Newsletter marketing: What is crucial with trigger mails

Trigger mails - unlike classic or segmented newsletters - do not go to the entire or parts of the address list, but to individual persons. They are sent automatically after a predefined event or occasion. The triggers that trigger the dispatch are configured and the mails are sent automatically to the recipients who meet the criteria.

Triggers can be occasions or events: For example, the mails can be sent on a birthday or after a certain duration of the customer relationship. If the customer is inactive, reactivation emails such as "We miss you" can be sent to revitalize the relationship. Also "crooked congratulations" in which the three-quarter-year membership or the seventh order is congratulated, receive a high attention from the recipient.

Events always have a trigger like a purchase, a store visit or a rating. The possibilities to use them in trigger emails are limitless such as newly set preferences, a new user account status, downloads, service contact or cancelled website transactions.

Endless possibilities and a high click-through rate

Trigger emails increase the success of email marketing because the reference to a specific event or occasion improves relevance and individualization for the recipient.

Personalization in particular leads to a high open and click rate. With suitable content and the right timing, trigger mails therefore generate significantly more response than classic newsletters. They are not only suitable for customer care, but also for sales and the initiation of new customer relationships.

By automating the trigger mails, the otherwise enormous time expenditure can be minimized: Because every user triggers the triggers sooner or later - just not at the same time. After all, everyone has a birthday, and everyone can be prompted to click or asked about the cancellation of a purchase. This individual approach also increases the quality of customer communication.

Challenges: Blocking mechanisms and a modern email marketing system

For trigger emails to work, the following aspects should be considered.

1. The biggest challenge when sending many different trigger mails is the right sending combination. Because it can quickly happen that too many are sent in a short period of time if the defined events take place in parallel or shortly after each other. The e-mails must be sent with a certain interval - if they come too directly one after the other, the user is irritated. In addition, offers and topics must be carefully coordinated: It can be very annoying for the recipient if he receives an exclusive voucher for his birthday on Monday morning and a regular special discount in the afternoon. To prevent this, you need a professional e-mail system with appropriate blocking mechanisms that implements the defined sending rules.
2. Since the content of the mails is dynamized, the design has to be compromised. The mails are customized with a corresponding address to the user. However, templates with the requirements are compiled automatically. This means that the mails can no longer be optimized by a graphic designer, as it would be far too time-consuming to manually tailor different product images and layouts to each recipient.
3. Trigger e-mails require a data basis on the basis of which they are sent. The user's personal data is stored in the e-mail system for this purpose. However, data collection is not always unproblematic. It comes from various sources such as post-click tracking, web analytics systems, CRM, the store system or ERP merchandise management. These sources have to be merged, which requires the customer's permission - he can explicitly grant it when signing up for the newsletter, for example. Only then may his transaction data, order data and transaction data be combined. Furthermore, the system must also be able to implement this connection and make the data available in the e-mail marketing system via an interface. This is the only way to automate trigger e-mails at all. The integration of the systems can quickly become complex. A good basis for trigger mails are, for example, total sales, number of orders, last purchase, last product category, birthday and location of a user.
4. Choosing the right triggers is not always easy. Companies should think carefully about how they configure the system and when they want to address users.
5. The system landscape must be up to the task: trigger emails require a modern email marketing system. Many offer automation options, but not in the standard variant. This means either changing the system or upgrading.

Trigger strategy: It's all in the mix

Companies must first understand the three pillars of email marketing: In the all-in approach, the same mail is sent to all recipients. In segmentation, different versions go to different target groups, and trigger mails are sent specifically to one recipient. The key is to have a good mix.

Trigger emails do not replace segmented email marketing, but are an additional mechanism. Of course, there are still occasions when 1-to-1 direct marketing and addressing the entire target group or segments makes sense - for example, in the case of a product launch that is to be communicated widely.

Find the right time

Successful trigger emails are based on sending them at the right time. Email marketers can accompany the entire customer journey of a user with the strategic sending of the mails.

It's important to analyze open rates by device time of day and time of day in advance. More than 60% of emails are now opened on mobile devices. Depending on the device, the time of opening also changes: on smartphones, they are increasingly opened in the morning, on desktops not until midday, and on tablets in the evening.

Trigger mails with recommendation engine

If a user's personal statistics are stored in the e-mail system or web store, it makes sense to integrate a recommendation engine into the trigger e-mails.
The user then receives product recommendations based on their user and buying behavior in addition to the actual offer in the e-mail. The engine automatically generates suggestions for cross-selling. A holistic approach is important here: the user is then shown matching recommendations on the website and in the newsletter. The implementation is complex, but worthwhile.

Procedure: How to implement trigger mails

In order to use trigger e-mails sustainably, companies should evaluate in a first step which triggers come into question for them and make sense. The second step is to evaluate the email system: Are its functions sufficient, do they need to be upgraded, or is it necessary to switch to another provider? Then the interfaces are looked at and the question of how the data for the trigger emails is provided is clarified. Then is the time to re-evaluate the GDPR and data protection: Is it allowed to collect and merge the data? This is the prerequisite to legitimately send mails. At the end, the new system is implemented.

Conclusion

Trigger emails offer a lot of opportunities for clicks and conversions by addressing the user personally. However, it is important on the one hand to send them in compliance with data protection regulations, and on the other hand to have access to a modern email system. This is the only way to automate the process, and blocking mechanisms prevent users from receiving too many emails at once.