Brands aren’t having any difficulty collecting data, yet they struggle to provide consumers with meaningful engagements, continuously blasting push notifications and emails that rarely catch the consumer’s eye. Marketers want a return on their efforts. So how do you create offers that stand out above the rest? Deliver event-triggered offers. According to Gartner “Event-triggered offers can be up to five times more effective than traditional campaigns”. Keep reading for a few examples of how companies can incorporate event-triggered offers into their strategy to stand out and crush the competition.
Birthdays
Customers want to be recognized on their birthday. It’s a special day and brands should know this the same way friends and family do. A great example of a brand delivering birthday-triggered offers is Starbucks. The coffee chain provides customers with an offer for a free drink or snack on their special day. This drives people into the store to redeem their free offer while also increasing the chance they purchase additional products. To replicate this, companies can utilize their customer data to send customers personalized discounts for their favorite meal, or an article of clothing they’ve shown a propensity to buy.
Game Day
Game day is the prime time to get my attention. I’m constantly on my phone checking out team news, updating my fantasy team and watching highlights to get excited. Send me an offer pertaining to my favorite team, and you’re almost guaranteed I open it. Kudos to Fanatics for capitalizing on this when they sent me an offer for 25% off gear for my favorite football team. I ended up making a purchase when ordinarily I wouldn’t have. This kind of event-trigger doesn’t have to just apply to sports though. Whether it’s a movie or video game release, a new TV show, or the start of an event, your audience is likely to be tuned into all things regarding their interest. Take advantage and send a personalized offer!
Anniversaries
Many brands are committing a major offense; they forgot your anniversary– and no, I don’t mean your wedding anniversary. I mean periods of time since a customer last made a purchase, or joined your loyalty program. If a customer hasn’t purchased anything for 90 days send them an offer for an item based on their purchase history. Have a customer that has been a member of your loyalty program for a year? Send them an offer similar to the birthday scenario to thank them for their membership and commitment. To engender lasting loyalty from customers you must show them how valuable their business is to you.
Tripping a Beacon
Utilize your location monitoring technology to send personalized offers when your customers trip a beacon. This can be a great way to drive them into your store and away from the competition. There are hundreds of choices out there for where to eat, where to shop, and beyond. Being able to break through the clutter is critical. Take advantage of location data and deliver engagements when customers are nearby and likely to visit your establishment.
Weather
One of the best use cases for event-triggered offers is the weather. There is nothing like a cold snowy day to make someone crave a warm drink, or a hot day to make someone yearn for a cold beverage. Few things have the ability to impact the emotions of your customers the way weather can. When it’s freezing cold in Boston, send members of your loyalty program an offer for half off a hot drink. When it’s brutally hot in Miami, send members there an offer for half off a cold drink. Utilize the weather to deliver engagements that boost loyalty and traffic.
Finding avenues to break through the clutter distracting your customer is an arduous task. However, the ‘one size fits all’ generic messages that many companies keep sending lack value and relevance to customers. In fact, according to Digital Connections, nearly half of consumers will disregard a brand if they are sent irrelevant messages. This is where having a single view of the customer comes into play. With a single view, brands can provide customers with a seamless experience across all touchpoints. Allowing for engagements that are segmented based on different customer attributes or actions. The goal is to get your customer into stores and maximize their spend. With unified, actionable data brands can take precise action to increase customer recency, frequency and spend.
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