I am a big believer in email marketing. Not just your normal weekly email to your house list, but also trigger email marketing. Look, if you can set your email campaigns based off your customers behavior – that is marketing while you sleep! That is a good thing for a small to medium business.

In a recent report by Sucharita Mulpuru from Forrester Research entitles “The State Of Retailing Online 2009: Marketing” emailing to your house list was the most successful tactic overall. (See 7-2)

I break email marketing into 2 general categories, Campaign email marketing and Trigger email marketing. I want to focus on trigger email marketing for this post.

So what is trigger email marketing?? Based off the action of your customer a personalized email is sent. It is really that easy. I break trigger emails into 4 board groups: Service, Follow-up, Behavioral, Recovery. Lets look at each one individually.

Service:
Most companies have a customer service page. Hopefully that customer service page is a form that has a service category pull down predefined. Customer comes to your form, looks like they have a question about an order, they select “order question” for the predefined pull down. So now, that request is generated. Here is a trigger point. Have your email system send a predefined FAQ response that is personalized for that customer. Don’t stop there!!! The point of any contact with a customer should be to a) assisted them b) ABS – “Always Be Selling” – send a cross-sell or up-sell product in that email based on the information you have about that customer or customer order. Keep it simple, but always put something in front of the customer that they may want based on past behavior.

Follow-Up:
In is pretty much common practice to send an order confirmation and a shipment confirmation. Pretty common in the shipment confirmation to have a tracking number. Why not send a post order thank you note with a cross or up-sale opportunity. Maybe a coupon offer for first time buyers. Whatever it is, be creative and use the information you already have to ABS!! Not only are you putting your company in a position to create a repeat buyer, but your are also providing a customer experience to promote loyalty. A thank you note that is personalized says something about your company! Be creative. You can send a thank you note 2 days after delivery, a cross sell 5 days after delivery, a coupon offer 10 days after delivery etc. The follow-up can initiate a mini-personalize campaign for that customer.

Behavior:
OK, so a customer opens your weekly email campaign, clicks through but does not purchase. You now have a trigger. What did the customer look at? Go get them!!! Trigger an email on the product, category whatever they looked out and pull them back onto your web site!!

Recovery:
This is really abandon cart marketing. Customer comes onto your site, add an item to the cart and leaves. What are you going to do with that information? Let it sit in your log file so Google Analytics can report on it?? NO!! Go get them. Send them an email. Customize it to the point of exit in your shopping cart flow. Send them an offer to complete the cart. Bring them back!

These are just a couple of ideas. Be creative and use the tools and information that you already have. Make the most of your customers behaviors and personalize the customer experience. You have a powerful and effective tool in email marketing. Make the most of it!

Chris Reighley is an eCommerce marketing professional, online consumer behavior expert and social marketing evangelist. He is currently working on a PhD in eCommerce for Northcentral University in Prescott Valley, Arizona.  Chris owned and operated many ecommerce retail stores in the music, golf and health & beauty categories.  Currently Chris is the Director of eCommerce at FillTek in Cincinnati, Ohio where he works with online retailers such as Hugo Boss, Tretorn, Tommy Hilfiger and Bluefly