Triggered campaigns are a great way of keeping a conversation going with a client and providing them with more information on a topic you think they might want to know more about. They’re easy to plan in advance and happen automatically, meaning you can include them as part of a marketing plan, but then don’t actually need to go back and press the ‘go’ button – the system will do it for you.

There are plenty of ways to use triggered campaigns but a popular method amongst e-marketers is to use a link click by a recipient as the ‘trigger’. You send out your first campaign and if a contact clicks on a specific link within it, then a second email is triggered and sent to the contact.

The best way to show how to use this in practice is to work through an example, so let’s say you’ve sent your monthly eNewsletter out to your clients. Within that newsletter, you’ve included a brief article called ‘What is Auto-Enrolment?’, where you discuss the topic in brief, providing clients with information on what they can expect over the next few months as the scheme beds in.

Anyone who clicks on the link in the newsletter is probably interested in the topic and, for those people, you’ve prepared a ‘Free Guide To Auto-Enrolment’, to give them more information. Using MailFirst, the guide can be automatically emailed to clients who click on the ‘What is Auto-Enrolment?’ link.

Firstly, create both of your campaigns; your newsletter and your follow-up campaign and flag the latter as a triggered campaign. You do this on the ‘Create’ page by clicking ‘Campaign Settings’ and then changing the toggle to ‘Triggered’.

Now go back to your first campaign – in our example, your newsletter – and, using the shortcuts at the top left, navigate to the ‘contacts’ page.

Click the link at the bottom of that page to ‘add event triggered emails or auto responders to this campaign’ and the following box will appear.

In our example, we’re going to select to send an email once a contact has ‘clicked a specific link’. In the next box type the number of times you want the contact to have clicked before they get the triggered email (we recommend ’1′ for most campaigns). Then select the link they need to have clicked from the list that appears. You can see above that we picked the ‘what is auto enrolment web article’ as the link that needs to be clicked. From the ‘send this campaign’ menu, select the triggered campaign you created, which in our example is the ‘Free auto-enrolment guide!’ and choose how long after the original campaign the contacts should receive the new campaign. 24 hours is probably a good idea for most.

Click the button to save, and you’re done! Send out your newsletter as normal and watch every contact who clicks the link to read more about auto-enrolment receive their free guide automatically, without you having to lift another finger!

by Sam Turner. Sam is ClientsFirst’s Marketing Executive and writes here on topics including; inbound and content marketing, social media, design and e-marketing. He likes all of those things as well as travel, golf and frequent cups of tea. You can find him on Google+, Twitter & LinkedIn.

ClientsFirst Managing Director Jon Pittham will be appearing on AdviserHangout at 1.00pm on Wednesday 12th June, in the company of host Abraham Okusanya.

Together they will be talking through some of the marketing challenges facing firms and individuals in the financial services sector.

Covering topics such as SEO, inbound marketing, the importance of content and what exactly advisers can do to attract the right kind of clients online, Jon and Abraham from FinalytiQ will cover off all of the hottest topics in marketing at the moment and look at just how applicable they are to financial services professionals.

A feed of Jon and Abraham’s conversation will be available to view below from 1.00pm on Wednesday.

[Update]: a full recording of Jon and Abraham discussing how advisers can keep in touch with clients, how to attract new prospects, how to present your expertise, inbound vs outbound marketing, SEO, Google AuthorRank and much more is now available below.

Can’t make Wednesday? Don’t worry, the session will be recorded, and we’ll replace the live feed with the recording as soon as it’s available, after the session has finished.

Questions about what you’ve seen? Don’t hesitate to get in touch with Jon via the details on our contact us page.

by Jon Pittham. Jon is MD of ClientsFirst, which he launched in 2010, having previously worked in financial services. With three young offspring to keep him busy, Jon conveniently found an office five minutes from home. Find him on Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Our latest ClientsFirst Guide, Getting your e-mail past spam filters, is intended to help you improve the spam score of your emails, making sure they end up in more inboxes, getting read by the right people. We’ve compiled an easy-to-digest set of hints and tips to work your way through when you’re sending your next MailFirst campaign, improving the quality of your email and lowering the spam score, which can see it blocked from some inboxes.

The guide is free to download and available by simply clicking on the link below!

Download ClientsFirst Guide: Getting your e-mail past spam filters

Not a current MailFirst user? Find out more about the work we do connecting professional advisers to clients here or get in touch for a chat on the contact us page.

by Sam Turner. Sam is ClientsFirst’s Marketing Executive and writes here on topics including; inbound and content marketing, social media, design and e-marketing. He likes all of those things as well as travel, golf and frequent cups of tea. You can find him on Google+, Twitter & LinkedIn.