How to Improve Customer Experiences with Trigger-Based Messages
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How is your business supposed to not only turn the average client or first-time buyer into a loyal, repeat one, and keep them happy? Trigger-based messaging. These messages also offer a click-through rate that is 152% higher than standard emails and a 77% higher open rate, which can improve the customer experience. Trigger-based messaging could be your secret ingredient to earning loyal customers.
all below are six types of triggered messages used to improve the customer experience and foster brand loyalty.
1. Celebrate Milestones
Celebrating milestones is more than just a birthday or an anniversary coupon.
A new type of milestones you should be celebrating has to do with how your brand measures the customer experience. Can buyers earn points or rank up? Do you employ any sort of gamification?
If your industry has built-in milestones, like Air New Zealand, this may be just the right tactic. By sending pre- and post- flight emails to their clients filled with useful information (life weather reports, customer service information, and feedback requests) the company received widespread social media recognition and had a 69% open rate for their emails.
2. Shake Up Inactive Buyers
Inactive buyers are both a problem and an opportunity. For one, even if they’re inactive, they’re still a customer. They have a history with your brand. The probability of selling to them again is around 70%. That is a minimum of 4x higher than your chances of selling to a new prospect in nearly every industry.
Investing in reactivating these dormant customers is smart. It helps sustain the business-client relationship. And, it’s easier than winning over new customers. It can be as simple as sending an email that says “Hey, where have you been?” Or as involved as sending a “welcome back offer” tied to a given milestone or personalized recommendation. Any small interaction could be that push that brings that client back.
By changing emails from generic to personalized, ticket company Eventful increased conversions and return rate by 400%. They used buyers’ past purchases and the buying behavior of customers with similar habits to determine what the suggestions should be.
3. Remind Potential Clients About an Abandoned Cart
Carts are abandoned for all sorts of reasons. In many cases, life gets in the way, or a client is still shopping around. However, if you can nurture the prospect and get them to come back to complete the purchase, you may have earned a more loyal customer than the one who had merely gone through with the purchase.
Abandoned cart messages are also one of the best places to incorporate SMS marketing to remind your potential and returning buyers to complete a purchase. With a high response rate of 98% and the likelihood to encourage any repeat clients to spend more than the original cart value, having an SMS marketing campaign set up for abandoned carts is a smart step to take.
Within this sequence, however, it’s essential to do more than just send a generic reminder. Remember, if you’re going to set up a sequence, you should get as many things in your favor as possible. In this case, you should remind customers of exactly what they forgot or are choosing to pass up. Personalization is key.
Further, the right offer may be needed to seal the deal. The top reason for cart abandonment, at a surveyed 60%, is due to extra or unexpected costs. These costs refer to taxes, shipping, or other fees. Just offering free shipping or a small discount to offset tax, if an initial reminder prompt fails to get a customer to complete a purchase would be better than dropping the issue or sending a generic reminder.
For example, REAL Watersports sends clients a personalized message about their abandoned cart and its contents as well as several ways to complete their purchase. By implementing this one email follow-up, the brand saw a 25% increase in engagement (click through rate) that will potentially lead to purchase completion.
4. Educate Your Audience About Opportunities
Education is key to creating a meaningful, positive customer experience. The more comprehensive the information you offer, the more chances you have of connecting with a given client. A buyer that considers themselves to understand a product has a 92% renewal rate and those that regularly consume education resources have a 135% increase in product use.
For examples, Autodesk, the creator of the popular 3ds Max software, realized that while many people would download and use their trial once, their conversions were remarkably low. However, if they could get someone to use the software at least three times conversions were substantially better.
They created a campaign that would send missions, personalized reminders, and offer tips during their progress through the trial. During the life of the trial, this approach led to a 54% increase in trial usage and a 15% increase in conversions from free to paid as well as a 4x increase in the likelihood of participants to subscribe or upgrade in the following 24-36 months.
5. Ask for Feedback
Why should you use triggered messages to gather feedback? Simple. Higher response rates and better quality.
There are two main ways to gather the best possible survey and feedback data. The first is to reach out every time a client performs a specific action. If they buy X product, ask them for a review of it a few days after they purchase it. Get specific. The more targeted your audience is, the higher the response rate. A general feedback survey should expect 1-2 of 10 to respond. A targeted survey should see about to 8 in 10.
6. Make Customer Experiences Personal
You’re probably collecting and putting clients’ data to good use (and that data should go beyond first names.)
For example, 78.6% of customers are more likely to take advantage of a coupon or promotion tied to a purchase they have made in the past than a general sale. Clients that are sent personalized messages and offers are also likely to spend more, lifting overall revenue from these buyers by 10% or more.
Simple customization examples of triggered messages should address things your client has purchased in the past. Notify them of special offers and sales on these items. Send offers related to personal milestones. Include their name, if applicable. Above all, these efforts need to be about them and what they like.
To make SMS messages even more customized and personal, use a branded link. These links are trackable and trustworthy. Because of this, they boast click-through rates that are up to 39% higher than generic short links. In SMS marketing, you have a limited amount of characters to grab your audience’s attention and prompt a conversion. Since the whole point to the effort is to motivate your audience to act on your offer, the link is the most important asset. When you use a branded link, the customer immediately understands the CTA, and is more likely to follow through. Think of a branded link as the clickable CTA for all of your SMS messaging efforts.
For example, Doggyloot, an e-commerce brand specializing in flash sales of dog toys and treats, segments their audience into three groups. These groups are large, small, and medium based on the size of the dog the person getting the email has. By sending emails with products meant for that size of pet, the brand has seen a 400%+ higher clickthrough rate and greater than 12% increased daily revenue in all three groups.
Personalized client experiences are smoother. They lead to higher levels of engagement and, as demonstrated above, are something that customers are actively looking for. This improved engagement can boost email deliverability and create more positive interactions between your brand and your clients.
Trigger-based messaging can be used to increase conversions at all points of the buyers’ journey. It’s also a powerful way to build lasting relationships and improve customer loyalty. This loyalty, in turn, will help your brand grow over time.
Guest author: Anastasia Sviridenko, Content Marketing Specialist at TextMagic
Anastasia Sviridenko is a content marketing specialist at TextMagic. When she’s not working, you can find her curling up with a book at home or going for a run in the nearest park
Further Reading:
- 12 SMS and text message marketing statistics that will surprise you
- 10 ways to optimize your SMS marketing campaigns
- An introduction to Bulk SMS for business
- Comparing SMS Marketing and Email Marketing
This Article is About:
- SMS marketing
- Text message marketing
- Comparing text message and email marketing
- Improve customer experience through trigger messaging
