July 6, 2012

89 Degrees Releases New White Paper To Guide Trigger Marketing Success: Survey-Based Study Shows ROI Opportunity for Trigger-Based Marketing

89 Degrees (www.89degrees.com), a next-generation marketing solutions provider that uses advanced analytics to drive better engagement for multichannel marketers, has released It's Time to Pull the Trigger on Behaviorally Targeted Marketing, a PACE Yourself white paper from the 89 Degrees leadership series. The nine-page brief, based on results from 89 Degrees' survey and study of 153 marketers' customer engagement and marketing optimization practices, addresses the opportunity for micro-targeted, high-ROI "trigger" programs. The study finds these practices have been widely adopted, yet still make up a relatively small portion of marketers' contacts — a costly oversight, considering trigger programs' highly profitability. PACE, the Pathway to Advanced Customer Engagement, is the foundation for 89 Degrees' proprietary road mapping and benchmarking methodology. The PACE study examines marketing practices according to 20 attributes that measure levels of customer engagement and marketing optimization. "An unsettling trend — and one that marketers may find more unsettling in the years to come — is declining customer engagement across many channels as consumers demand relationships more tuned to their needs," said Phil Hussey, president of 89 Degrees, in a company release. "Now is the time for marketers to make far better use of the wealth of behavioral data they already collect, and pay off the promise of relevant communications."

Pace Survey: Key Trigger Findings

• 89 Degrees discovered that less than 20% of marketers are "often" delivering customized communications based on the consumer's behavioral data.
• Only 19% of marketers "often" deploy customer lifecycle triggers, while 22% are not using them at all.
• Less than half of the retailers surveyed are customizing communications through automated triggers.
• Only 3% of marketers are using Clickstream triggers often, while 78% report they seldom/never use them — despite the fact that the study also showed use of these kinds of communications lead to higher overall ROI.

Trigger Success: Steps to Take

The white paper reviews steps marketers can take with triggers to communicate the right message at the right time and place to reach customers and prospects, including:

• Accelerate the Consumer Buying Cycle with Profile & Lifecycle Triggers
• Build an engaging preference center
• Purchase Triggers
• Establish a Loyalty Program
• Clickstream Triggers
• When Not to Sell

"Trigger programs can gently steer the customer towards what's next in their relationship with your brand," said Mr. Hussey. "Done well, these triggers can give you a significant competitive edge; our data shows they deliver 300% higher performance than general email promotions."

Download the report here.