Trigger-based marketing is a powerful technique designed to engage the customer at the precise moment when there is maximum opportunity to create or destroy value. This “Value in Play” as it is sometimes called presents an incredible opportunity for most organizations.

Unfortunately, many marketers only scratch the surface and execute a limited number of simple triggers, leaving opportunities for improvement, customer satisfaction and ROI on the table.

Triggers are nothing more than rules written against available data that define conditions that warrant action. Good trigger-based marketing strategies leverage these rules, combining them to form both simple and complex “events” and “moments” in the customer engagement process where a brand can create or add value. But to really tap into the potential of trigger-based marketing programs, we need to overcome two common rules challenges:

1. Use the Right Tool: Administering Rules

The challenge with most trigger based marketing programs is that they are not running on a tool that was optimized for rules administration. While there are dozens of very well crafted trigger-based marketing applications on the market, many organizations make the mistake of settling for a handful of trigger-based campaigns on Structured Query Language (SQL) statements. Why?

SQL is a powerful tool in which most organizations have already invested staff and server resources. And, granted, for some complex events there is no substitute. But trigger-based marketing by its very nature needs to be nimble and adaptable. Business stakeholders need the ability to manage a trigger-based rules library, update rules, add new rules and experiment on the drop of a dime, preferably without IT resources. A purely SQL-based rules system with no centralized place for administration or an abstraction layer to let less technical resources craft rules, edit logic, or experiment simply isn't the right approach. Way too many profitable opportunities are lost.

2. Use the Right Rule: Complex Rules for Simple Customer Behaviors

Simple customer actions over their lifecycle with a brand sometimes require that very complex trigger rules be running in the background. This more complicated class of consumer behavior triggers often demand specialized tools to really produce value. But without a business vision ahead of the infrastructure investment for the required tools, the trigger-based concepts never get implemented. And that's a costly waste of opportunity. Here's a comparative example:

A Simple Trigger

Send Mary a message if she makes a Money Market deposit of greater than $25,000. This is a simple event triggered on essentially one data element and a somewhat arbitrary limit of $25,000. The challenge with this type of simple rule logic is that $25,000 may not be an unusual event in Mary's existence. If Mary were the CEO of a large corporation this $25,000 “event” could be a fraction of the overall account value, and a simple distribution that occurs regularly throughout the year.

A More Complex Version of the Same Themed Trigger

Send Mary a message if she makes a Money Market deposit that is 7x greater than her average monthly deposit balance AND if she is over the age of 60 AND inquired about retirement products in the past six months.

This is a more complex and more accurate trigger because it is unique to Mary. The organization needs to understand Mary's “normal” deposit balance behavior, and then calculate 7x normal before triggering an action. It is also assumes that the organization is able to link events and data unrelated to the deposit.

Effectively tackling these challenges – using the right tools and the right rules – will give marketers the opportunity to think creatively and adopts dozens of trigger-based “events” that will take their marketing to the next level.

Paul Mandeville is the chief operating officer of Conversen, the software-as-a-service marketing technology innovator. He can be reached at paul.mandeville@conversen.com