How Buffer Improves Retention Through Trigger-Based Emails

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Buffer A better way to share on social media

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Once you have an idea of which actions generate value for customers, trigger-based emails are a great low-effort, high impact way of encouraging those actions and thereby reducing churn.

These emails are based on specific user actions. For example, if someone signs up for your service but never completes the setup process, a trigger-based email from the help desk might offer one-on-one guidance through setup.

In a study by

Experian⁠

, they saw follow-up trigger-based emails result in an average 54% increase compared to just sending one message, and emails based on products a customer has viewed achieved a 3.4x lift in revenue compared to promotional mailings.

In addition, companies like and

Smart Furniture⁠

were able to increase email open rates by 311% by increasing their list segments from six to 30 for more highly targeted emails.

The Execution

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Buffer⁠

uses trigger-based emails like the one below to encourage customers whose streams are empty to schedule a few more tweets and keep their social channels active:

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image source⁠

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Why Did This Happen?

For Buffer, lots of scheduled tweets indicates that customers are getting value from the service, while letting a Buffer account lie dormant is the first step down the road to cancellation.

In fact, they saw 33% of churned users were actually still

active the day they canceled⁠

. This is contrary to expected user behavior, so Buffer started emailing customers when they had no future posts.

To increase retention and provide additional value, they not only made their customers aware that their Buffer queue was empty, but provided other popular applications they integrated with to make the sharing process more seamless.

Actionable Advice

Use analytics to identify your power users. Which actions have they completed that less valuable customers or customers who unsubscribe haven’t? Take this information and come up with what an “Activated” customer looks like for your business.

Use a tool like

Customer.io⁠

Vero⁠

, or

Hubspot Enterprise⁠

to set up trigger-based email campaigns encouraging less active users to take steps toward activation.

Try a tool like

Fomo⁠

to provide real-time customer interactions, so others can see what people are doing or buying on your site around the world.

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Source⁠

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