Understanding the concept of Real-time Marketing Triggers and Journey's
Real-time marketing can at first be overwhelming. There are many moving parts to customer journey orchestration and sometimes it can be a little difficult knowing where to begin.
I’ve found understanding terminology within the app and getting your head around the initial concept can be half the battle
WHAT IS A TRIGGER?
Think of a trigger as an action that takes places. It’s a creation of a record or a change to a record in dynamics; It’s the behaviour that initiates a chain of events (I.e a customer journey)
For example a candidate for interview has not been successful in the interview process and HR want to send an email to update the candidate. The HR department updates the CV record and marks it as unsuccessful. The trigger here is the CV decision being updated.
WHAT IS A CUSTOMER JOURNEY?
A customer journey is the orchestration of events that take place off the back of a trigger. So sticking with the HR example;
There are 2 different outcomes to a CV Decision. Successful and Unsuccessful. If HR updates the decision to Successful the expectation is that a Congratulations Email will be sent and then 1 day later a follow up email to inform the candidate of next steps. However, If HR update the decision to Unsuccessful then the expectation is that 3days later they want an email to be sent to inform the candidate that they were Unsuccessful. So to reiterate, here the trigger is the same but the decision outcome acts as the differentiator to receiving one communication over the other within a customer journey. A candidate will enter the customer journey and will receive the communication that is relevant to their CV decision.
Imagine a few days go by and the candidate calls the HR department and Accepts the job offer. The HR team then go into the system and update the Job Offer Status to Candidate Accepted. This change on the Job Offer Status field becomes a new trigger for a new customer journey which then sends the candidate numerous of on boarding emails if the Job Offer has been Accepted, or in the event the applicant does not accept the Job Offer a “Goodbye for now” email is sent to the applicant.
TIPS FOR IDENTIFYING TRIGGERS/CUSTOMER JOURNEYS
Ask yourself
What is the field in dynamics that initiates an action? (Eg. An email being sent)…. this will give you a starting point for your trigger
Is there any scenario where I wouldn’t want this to trigger a communication? Using the HR example…. Maybe these emails only apply for Candidates that are applying for roles in London and not for roles in Liverpool. Here we can add a condition to the trigger to only fire if the Job Location field equals London.
OK I have my distinct triggers for all of the emails that I want to send. Do any of these emails have the same initial trigger? Now what’s the difference in receiving one communication over another communication? Or is it that they receive all communications one after the other with a day in between each communication?
