From Batch to Behavioral: Why Behaviorally-Triggered Emails are Critical

Without question, email has become one of the most effective channels for business communication, proving time and time again to deliver the highest return on investment.

But, with the average individual receiving more than 120 emails per day, how can you make sure your emails will actually be opened and read?

In this guide, Ignite Visibility’s Director of Email Marketing, Kelly Olson is going to cover the necessary shift from “batch” to “behavioral” emails that will help you drive increased engagement, and thus conversion, in your email program.

Let’s get started!

What We’ll Cover:

• What is a Batch Email?
• Types of Batch Emails
• What is a Behavioral Email?
• Types of Behavioral Emails
• Shift from Batch to Behaviorally-Triggered Emails

What is a Batch Email?

Batch emailing describes a process in which a one-time, ad-hoc email is sent out, typically to a large segment or an entire subscriber list on a specific date. These types of email sends are also commonly known as promotional or calendar sends.

Put simply, the batch emailing involves sending a large swath of people the same message, many times with no specific segmenting or tailoring featured in the content.

Batch email sends are a necessary way to get timely promotional offers and announcements out to your entire subscriber list.

However, batch emails have garnered some criticism over the years for their relatively low engagement rates and subscribers are typically more inclined to unsubscribe or flag it as spam than they are with tailored, triggered emails.

Types of Batch Emails

Despite its downsides, batch emails are a fast and direct way to reach many recipients with your message at one time. Here are a few of the most popular types of emails that fall within this category:

Promotional Emails

These emails are meant to inform your audience about upcoming sales or deals and build brand awareness. To maximize engagement, you can also use promotional emails to suggest appropriate products or services to both existing and prospective customers.

Product Launch Emails

As the name implies, the purpose of a product launch email is to announce the launch of your company’s newest product, feature, update, or upcoming event. Keep in mind that it’s always a good idea to build anticipation before officially launching the product.

Newsletter Emails

Newsletters are a great way to keep subscribers in the loop about what’s going on in your business. They’re meant to be a one-stop-shop of information and are usually accompanied by tips and tricks, best practices, or guides designed to help customers understand your product or service a little better.

Contest/Giveaway Emails

A fool proof way to get your email contacts interested in your brand is by advertising a fun contest or giveaway. You can highlight a specific product and reward the subscriber for their interaction—a win-win for all.

What is a Behaviorally-Triggered Email?

A behavioral email is an automated email that is triggered by a recipient’s behavior on-site or cross channel.

You can strategically engage each segment of your list by delivering targeted messages that are most relevant to where the recipient is in the customer lifecycle.

In a study commissioned by MarketingSherpa, nearly 40% of marketers said that “automatically sending emails based on triggers” proved to be the most effective tactic for boosting email engagement.

Interestingly enough, only one in five email marketers were found to include behavioral targeting as part of their email marketing efforts, according to an Econsultancy survey.

Luckily, the potential for making the most out of behaviorally-triggered emails is limitless.

Types of Triggered Emails

Behavioral emails can be useful to your business for a multitude of reasons. For one, it helps you get a better idea of your customer’s preferences. But perhaps most importantly, it drives better results—higher email engagement, more website and social media activity, and more subscriptions.

If you’re ready to start delivering more personalized email campaigns, check out some of the examples below:

Welcome Emails

Did you know that roughly 80% of customers expect to receive a welcome email shortly after they sign up for a mailing list? A welcome email is the first interaction your brand has with a new subscriber after confirming their interest in you — and a Welcome Series is typically one of the highest automated revenue drivers in an email program.

Onboarding Emails

These emails are designed to help new customers understand how they’ll get value from your product or service.

This can be achieved by educating recipients on the key benefits they can expect to see, as well as guiding them through any next steps.

Cart Abandonment Emails

Cart abandonment emails have become a staple in ecommerce marketing and a top revenue generator.

