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4 min read
Opinion

Trigger marketing: What is it and why use it?

trigger marketing

Do you keep hearing about trigger marketing, or is it just us? Trigger marketing is one of those phrases that just keeps cropping up over and over again, so we’ve been delving deeper to demystify the phrase - so you understand exactly what it means!

What is trigger marketing?

Trigger marketing is a simple strategy that is used all the time, and strangely without people noticing it for what it is. Put simply, it is a form of marketing that happens as a result of another event. These trigger events can be split into four types:

  • Emotional - such as loyalty rewards
  • Engagement - Including reminders about subscription ends
  • Behaviour - based around a search, offering visitors options eg. if you like this, you’ll love these/you might want to try these…
  • Event - offers focused on holidays / your birthday

If X happens, then I will do Y.

This other event ‘triggers’ the marketing to take place, making it a reactive marketing style that follows a potential customer through their journey onto or around your website. But trigger marketing can be physical too - for example, an engagement-based promise of a discount if you leave a review printed on the back of a sales receipt.

Global triggering

Some key trigger-based marketing examples are found online and are experienced every day right across the globe. For instance, a customer may visit a website, sign up to a newsletter and add a pair of boots to their online basket. However, before they get to the checkout, they leave the site.

Since the customer signed up for the newsletter, you can use trigger marketing to send this potential customer an email reminding them about their lonely pair of boots stranded in a shopping basket, or maybe you could incorporate other similar styles of boots which might entice them to make a purchase. If done well, trigger campaigns endear customers to a brand, increasing familiarity with ‘helpful’, friendly emails which gently remind them to complete their purchase and even offer to help in making the final buying choices.

So why use trigger marketing?

Trigger marketing can benefit your business by being:

Active - This form of marketing is reactive, which is often more impactful than passive approaches, and is more likely to lead to a sale.

Autonomous - You can set up software to track a customer journey to see when they complete triggers, automatically sending out a carefully crafted and well-timed ad, email or marketing post. This frees up your time to focus on optimising other parts of your business!

Familiar - Continuing to show your brand and products to a customer once they have left your website, generates a sense of familiarity, which, in turn, is more likely to result in more conversions and more sales.

Re-energise your remarketing with Ketchup

Trigger marketing has value, driving visitors to your website and encouraging actions. In the busy online environment, it’s important to understand and leverage many marketing strategies to ensure you get customers visiting your site and not that of your competitors. 

Let the strategy team at Ketchup devise a trigger marketing campaign to resurrect your lost customers - the alchemy of our copywriting and design teams will produce magical results: the average open rate is approximately 21% and, with Ketchup creating your campaigns, you can expect an open rate of circa 10% above average.