I’ve written a few posts on engagement this year and I have a feature article in Associations Now coming out in a month or so on the topic. One important concept that I touch on a bit in the article is that of identifying the natural precursors to a product or service among your other offerings.

If you review your data you should be able to identify segments of your customers who are more likely to buy product B if they have already purchased product A. Or they may have taken some other action you have captured that represents a meaningful change that opens new opportunities for you to provide value.

You can map out these connections and essentially develop an acceleration path comprised of a targeted chain of value that you can offer to relevant people.

My friend Tom Breur, a master at turning data into dollars, wrote recently in his newsletter about using automated triggers in your database to target customers for additional value when they have made a relevant purchase or taken some other step that indicates they are suitable. With Tom’s permission, I have quoted the relevant passage below:

Transactions Initiate Trigger-Based Marketing

Event-based marketing are actions that are triggered by changes in the customer’s life. The term trigger-based marketing is also commonly used. We would consider an “event” a complex, multi-faceted occurrence in the customer’s life. “Some” (unusual) transaction will be a signal this event has taken place. For instance, a customer who has bought a house will subsequently change address. Or a (female) customer who gets married changes her name. A customer reports a stolen credit card, etcetera. Sometimes it is clear from the transaction which event has taken place (like in the case of a female changing her name after getting married), and sometimes it isn’t.

If you understand the implications of an event to the customer’s life, it can help you in servicing the customer better. Or possibly selling additional products. This can become a very efficient means of interacting if the campaign or dialogue follows automatically from the transaction that triggers identification of the event.

The key, as Tom points out, is to understand the changing needs reflected behind a particular action you record in your database and determine what targeted value you can offer to them.

What are the most meaningful actions you currently capture? Based on that, what you can you offer to those people that is powerfully valuable to them given the new scenario they are in?

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