Trigger Emails

6 Clever Triggered Emails to Inspire Your Marketing Automation

by Sam Kusinitz

July 10, 2014 at 6:00 AM

133
inShare

Triggered emails can be a great way to deliver the right content at the right time to the right people. A sincere thank you, a courteous confirmation, or a concerned abandoned cart message that automatically follows a specific behavior someone took on your website can be the difference between a very happy customer and losing a contact altogether.
As long as the automated email is relevant, timely, and provides value to the recipient, triggered emails can be used to save marketers a tremendous amount of time and, more importantly, better engage your contact database.
Take a look at the examples below for some ideas of triggered emails you can incorporate into your own email marketing campaigns.

1) Uber: The Welcome Email

Uber sends an automated welcome email to anyone who registers for their services. The welcome email is simple and straightforward, welcoming new users and thanking them for signing up for Uber. To assist the new users and to encourage them to actually start using the car service, the welcome email also explains how Uber works in three simple steps, followed by a few tips on getting started with Uber. We love how Uber capitalizes on this opportunity to further educate their users.

2) Dropbox: The Re-engagement Email

Dropbox uses a triggered email to re-engage people who signed up for Dropbox, but have not actually installed the software on their computers yet.
The first great thing about this email is it uses personalization tokes to address the recipient directly, using his first name. The body of the email is very brief, which is nice. The text identifies a few specific ways Dropbox can assist you in organizing your files and a large blue CTA is noticably positioned directly in the middle of the email. It's short, sweet, yet still informative -- exactly what people in a re-engagement campaign need.

3) ModCloth: The Date/Time Tigger Email

ModCloth sends this email to people who have been subscribed to ModCloth’s email list for six months to celebrate their “anniversary” together. Of course, the true purpose of this email is to drive contacts back to their website -- and maybe make a purchase. To encourage recipients to visit ModCloth’s site and make a purchase, the anniversary email offers a coupon code for $5 off the contact’s next purchase. It's a small thing for ModCloth to give up in exchange for repeat business.

Source: Pure360

4) Amazon: The Thank-You Email

Amazon uses this triggered thank-you email to drive customers back to their site and gain information about the consumer that can be used to suggest additional products in the future.
In addition to thanking the customer for their recent purchase and personalizing the message using the consumer's full name, the email also asks the recipient to review their new product. And chances are, people are only going to review products they feel strongly about. Based on the products they review and how they review the product, Amazon can show them products they may like in the future. Plus, if the person ends up leaving a review, it could convince someone else to buy that product, too.

5) Zappos: The Confirmation Email

No one likes waiting day after day for a package arrive, wondering whether or not the item was ever actually shipped. To quell unnecessary anxiety, Zappos sends an automated email to customers as soon as their package is shipped. The email is personalized as it provides a picture of the specific item(s) the consumer purchased as well as the shipping address, a link to the order information, and the anticipated delivery date.
As the bottom of the email states, one of the core values at Zappos is to “create fun and a little weirdness." The email clearly adheres to this value addressing the recipient as “Zappos Zealot” and closing the intro to the email with “XOXO, Zappos.com."

6) Urban Outfitters: The Unsubscribe Email

Urban Outfitters automatically sends this email to people when they request to unsubscribe from the clothing store’s emails. The purpose of this automated email is a last-ditch effort to convince recipients not to unsubscribe. To appeal to their young adult target audience, this email creatively plays on the idea of a salvaging a relationship.
Rather than simply providing a checkbox to either confirm the unsubscribe request or remain on UO’s email list, this email features an amusing image of a text messaging conversation that expresses Urban Outfitter’s desire to avoid “breaking up” with the recipient who is shown as contact “BFF” on the mobile phone. We love how this email is something that their buyer persona can definitely relate to.

Blogging

How to Hire a World-Class Blogger for Your Company

by Neil Patel on June 25, 2014

You know the benefits of blogging, but you don’t have the time to blog yourself. What should you do? Hire a blogger, right?
You should. But do you know how to find a great blogger?
Luckily for you, I’ve had a lot of experience in hiring bloggers for both KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg. Some of these bloggers worked out great, while others did not. Through the whole process, I’ve learned where to find great bloggers and what to look for when hiring them.

How to hire an exceptional blogger

Unlike for most jobs, you don’t find world-class bloggers through job postings. It’s not because a lot of great bloggers are already busy. In reality, a lot of them are not. Not only that, most of them don’t even get paid well.
The simplest way to find a great blogger is to scour marketing blogs. Although your business may not be about marketing, it doesn’t matter in this particular case. A great blogger can write on any topic due to the fact that anything can be researched on the web.
The first thing you want to do is make a list of all the popular marketing blogs such as Copyblogger, Problogger, KISSmetrics, and Moz. Each of those blogs accepts guest posters, which is what you want to look for.
Typically, if a blogger was able to get his or her content published on one of those blogs, this person is a good enough blogger as each of those blogs has strict editorial guidelines.

What a world-class blogger looks like

Now that you have a list of potential bloggers to hire, you need to look for the following qualities:

1. Traffic generation abilities – if the posts they are writing receive more social shares than other posts published on that same blog, it doesn’t necessarily mean that their content is better. It usually means they know how to generate traffic. Two of my blogs are run with content published by guest bloggers, and I’ve learned that some of these bloggers are great at promoting content, while others are only good at the writing part. You want to hire the ones that are good at both writing and promotion. Typically, if their content has more social shares, they understand content promotion.
2. Conversational writing style – no one wants to read an essay. Blog posts are supposed to be conversational and fun to read. Look for writers that use the words “you” and “I” a lot within their blog posts. This is important because I’ve found that bloggers who don’t write in a conversational tone receive 31% fewer comments per post. You want more comments because that means more engagement, and engaged readers are more likely to convert into customers.
3. Storytelling – you only have 8 seconds to grab the attention of your readers. That’s short! So short that it’s actually a second shorter than the attention span of a gold fish. One of the best ways to hook a reader is by telling a story. If the blogger can incorporate stories within each blog post, these posts will be more likely to be read.
4. Analytical abilities – how do you prove a point? By using facts and data, right? You don’t want to hire a blogger who can’t prove a point. Why? Because I’ve found that blog posts that contain data and stats, assuming they are accurate, generate 28% more social shares. That means more traffic to your blog.

Conclusion

When it comes to evaluating bloggers’ abilities, you don’t have to look further than the points above. Sure, there are other important qualities a blogger should have. The advantage of finding these bloggers on other popular blogs is that those other qualities have already been pre-vetted for you.
Once you find a few bloggers that meet the requirements above, you’ll want to shoot them an email asking if they are interested in contractual gigs. Contract means you just pay them for every blog post they write.
What you’ll find is that most of these bloggers will want $100 to $200 for a blog post between 1,000 and 2,000 words. Paying more than $200 usually isn’t worth it unless your ROI warrants it. And paying less than $100 isn’t very realistic as most good bloggers spend four to five hours writing a great post. That means you would be paying them less than $20 an hour.
It’s as simple as that. There isn’t much more to finding a world-class blogger.