If you ask any marketing team what their goal is, you will get a unanimous answer
To reach customers at the moment that will influence their decisions the most. Given the complex needs of customers, and the myriad products available, understanding exactly when to get in touch with customers is extremely important to drive conversion. Yet, most marketing efforts bear no fruit, as brands have littleidea about the right time to pitch. But it doesn’t have to be this way!
Trigger analytics is a great tool to enable marketing teams to reach out to the customer – at a time when they need you, and not when you need them! It helps in identifying the key moment of truth’ in the customer’s purchase life cycle and allows marketing teams to achieve impactful business results.
Knowing the ‘key moment of truth’
To achieve success with your marketing efforts, timing is crucial. As a marketing professional, you might drive your focus on getting the right message to the right person, but how do you get that message out at the right time? How do you ensure you offer a product when the customer demonstrates an actual need for the product, and not just because you’re compelled to meet your monthly target? How do you make sure your marketing message is appropriately timed? How do you understand the customer’s specific situation, and how do you translate this understanding into driving a meaningful response?
Let’s look at the real estate industry. Offering a home to a customer who is not looking to make a purchase, or has just made a purchase, or cannot afford a home is a waste of time. Since the industry constantly goes through several peaks and troughs, success is dependent on various factors such as interest rates, economic conditions, and the job market. Since buying a home is a major investment, it needs a lot of planning and pondering. However, regardless of how the market behaves, as a marketer, your job is to analyze prospect behavior, and identify the right moment when they seek property information. But how do you do that?
The realm of trigger analytics
Trigger analytics tools advise teams on the right time in the customer’s lifecycle to send marketing messages to drive actions and achieve optimal results. It helps build a strategy that works on the premise that you communicate with your customers at a time when they have indicated a willingness to engage and a propensity to purchase.
With the ability to analyze customer behavior and identify changes – or ‘triggers’ – that may indicate their need for a new product or service, trigger analytics helps teams in aligning their communications with the needs of the customer. Knowing the key ‘moment of truth’ not only drives higher customer satisfaction but it also greatly impacts your bottom line, resulting in higher campaign response rates, and a better return on investment.
In the financial industry, for instance, marketing teams have for long relied on triggers, to detect new prospects. Life milestones like marriage or education goals for children have often helped in identifying ascenario where the customer may be primed. While this has worked in the past, today, with better technology, trigger analytics can help spot consumer intent through actions such as making inquiries, searching online, clicking on ads, applying for new loans, and paying off debt, among others. When consumers signal anintent to purchase, marketers can reach out to them with the right financial product, at the right time, and increase the likelihood of a purchase.
How marketers can use trigger analytics
When customers showcase a need, triggers and signals can allow teams to streamline their marketing activities and drive higher value in whatever they do. Using trigger analytics, marketing teams can:
- Leverage real-time integration triggers to take action on behavioral data, and use connected tools to trigger notifications to the customer when intent is showcased.
- Connect agents to prospective customers as soon as a trigger has been received, and as early as possible in the lifecycle.
- Build relationshipswith prospects at the exact ‘moment of truth’ with the right message, and the right product to meet their needs.
- Personalize campaigns, engage with users in real-time when a trigger has been detected, and re-engage with them to address their issues and concerns if any.
- Automate mundane tasks, prioritize communication and touch-points to send the perfect follow-up email to customers, and spend valuable time on what matters the most – making customers happy.
- Schedule the reports to be shared on a periodic basis and keep teams aligned with triggers at all times.
- Push segments of users to third-party tools based on the actions they did not perform and re-engage with them so as not to lose them.
- Identify relationships at risk and take action to reduce attrition before it’s too late.
Time your communication
When it comes to marketing, identifying signals or triggers that showcase a purchase intentis key to drive conversions. Trigger analytics tells you which customers you need to reach, when, how often, and with what message. Since triggers can either be behavior-based such as customer care inquiries or online searches, or event-based such as a lease expiring or wedding, it is important for marketers to embrace the right tools, so they can keep track of these signals and take appropriate actions. Sending relevant content immediately after a trigger has been generated is a great way to push the scales in your favor. The timelier your communication is, the higher are the chances that the prospect will respond to it positively and satisfy his/her need while driving revenue for your organization.
