Guest Contribution by Lidia Bondarenko, HelpCrunch
The world of marketing is changing rapidly. Today, marketers strive to follow the way of increasing customization, building long-term relationships with clients, and providing them with a unique experience.
Of course, the high level of personalization in marketing cannot be achieved when you try to find the ultimate method to reach and impress everyone at a time. There are so many things you need to take in mind because each of your potential buyers has his/her specific needs and expectations. The times of “one-size-fits-all” advertising has passed.
Customers are looking for relevant and valuable interaction with a brand. One of the best methods to provide such experience is multi-channel marketing and namely – triggered messaging. Let’s discuss these strategies and find out more about their benefits.
What is Multi-Channel Marketing?
As the name suggests, multi-channel marketing is a combination of communicational platforms or channels for clients’ engagement. These channels usually include digital, non-digital, direct, and indirect channels for customers’ reach. While some experts cannot stop arguing which channel is more efficient, multi-channel marketers don’t want to choose one – they stick to all of them.
They strive to integrate different ways of interaction, both online and offline, to surround users with all types of valuable content. This increases marketers’ chances to hit the jackpot – more channels included, more preferences covered. These are the most common channels that are usually combined in all imaginable ways (depends on the type of service you provide):
- Mail-outs
- Podcasts and streams
- SMS-notifications
- Social media marketing
- Printed materials and merchandise
- Events and conferences
- Sponsorships
Among the numerous benefits of multi-channel marketing, the most crucial are the following:
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Greater connection with your customers through the channels they prefer
Modern users switch among different devices and digital platforms. Each of the resources they use meets their particular interests and needs, whether it is entertainment, work, or education. You can “meet” them on any of these resources using different ways of communication.
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Higher users’ reach disregarding their location and time
Wherever your potential buyers are, you can reach them across email, social media, mobile devices, and other devices. Whether they are at home, lying on a sofa, sitting at the computer in the office, traveling on a bus, or having dinner in a café, you can use multi-channel marketing strategies to carry out geo-targeted and local campaigns.
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Customer base expansion and higher personalization level
Maybe, one of the most significant benefits of multi-channel marketing is that you have a chance to increase your customer base without extra-acquisition expenses. When you target them on the right channels, you can deliver more personalized content, which in turn helps to increase the relevance of your message for your audience. Transfer the most relevant data to channels your clients prefer, and reach a higher level of personalization and customization.
Triggered Messages: One of the Most Efficient Methods of Multi-Channel Marketing
Triggered messaging is one of the most powerful tools for marketers who want to provide their clients with relevant experience. This is the way to reach your clients using push notifications, triggered emails, or automated live-chat messages.
Such auto-messages contain specific data that correspond to your client’s needs regarding his/her real-time behavior on the website. The notifications work to respond to immediate customers’ needs.
What are the possible situations and scenarios of such customer/brand interaction? Well, we bet that every business has to face them regularly. For instance:
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Follow-ups
A follow-up email is sent to your customers’ inbox when there is a need to encourage them to make an action, like finishing a purchase, signing up for an account, subscribing, etc. Clients receive them in response to the particular actions they make on your resources.
Using follow-ups, you can encourage your visitors to convert into buyers, inform them about products they may like, send coupons, and remind them about exclusive offers. Using them, you can drive customers back to your site and remind them about your amazing goods.
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On-boarding messages
On-boarding notifications and emails are implemented to help your new clients get the extra value from your services. Such messages inform visitors about your special offers, benefits, interesting products, and help them to reach that special moment when they are ready to engage with your brand and buy your goods.
These are welcoming messages, personal offers, free trials, activation emails, nudge messages, “complete your profile” reminders, etc.
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New deals
Whenever you have beneficial offers or discounts, inform your customers about that via messaging systems. We bet that they will be glad to know that you have something special for them.
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Product updates announcement
A cool feature or service doesn’t exist without an efficient announcement! When you fail to inform your users that you have improved something, you waste the time of your colleagues who worked hard as well as your clients that were longing for updates.
The Product updates announcement will help you to keep your visitors aware of the best improvements you have to share.
