It’s widely known that email marketing is a highly effective marketing strategy. However, if not used thoughtfully, it can easily irritate or even alienate your customers. By designing triggered emails that are pertinent, well-timed, and considerate of your customer’s privacy, you can guarantee they receive only what they opted for!
This article will cover everything you need to know about trigger emails, including:
- An explanation of trigger emails and their effectiveness.
- 10 examples of compelling trigger emails.
- Tips and best practices for success with this email marketing strategy.
What are trigger emails?
Triggered emails are a type of email marketing where emails are automatically sent to recipients based on pre-defined conditions. These conditions can be user behaviors, actions, or specific signals, applied on an individual basis. This means that triggered emails are sent to one recipient at a time, whenever the conditions are met, unlike promotional emails which are typically sent in bulk.
Image source We’ll delve deeper into these types shortly, but here are some common trigger emails:
- Welcome
- Onboarding
- Order confirmation
- Notification
- Cart abandonment
- Nudge
- Re-engagement
- Remarketing
- Birthday
- Milestone
Triggered emails vs drip emails
While both email types utilize automation to maintain engagement with your subscribers, leads, and customers, they do so differently and with distinct objectives. Trigger emails are activated after a specific event or set of conditions, such as a completed order, items added to a cart but left unpurchased for two days, or a user reaching a particular milestone. The email is directly related to that event and individual, and its purpose isn’t always marketing-focused. Trigger emails can be used for appointment reminders, suspicious login alerts, or quota notifications. Drip emails, conversely, are a sequence of emails programmed to be sent in chronological order. For instance, if someone downloads a guide, they could be entered into a drip campaign where they receive an email every two weeks promoting a different guide. These emails are not contingent on user actions and often serve as nurture campaigns with progressively larger requests in each email.
Why do trigger emails work so well?
Let’s examine some facts and statistics demonstrating why trigger emails are such a robust customer engagement strategy.
- Enhanced engagement: In comparison to mass emails, trigger emails boast 2.2x higher open rates, 2.1x higher click rates, and 4.1x higher conversion rates. That translates to an impressive 70.5% increase in open rate!
- Elevated customer satisfaction: Engaging with customers based on their individual actions and preferences demonstrates genuine care.
- Lead nurturing: Trigger emails can gently guide leads towards taking an action that converts them into customers, or more qualified leads.
- Trust building: These emails help customers stay informed about their transactions and important information.
- Time efficiency: By automating manual email tasks with scheduled delivery, trigger emails save marketers significant time and effort.
- Improved customer retention: Personalized, relevant, and informative emails enhance the overall customer experience, leading to better retention.
- Increased revenue: While mass emails earn $0.04 per send, triggered emails generate $0.95.
Examples of triggered emails
Let’s explore some trigger email examples based on the triggers we previously listed. If you require assistance crafting your trigger email content, refer to our user-friendly copy and paste email templates!
1. Welcome emails
Welcome emails are sent after someone registers with your business, makes a purchase, or subscribes to your email list. These emails often express gratitude for joining, provide a concise overview of membership benefits, and include links to resources or perhaps the promo code or coupon promised in their signup form.
Free email templates! >> 30 Free Small Business Email Examples & Templates
2. Onboarding emails
Similar to welcome emails, onboarding emails are primarily used for platforms or services that require user guidance to get started or involve necessary steps to complete the account creation process. Click to see full email.
3. Order confirmation emails
Triggered after a purchase is made, these emails typically contain the receipt information, delivery details, and a tracking link. Often, a separate trigger email is sent once the item ships.
4. Notification emails
These are not promotional in nature but rather provide crucial information regarding a user’s account. They typically lack a call to action beyond any necessary user action. Triggers for these emails may include new logins, suspicious activities, upcoming payments, or reminders about appointments or expiration dates.
5. Cart abandonment emails
As one of the most common trigger emails, this email is sent when a customer adds items to their online cart but doesn’t finish the checkout process. These emails are usually triggered after a certain period of inactivity.
6. Nudge emails
Cart abandonment emails are a type of nudge email. However, nudges can also be used for account setups, tools, and other online products. Here’s an example of a nudge email encouraging users to complete nexus-security’s Free Google Ad Performance Grader.
7. Re-engagement emails
As a re-engagement tactic, these emails act as timely reminders to inactive subscribers who haven’t made a purchase or engaged with your product for a period of time.
8. Remarketing emails
These emails aim to encourage a segment of your email list to take further action following a particular interaction. For example, you could set up an email to send to webinar attendees after the event, prompting them to schedule a consultation or explore additional resources.
9. Birthday emails
Birthday emails are self-explanatory! They’re used to make your customers feel appreciated. Birthday emails often include a coupon, promo code, or other tokens of appreciation.
10. Milestone emails
These emails include congratulations and special offers for customers who have achieved a specific milestone with your brand.
Tips & best practices to create your best trigger emails
Before diving in and building your first triggered email campaign, it’s crucial to understand your customers’ journey, from start to finish, and identify the scenarios you need to address. Here are some key email marketing best practices for your trigger campaigns.
1. Capture relevant data
Determine the type of data from new signups that would allow for better segmentation of subscribers/prospects/customers. The right data sets will help you create the most effective emails. Consider these key demographic factors:
- Gender
- Age
- Engagement and activity
- Location
- Parental status
- Work status
- Work title and rank
2. Use personalization techniques
Research suggests that 63% of Millennials, 58% of Gen X users, and 46% of Baby Boomers are comfortable with sharing personal information in exchange for personalized offers and discounts. Utilize the data gathered in the first step to personalize your emails. This is a top email copywriting tip. Address customers by their first name, leverage data from their lifecycle stage, or incorporate information about their product or service interests.
3. Track website visitor behavior
Align your website visitors’ behavioral data (explore some relevant metrics here) with your campaign’s offer. For instance, you might observe that a visitor spent a significant amount of time on a particular landing page. Based on their engagement heatmap, a customized remarketing email with a special promotion or offer would be a strategic approach.
4. Set campaign goals
What specific action do you want your reader to take? Make a purchase? Visit a landing page? Read your latest blog post? Define one clear goal for each campaign to ensure your message is focused and targeted. It’s more effective to have fewer, specific actions that subscribers are likely to take than to overwhelm them with multiple goals.
5. Monitor results and pivot strategies
Continuously monitor your campaigns’ performance metrics from the outset. This allows you to track results and adjust your email strategies for better outcomes. Focus on:
- Email open rates (which can be improved with compelling subject lines).
- Click-through rates for your calls to action.
- Unsubscribe rates These numbers will help you assess the effectiveness of your offer, email copy, headline, and other elements.
Keep your customers engaged with trigger emails
This blog provided a concise overview of triggered emails. For further inspiration, download our 30 Free Small Business Email Examples & Templates. Visual learners can refer to the Email Uplers infographic below!. You might also find their free responsive HTML email templates helpful. [
