Responding to your audience with your email marketing is vital. It’s what turns a monologue into peppy dialogue, and customers appreciate that give-and-take. Keeping up with your end of the conversation gets more challenging as your company grows, which is why triggered email is such a boon to businesses. Marketers who just use triggered email for autoresponses and shopping cart reminders are missing out on some of its biggest benefits as a lead nurturing tool.

With a well-designed flow of triggered email messages, you can give new leads a customized welcome, remind them when it’s time to restock, and remind long-time customers of what they’re missing if they haven’t visited in a while. Your goal isn’t just to react to a single action but to establish a logical progression of activity – progress that guides people along their buying journey.

Introductory Flow
When a visitor signs up for your newsletter or downloads content from your site, an autoresponder handles the essentials, but why stop there? What else do you want to say to welcome new prospects? You don’t want to come on too strong with loyalty program offers or flood their in-boxes with discounts, but establishing a welcome series of emails set to roll out as new arrivals interact with your site helps set the tone for all your future contact with them.

Request Series
Triggered emails also make your email marketing more agile. When you get a request for more information, you’re able to supply it immediately, but just as important, you get instant feedback on where your lead is in the buying process. Marketing automation systems track people’s behavioral cues and can even anticipate what they’re likely to need. Imagine how smart you look when the customer browsing your company’s online catalog gets email that day featuring a new and improved version of the items they were eyeing.

Restock Reminders
Buying histories tell fascinating stories about your regular customers. For example, you can learn who shops monthly and who visits quarterly, which equipment might be due for service, or how quickly a client goes through paper. Knowing these facts, you’re able to set up triggered email to remind people to resupply with you even before they know they need it.

Energizing Your Customers
Even the best customer’s attention sometimes wanders. Give them reasons to pay attention with a triggered email marketing series that reaches out to past customers and current clients who might need some encouragement to graduate to brand ambassadors. Here’s where your brand loyalty and refer-a-friend programs shine.

Intelligent Triggers
Email marketing software has gotten incredibly sophisticated. As part of a marketing automation system, it integrates with your social marketing channels, demographic and firmographic data, and current events to make your triggered email more relevant than ever. Let’s say you’re selling rain gear. Your email marketing campaign can now monitor the weather in your region, spot a high chance for thunderstorms, and send a quick email blast to people in the area to show them your latest line. When it’s sunny, send discounts so customers can buy for a rainy day. The possibility for intelligent triggers to make the most of your email marketing is limited only by your creativity.

Triggered email is so much more than autoresponders. Develop a script for the conversations your customers want to have with you, and you’re ready to talk with them no matter how your business grows.