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What's Happening?
5 steps to reaching customers
through event-triggered marketing
y Cliff Conneighton
l
Oday's generation ofInternetempowered customers is
inundated with choice. No
longer will a prospect's interest
be piqued simply by an annual
sale at the retailer down the street
when he can avail himself of the
same or similar products offered
around the globe at the time
of his choosing.
With customers now having so
much control and so many choices,
retailers need to do more than
just offer a competitively priced
product to attract-and keepcustomers. They need to offer an
Q:) engaging long-term experience
that demonstrates understanding
C') of exactly who the customer is and
what he needs, and then delivers
the offer at just the right time. To
~ initiate and maintain loyal and
profitable customer relationships,
Q:) retailers need to communicate in
ways that are meaningful to an
individual customer's needs and
are informed by the context of his
current situation.
s:
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Defining 'event'
There are multiple names for
this concept: "event-triggered
marketing," "dialogue marketing,"
and "event-driven marketing" are
three of the most common. They
all address the same issue of hitting
the right audience segment at the
right time with the right message.
Mter all, strong customer relationships rarely begin by broadcasting
every message and promotion
to every contact in a database.
With customers deluged by inbox
overload, it's the combination of
proper timing, precise targeting, and
I.
Internet Retailer. May 2006
compelling content that determines
tremendous amount of information
whether a retailer's message will ever
about customers and prospects,
reach the intended audience and
including their preferences and
motivate them to act.
interests-even if the visitor
When someone has taken
remains anonymous. It is a medium
personal time to contact your
through which visitors give retailbusiness, she
ers information about
is triggering
an event. That
themselves just
event may be a
by browsing
particular
request for more
information, an
types of prodinquiry about a
ucts, viewing
delivery status
particular
articles, runor a cry for help.
Likewise, hitting
ning particular
a milestone, such
searches or
as a product warasking particular types
ranty coming to
an end, represents
of self-service
another type of
questions.
event. A busiFor example,
ness's response to
apparel retailers
Cliff Conneighton, senior vice president of marketthese customer
can
figure out
ing for Art Technology Group Inc., is responsible
events will either for directing worldwide development, planning
which styles
Impress or aggra- and execution of all of ATG's marketing initiatives. most appeal to
vate the prospect. The outcome
an individual prospect as determined
will likely depend on how relevant
by the clothing brands he previews;
consumer electronics vendors can
and fulfilling that response is for
find out if a recent customer is
that individual customer.
Everyone can agree that
struggling with a product installation based on the documentation
conceptually, event-triggered
she downloads; financial services
marketing makes sense, but the key
firms can determine if a prospect is
question is how to turn the concept
a conservative or high-risk investor
into reality.
based on the funds she researches.
Step 1: Start by understanding your
No matter the industry, information
customers and what they want
about prospects and customers can
While the web has created an
be gleaned by taking a close look at
ultra-competitive marketplace, it
their activities on a web site.
has also created an unprecedented
While the web is certainly a
good place to learn about prospects
opportunity for businesses to get
and customers, other channels also
to know customers in ways that
were never before possible. A web
offer the opportunity to get to know
them better. Inbound e-mail and
site offers the ability to learn a
www.internetretailer.com
phone calls can offer insight into a
customer's needs and provide insight
into the state of the relationship.
Step 2:Create your customer segments
or personas
While attempting to deal with
every customer personally is the
goal, creating an individual approach
for each customer simply isn't
scalable. But by building up profiles
of prospects and classifYing them
into one or more target audience,
retailers can plan campaigns along
the lines of their traditional customer
segmentation strategy. Or, alternatively, they can plan campaigns
around the notion of personas.
Personas offer an alternative way of
segmenting prospects that may not
necessarily mirror defined traditional
customer segments.
While segments are usually
defined in fairly concrete terms
based upon values of attributes
in an individual's profile (such as
gender is male and annual income
band is greater than $100,000),
personas are defined in terms of
people's characteristics, needs, and
motivations. Personas are fictional,
composite characters who represent the behavior of key customer
segments. A major software vendor
with millions of customers worldwide characterizes each customer as
one of 16 personas that span from
the technophobe to the technophile
and everyone in between. With
these personas in place, the vendor is
able to create a personalized experience for each customer and infuse
highly relevant content in web visits,
e-mails, contact center interactions,
and in-person encounters to fulfill
the customer's intent at every turn.