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Abandoned cart reminder
When you remind your customers that they have left a cart without buying your precious products, you encourage them to return. Trigger them to come back noting which products they have abandoned and add a pitch of urgency – this will increase your chances to make an immediate deal.
Abandoned cart reminders can be sent via email, messengers, and even SMS. According to Chatfuel, Facebook Messenger brings 80% open rates on average compared to email’s 20%, and 35% click-through rates compared to email’s 2%.
Messengers are considered as the most effective communication channel for abandoned cart reminders. Make sure to use a friendly and conversational tone for your message – this way, you won’t interrupt customers’ everyday scrolling and chatting.
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Respond to customers’ inactivity
Your clients might have tight schedules: family responsibilities, work, hobbies, and parties are integral parts of their lives. Don’t let them forget about your services and win their attention back!. Push notifications triggered emails and automated live-chat messages can be used to re-engage your visitors.
You may include information about limited offers, discounts that are valid for a specific period, or coupon expiration date to ensure that they will come back as soon as possible.
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Rewards
Every brand wants to convert customers into real brand fans. To do so, you should reward their positive behavior and motivate them to carry on. Highly-engaged clients that share promo-codes and invite their friends to buy your goods deserve special attention. Personalized messages will continue the loyalty loop and encourage them to come back.
Provide them with special discount offers to show your appreciation for their loyalty.
How to Start Using Triggered Messages?
The very first step in your messaging campaign is the special software that supports event-based messaging. Such software is usually automatic and if you already have one, then you need to proceed with the following actions:
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Choose the events
Triggered messages are connected with particular events. You need to choose customer-related events to send triggered notifications to them at the right time. Whether it is an opened app or an abandoned cart, you need to track clients’ behavior not to miss your chance.
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Collect customer data
Make sure to gather all the valuable data to make your message targeted. For example, if your customer has been browsing backpacks on the mobile phone, but he/she makes a purchase on a computer, you need to collect data about his/her behavior from both devices. This way, you will get the full picture and make your communication personalized.
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Mind the value
The main point in delivering triggered messaging is making it relevant to the particular action your clients make. For instance, when your client is not far away from your physical store, you can use a location targeting tool to send a message that informs him/her about the sale. This will add value to your triggered messaging.
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Set the time period
Some campaigns have a natural lifespan, like promotional outreach or time-sensitive messaging. Also, there are triggered messages that help your clients to get through the on-boarding process – they are always relevant. It makes sense to set the period for particular triggered messages and adjust the time when they are sent. When it comes to push-up notifications, make sure to set specific window time for them not to irritate your potential buyers.
Is it Possible to Make your Customers Annoyed with Triggered Messages?
It is, so you should be careful when implementing this feature. Make sure to create a comprehensive, useful, and relevant engagement strategy to reach and encourage your visitors to become buyers.
In a word, make them more useful than promotional and demonstrate your eagerness to help. Try to create different branches of messages that correspond to various potential paths your clients may follow.
Of course, it is more than possible to overwhelm your customers with notifications and emails. As a result, you can get the opposite outcome and lose sales. Don’t overdo with the number of messages, otherwise, some visitors will unsubscribe and uninstall your app in case it is too annoying.
To avoid this unpleasant scenario, try to reach them when you really have something to say. Instead of sending regular messages once a week, remind them about your resources when you have special offers and highly-important events only.
Final Thoughts
Multi-channel marketing as a whole and triggered messages, in particular, can help you build an efficient strategy – beneficial for you and your customers. These methods of audience reach allow you to provide valuable and interactive user experience to your visitors. Triggered messaging works in real-time improving customers’ engagement and guiding them through your website. The best thing about triggered messaging is that this strategy considers each client’s preferences, behavior, previous choices, and potential needs. Help them make a purchase, finish the account, or discover a great discount offer. Keep in touch with your clients and convince them that you really care!
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Lidia Bondarenko is a PR and outreach specialist at HelpCrunch, an all-in-one customer communication platform. Her professional experience encompasses customer service improvement, social media marketing, and SEO. Her free time she spends searching for new marketing trends and tv shows, and practicing yoga. Follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn.