls for an enterprise plan will receive different trigger emails based on the choice.
Now that we understand the basics, it’s time to swoop right into the ways you can nurture your customer relationships.
Let’s dive into more detail. Here are five trigger email examples.
7 Ways to Nurture Customer Relationships Using Trigger Email Campaigns
1. Send Welcome Emails to Nurture Customers
What is the most logical first step to onboard your consumers? A welcome or an introductory email.
Now, with automation in hand, you can automate that too. So, the moment someone feeds their details into one of your landing pages, you have an opportunity to engage with them.
Focus on creating a sweet and short welcome email that summarizes your brand and what all they can expect from you. Besides, this is an outstanding opportunity to self-promote without being too sales-y.
A contact number or an email to contact your business is another way to earn customers’ trust.
For instance, The Outbound Collective’s welcome email is simple and visually pleasing. Along with the visual appeal, they have also added a few tips about how to start using their product to yield maximum return.
This welcome email from Comparably’s is another gem. They have added personalization to this nurture email and made it extra special but adding their Founders signature in the end. And from that, you know it’s made to look less like a marketing email but with a more personalized touch.
Or else you can also use the welcome email series to tell your brand story. Not only will that give your brand a good first impression, but also will help you win the customer right from the start.
Uncommon Goods used this welcome email to share their brand values and stories with their customers. It portrayed them in a positive light and also told customers how to support ethical brands and artisans.
This is not only a great tactic to retain customers but also an effective strategy to showcase your brand’s impact. If you are in a rush and not really sure of how to formulate these trigger email campaigns, Bayengage can come in handy.
Also feel free to check some of BayEngage’s welcome email templates!
2. Help them with a Tour or Support Guide.
Most businesses stop their communication once they have boarded a customer. But it’s essential to keep adding value by sending guides, tutorials, or how-to videos. You can also send different types of supporting content to help your customers navigate through your products and brands. When it comes to customer support, you can also get 800 numbers for your business, which will make it appear more legitimate.
For instance, if you’re a gym business, you can email pre and post-workout tips or even fitness advice. Ensure that your content stands out in an over-crowded inbox and adds value to your customers’ life. They must also highlight the benefit of your product.
This email from SoulCycle hits all the right notes. Once the customer attends the first class, the brand wastes no time and sends a nurture email. Through the email, the brand informs its consumers about how to leverage the use of SoulCycle studio and the new exercise regime designed for the customers. It definitely adds immense value to their patrons.
Or else, you send these targeted emails to customers to deliver a celebratory message or for segments who haven’t activated a specific feature.
However, be mindful of too many emails right at the beginning of a customer’s journey. It can drive them away from your competitors instead focus on cementing your relationship with them.
This Trigger email from Customer.io lands on customer’s inbox only after they have performed a task like creating a specific campaign. The brand not only congratulates their customer in a celebratory fashion but also provides additional information.
Here’s another example from Squarespace. They send their nurture email series that includes a mini-guide on how to get started with Squarespace.
Squarespace
You can also set up a welcome nurture campaign that informs your customers about the new content, be it blogs or videos that your business is creating. Direct them to your blogs, resources center to add value, and also increase your readers!
Ensure to carefully note down the types of content your audience is looking for so that you can serve them better, and they also have an incentive to stay subscribed!
3. Step-Up in the Conversation
Imagine – as a customer, what would you prefer – radio silence or constant communication from your favorite brands? Mostly, the latter. Thus, it’s essential to keep your customers in a conversation loop in between purchases.
Here’s Dashlane’s “quick tips” trigger email series that serves as a really good example of this strategy. This email details out how new customers can simplify the login process for any random website by storing all their credentials in their app:
Another strategy that one can apply to continue the conversation is to offer continuous value. For instance, if you have a SaaS app along with your trigger email, you can also send an in-app notification to all your new users and direct them to a valuable resource like an ebook that offers most of the knowledge. In this example, Flywheel directs the users to a landing page.
Trigger emails can come in handy to ask for customers’ input and help your content reach more people.
4. Contact About Important Details
We all know how triggered email marketing can save the day for you by providing a consistent and best possible experience. Therefore, what about expanding them to cover your Ecommerce customer service activities?
Be it a fashion store or a SaaS app; your customers need regular updates about everything that is happening with their accounts.
In such cases, you can always use transactional emails to deliver a message about all the upcoming changes, renewals, or cancellation details. This not only keeps them posted about their package but also works as an assurance for them.
Think of all the trigger emails that notify customers about suspicious account activity. They provide an inherent value to your customers.
Besides, when they have decided to purchase from you, your brand should go above and beyond to communicate clearly and concisely. Such trigger emails only make your brand stand out and show that your brand cares about its customers.
This payment reminder triggers an email from Thinkful informing the shopper customer about the subscription service and asks them to renew it back. The brand doesn’t mince its words; instead clearly communicates in bold lettering about the action they want the recipient to take.
5. Respond to Inactivity
In between juggling work, to-do-list and family responsibilities, your customers live busy lives. So, it’s only normal for them to completely forget about your brand. Does that mean your game is over?
Fortunately, not yet. You can always craft a creative email by knocking on their attention span and winning them back. You can also create different re-engagement campaigns and automate the deliverables such that your customers receive your message when they remain inactive for too long.
Here’s an example from Venngage that uses trigger emails to get customers back into their platform. If you look closely, the brand offers quite compelling reasons and entices them to login back and complete the infographic they left behind.
6. Reward Positive Behavior
Step 1: Attract them.
Step 2: Make them your customers.
Step 3: Transform them into Brand advocates.
Well, now you know what is your ultimate goal – nurturing your customers to make them into your loyal followers.
However, to do that, it’s crucial to encourage and reward positive behaviors but the loyalty score would entirely depend on your business type and audience strength. But, nothing less than a Net Promoter Score above 7 is acceptable.
So, keep a close eye on those customers who are carrying out positive behaviors. Sending trigger emails that reward these highly-engaged customers can serve as an ultimate motivator. Don’t forget the email with a personalized message to show your appreciation and continue the loyalty loop.
Here’s an example from TOMS, which executes this strategy perfectly. Every customer who is part of their Passport Rewards Programs receives a trigger email with a severe discount on their anniversary.
According to the Stitch Labs report, repeat customers can make up almost a quarter of your business’s revenue even when they make up only 11% of the customer base. It makes your tasks easier and requires you to identify the repeat customers to send out targeted emails to strengthen relationships.
Here’s an example from Booking.com who uses customers’ previous browsing and search history to offer personalized recommendations. Besides, the brand doesn’t forget to highlight the low prices available on different packages and the benefits their customers can reap off from the loyalty program.
7. Send Ecommerce Email Receipts
Most businesses aren’t aware of how to use the email receipts as potential trigger emails. Unfortunately, it is a goldmine of sales and revenue and remains untapped.
Confirmation emails have an average open rate of 70.9% when compared to the regular email marketing campaigns of 17.9%, as per the Conversio reports.
For instance, Kalelee Creations used email receipts to drive consumer actions. They not only attached the order confirmation email but also included the delivery details, along with a link to track the package.
Besides, they also added a coupon code to encourage future purchases along with a personal note from the founder adds charm. It only showcases how much the brand cares about their customers.
While ThriftBooks treated the Ecommerce receipts a little differently. Along with sending all the purchase details, they also added a curated, personalized product recommendation section right at the bottom of the e-receipts.
Bonus Tips:
1. Say No to ‘No-Reply’ Mails
Many times, brands make the mistake of sending from ‘an automated system.’ To give your business and brand a strong personal touch, you can start sending those emails under an actual person’s name.
Try to avoid the standard used “noreply@yourcompany.com” email address and try to use basics like “hello@yourcompany.com,” “support@yourcompany.com,” or “renny.vibes@yourcompany.com.”
2. Keep Your CTA laser-focused.
Your business wins half the battle if your consumer clicks and opens the trigger emails! But, how do you encourage and make the click-through rates soar? Simple. Write a compelling CTA and keep the next course of action as simple as possible.
3. Optimize for Mobile
According to a study by Litmus, it suggests that more than half of the consumers use smartphones to keep a tab on their inbox. So, your emails must be optimized to open on mobile without any hassle.
Their email on smartphones, so it’s important to optimize your emails for mobile devices. While several Shopify email marketing apps automatically optimize their emails, don’t forget to make sure to test it across devices to offer and maintain a consistent experience throughout.
Wrapping up
Even after your consumers have completed a purchase, you need to be in touch and continue nurturing them. Trigger emails offer you the power to tailor-made your customer’s experience according to conditions or segmentation.
Sit down and work with your team to identify the ways to use trigger emails and how to keep your customers engaged.
Lastly, remember that the sooner you start, the better it is. So, start today and generate more sales effortlessly.