It’s essentially a follow-up email sent to someone who minimally engaged with you and added items to their cart, but abandoned the site without checking out. Think of this email as a nudge to entice the person to come back and complete their purchase.

Browse Abandonment Emails

What if a user has browsed your site without adding any items to their cart? Do you cross your fingers and hope they’ll return at some point?

No—that’s when you hit them with a browse abandonment email. These emails allow you to retarget window shoppers, encourage them to go back to your site, and recapture lost conversions.

Search Abandonment Emails

Let’s say someone was looking at a specific category on your site, but never actually viewed a product. Maybe they only made it as far as your homepage and left before making any additional searches. This is where search abandonment emails can come in handy.

Post-Purchase Emails

Sending out post-purchase emails is one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve your retention. After all, the sale only marks the beginning of the consumer relationship.

By showing appreciation for the customer who bought your product, it guarantees a happy customer and can potentially increase brand loyalty and engagement.

Back in Stock Emails

As mentioned above, users get bombarded with over 100 emails per day.

But, that doesn’t mean they don’t want to be notified when a high-demand product is back in stock. Don’t be afraid to use high-quality images to grab their attention from the get-go.

Wish List Email

Many ecommerce sites allow shoppers to bookmark items that they like, but aren’t ready to buy quite yet.

This is a common practice, especially for customers that are researching options from numerous websites. Price often plays a role when this happens. That’s why this remarketing campaign approach is genius. Wish list emails alert customers that their favorited items are still available or on sale.

Re-Engagement Email

You may find that your email list is chalk full of users who aren’t engaging with your brand.

The good news is that you can build a re-engagement automation that aims to reactivate these unengaged subscribers. A study by Marketing Land even revealed that 45% of customers who receive a re-engagement email will open your emails in the future.

The Shift from Batch to Behaviorally-Triggered Emails

When compared to batch emails, behaviorally-triggered emails drive a whopping 624% higher conversion response for the same number of sends.

No wonder there’s a major shift taking place in favor of these triggered emails in the marketing world!

Let’s take a closer look at why behaviorally-driven email automation triggers are integral to the success of your email marketing program.

Firstly, it improves engagement. Triggering an email based on a specific action a subscriber took immediately creates relevance and a more tailored experience with your brand, directly affecting the rates at which a subscriber will engage.

Serving a potential customer the content or promotion they are looking for at the exact time they are looking for it yields much higher rates of engagement than serving it when you think it should be served.

Think of it like this—you’re browsing through a menu at a restaurant when you ask the server which salad they recommend. Instead of providing you with a few salad suggestions, the server brings out a burger since the restaurant is trying to get rid of excess patties. Do you eat the burger? Maybe — but you definitely didn’t get what you wanted and probably won’t come back. (And they surely won’t be receiving a tip with that type of service!)

Similarly, if someone’s behavior on your site indicates an interest in women’s apparel and you start sending emails pushing their men’s line, they won’t be hanging on your list for long.

Secondly, automated email triggers help you better understand your customers.

By analyzing your subscribers’ behavior, you can get an accurate sense of what they prefer, how they convert, and where they tend to drop off. This information will allow you to identify any gaps in the sales funnel.

And last but not least, these more personalized triggered emails prompt increased conversion and revenue.

Increased personalization = higher conversion rate.

With a more personalized email strategy that’s triggered and features dynamic elements that are pulled in based on subscriber behavior, you will see increases in engagement with each email that leads directly to higher conversion and sales rates.

Wrapping Up

If you’ve learned anything from today’s post, it’s to never underestimate the power of personalization.

Your customers aren’t one-dimensional, which means your email marketing tactics shouldn’t be either.

And while both promotional, or “batch”, emails and behaviorally-triggered emails are necessary in a comprehensive email program, a sophisticated program will successfully utilize both types of email sends in the appropriate instances, thus helping you anticipate your customers’ needs and starting to communicate with them in a more long-term and meaningful way.