As a further example, think
about two people shopping for the
same plasma TV. They can have
very different buying criteria and
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The 5 steps to event-triggered marketing
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
Understand customers and what they' want
Create customer segments or personas
Provide the right information at the right time
Define events broadly
Automate the rocess
information needs. A technically
savvy consumer may be looking for
the latest, greatest model and will
want lots of technical information
and specs before buying. Yet, the
busy executive who cares most about
relaxing with her favorite movies
in the comfort of her own home
theater may just need to know how
easy it is to connect the TV to her
existing Surround Sound system.
Whether planning at a segment
or persona level, a merchant can
trigger steps based on an individual's
unique information needs, actions,
and timing-making it possible to
treat each customer as an individual,
while using a repeatable, scaleable
process to do it.
Step 3: Provide the right information
at the right time
Rather than presenting the same
message or promotion to every web
site visitor with the hope that it will
resonate with a small percentage,
content that is dynamically generated on your web site and caters
to a particular segment or persona
can generate much stronger results.
Associating shoppers with the right
segments/personas and presenting
them with relevant content will
demonstrate attentiveness to their
needs and a desire to help them
meet those needs. Such actions are
more likely to motivate that prospect
to take the next step.
Yet creating an ongoing'relationship with a customer generally
requires more than a single interaction or transaction. Rather, retailers
need to plan a series of communications that correlate with the profile
as well as with the successive actions
of the customer. For example, if a
customer visits a web site and asks
to be notified of holiday specials
but then does not respond when
he receives that e-mail, the retailer
must take the next step. That step
may be a reminder in the form of
a phone call from a salesperson. If,
after a week, the prospect still does
not respond, a second communication could be initiated in the form of
an e-mail with an even better offer.
By introducing triggers at critical
interaction points, businesses can
lead the customer down the optimal
path. To do that effectively, they
must monitor and respond to events
as they happen and maintain a
meaningful and relevant dialogue
with customers. That dialogue must
span channels. Some customer
interactions will trigger an e-mail
response, while others may activate
a customer service call. Still others
may prompt a sales call. Some of
these communications will call for
immediate action on the part of
the customer, while others lay the
groundwork for future interactions.
However, these communications,
interactions and transactions are
working together to create and
maintain an ongoing relationship
with the customer that is mutually
rewarding for him a.nd the retailer.
May 2006. Internet Retailer ~
·nternet
•
Step 4: Define events broadly
It is not only customer-initiated contaet that
should serve as the "trigger" for event-triggered
marketing. Often, unexpected business circumstances create a situation in which a tailored
campaign or offering can payoff substantially.
For example, Cabela's Inc. once discovered an
abundance of assorted large-sized men's shoes
in its warehouse. But due to the limited quantities of each unique shoe style, the company
was stymied by how best to offer them without
disappointing would-be buyers.
Through the Art Technology Group Inc.'s
online registration feature, Cabela's pulled out
contact information for all customers who specified they wore a size 14 or 15 shoe. An e-mail
was quickly sent to these customers, along with
a hotlink to Cabela's web site featuring photographs and descriptions of the boots and sandals,
and within one week, the company had sold 132
pairs of shoes destined for the bargain basket.
Step 5: Automate the process
To infuse relevance into each customer
interaction, a next-generation approach to electronic marketing is required. Companies who
understand that customers want their interactions to be relevant and consistent, regardless
of channel, are turning to tools like ATG
Outreach to closely integrate web site and
e-mail campaigns to ensure that all customer
communications are continually consistent
and relevant. Customer data for both channels are shared from existing databases, which
means there is no need to replicate or create
new databases. Today's advanced software can
create efficient, profitable processes that allow
organizations to treat each customer with the
personal touch she requires.
Frequent, well-choreographed customer
interactions centered on relevance are the
most rewarding-for both the retailer and the
customer. An effective approach to event-triggered marketing helps companies leverage the
rich understanding of their customers gained
through their web interactions, preferences and
behaviors, and use this insight as a basis to help
create more relevant, compelling, and personalized e-marketing and proactive customer service
campaigns.•
~ Internet Retailer. May 2006
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Sterling Commerce I
www.stertingcommerce.com/retail. .3
TechSmith Corporation I
www.morae.com
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VeriSign, Inc. I www.verisign.com 1
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YES Solutions I
www.yessolutions.cpm
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Yesmaill www.yesmail.com
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