Email Triggers

Sales Triggers in Email Marketing

Email marketing is an effective way to engage with your audience and stay top-of-mind. Sending out newsletters and event follow-ups are a simple way to share your new content and help further educate your prospects on your business.
 
To take full advantage of your email marketing efforts, it’s important to be aware of the sales triggers provided in your email campaign results. Knowing what email triggers to look for will help inform your sales team and discern where each person is in the buying cycle.

 

Email Trigger #1: Who opened the email?

 
While most consider the open rate of an email campaign to be an indication of success, actually diving into who opened the email, and the number of times they opened, provides much more fruitful information.
 
If a contact hasn’t opened your email at all, it’s hard to gauge what aspect of your business is most interesting to him or her. But if someone has opened your email, especially if he or she has opened more than once, this indicates that something in your content is resonating. Depending on who this person is (i.e. not an internal contact), your sales team may want to consider sending a more personal email message to identify this person’s interests and pain points.
 

Email Trigger #2: Who clicked?

 
Clicks on an email are much more sticky since they are an indication of someone’s interest in a specific topic. Noting who is clicking on your emails can help narrow down your target prospect. Are they decision makers? Are they using professional email addresses? Have you done business before? Knowing these answers will help you target your content and help your sales team tailor their follow up emails.
 

Email Trigger #3: What did they click on?

 
Different types of links are more sticky than others. If someone clicks on your logo and goes to your home page, that’s great, but doesn’t indicate what they are actually interested in. On the flip side, if someone clicks on a blog about the best time to buy your product, this shows express interest in your offering and should be a huge sales trigger to your sales team.
 
If you have a new product offering that you’re hoping to push, take note of anyone who clicks on a related link or blog to follow up with directly. When your sales team is formulating follow up emails, take the links the contact clicked on into consideration. This will help provide insight into any concerns or questions they may have in conversations going forward.
 

Email Trigger #4: Bounces

 
Although not a direct indication of interest, noting any email bounces can help open a conversation with a particular company or account.
 
There are two types of bounces: hard and soft. The former means that the email never landed in an inbox, which means the email doesn’t exist. There may be a syntax or spelling error in the email, but this could also indicate that your contact no longer works at that company. In this case, get on LinkedIn and find out where your contact is now, and who has replaced them. Both may create opportunities for new business and will generate better connections.
 
A soft bounce may mean that your contact’s inbox is full, or they have set up out-of-office replies while on vacation. Either way, your sales team may want to reach out through other avenues, such as on social media or by calling directly. Confirming that your contact is still at the company is important to know so that none of your accounts go cold.
 

Email Trigger #5: Top links clicked in your email

 
Having an overall report on your campaign’s activity will help you understand what email triggers are resonating most with your audience.
 
Imagine you have an enticing offer featured in your campaign, but it received a very low click rate compared to the other content in your campaign. This is an indication that the marketing for that offering isn’t the most effective solution for your audience. Use A/B testing on your next campaign, or on other marketing platforms such as social media, to find out what exactly isn’t working, and fix it.
 
On the flip side, noting your top links will inform you on what your audience wants to see more of. If one of your products received a ton of clicks, consider sending out a special coupon for that product to entice buyers. Or if your blog content is being heavily engaged with, consider allocating more time to creating awesome content!
 
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Sales Triggers in Email Marketing