This is a post in a series on Rainmaker—the platform created by the folks formerly known as Copyblogger.
My family took another cruise!
I was just on a cruise last week—spending an entire week in the Caribbean with my family. It was nothing short of amazing and incredible. We'd been on the same exact boat almost 20 months before, when we'd toured the Western Caribbean. This time we'd be visiting the Eastern Caribbean.
The last time, we'd taken my parents—celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary and our 10th. Because it had been a special trip, we'd used the photo studio on the ship to take some portraits.
It had gone so well, that this time, after getting settled in our room, we headed straight there to book another session or two. And to our joy and surprise, the same professional photographer was there.
I was an existing customer likely to make another purchase
We caught up on his life (my wife remembers everything—so she recalled that he'd been engaged and she launched into wedding questions) and soon we had two sessions booked and we were on our way to dinner.
One session was casual (in color) and the other formal (in black and white). I think they came out well. Don't you?
Well, a couple nights later, we got to the moment where we were able to view all 250+ photos that our two sessions had generated.
To be clear: I knew I was going to buy something.
Likely, I would purchase what I had purchased the year before:
- The disc with all the images
- A photo book that he would design for us
I think he knew it, and I knew it. I was an existing customer—my data was already in the system!
And I had demonstrated that I already appreciated the value of his services, as we had made a beeline for the studio and booked our appointments early.
So there was no question I'd be spending money. The question, in this case, was whether I'd buy anything else.
A little nudge sometimes helps
I'll pause my story here for just a second to explain that what I'm talking about isn't related to “retargeting.” If you don't know what retargeting is, I'll explain it this way.
Remember when you went to the mattress website, or the website to look for camping gear? And then, when you logged into Facebook, every single ad on the site was the same mattress site? Or camping site? And every other site you visited suddenly showed you an add for a mattress?
That's retargeting (but to be honest, that's not the best and most elegant embodiment).
When I talk about a nudge, I'm talking about it in the best sense. I'm talking about a targeted solution that is specific and tailored to help a prospect convert. In a helpful and nice way.
You know where this story is going…
In the case of our friendly photographer, he wasn't pushy. He showed us the photos and let us decide what we wanted to purchase—which was exactly the same thing we'd done the year before.
Then he asked if he could show us a couple of new products they'd come up with.
Rainmaker Marketing Automation
The professional version (which is the main version they're selling) of the Rainmaker platform has a feature for Marketing Automation Formulas.
In this case, you can create a formula to work just like our photographer did. In a non-threatening, non-pushy, totally-contextual way.
But the key part of the phrase above is “automation.” You can have it working on auto-pilot.
Let me see if I can explain it to you.
Here's the context of my assumptions…
Imagine you have a customer who has already subscribed to a membership level, or to an existing course on your Rainmaker site.
Now let's further assume that you sell other products (other courses, other membership levels, etc).
Let's further assume you do that via either an article, a dedicated product page, or even a landing page.
And lastly, let's assume that your existing customer demonstrates the interest and potential intent to make another purchase.
How can you nudge them? I'm going to show you.
The Four Steps to Using Rainmaker to Nudge a Prospect
Step One: Click on the Conversions Menu
When you click on the Conversion menu on the left, you'll see a lot of different options. Scroll down to the Formula section at the bottom.
Step Two: Create a New Formula
Not a lot to tell you here, except that you need to click on “New” so that you can start creating a new formula. It will be a blank screen, but only because you haven't started step three.
Step Three: Pick the Trigger & Action
There are several trigger options and several action options. But the nudge I'm talking about is pretty specific.
It looks to see if a user has visited a specific page more than once. In my case, I used the number 3. You may need to make it more or less.
That's the trigger.
You click on Triggers and you'll see your options. Look for the one that starts with “a user visits page ID” and you'll be in the right place.
Sometimes people have a hard time finding the page or post ID. I suggest going to the Edit Posts menu (up top) and looking at the list view of posts. When you roll your mouse over the link to the article or page, you'll see (in the lower part of your browser status bar) the ID. I'm sure there are other ways, but that's how I do it.
So my trigger says that when you've visited my eBooks page (list of books I've written) at least 3 times, that I want the system to automatically send you an email.
That's the action.
I want Rainmaker to notice that my customer is interested in another product and give them a gentle nudge. In this case, a simple email will work.
And you don't have to worry about typing the body of the email in that little field. Rainmaker gives you a nice large window to type in.
Once you've created the trigger and action, you'll want to connect it (hence the puzzle piece geometry) together.
Step Four: Publish the Formula
The last step is pretty simple. Click publish.
Once you've done that, you're good to go—you'll be giving gentle nudges to the right people, at the right time.
In the end, we bought all the things!
Of course, in the happy mood we were in (because of how good the photos looked), we were happy to hear about the new products that the photo studio had recently introduced.
He then showed us some cool stuff they were doing with wall arrangements. And these photos could be printed on acrylic or metal! It was pretty amazing—and the discounts we could take on our existing purchase if we added more to our order sounded great. 🙂
[Note: I totally know that a discount on your existing order, by adding more to your order sounds illogical. It's not meant to be logical. It's meant to trigger an emotional decision – which it did!]
It was a nudge. And I appreciated it. And thanked him. Because I wasn't forced to make a purchase. I was just helped along with an extra nudge.
And Rainmaker lets you automate the same kind of nudge, in four easy steps.
The Rainmaker marketing automation features are just one of the reasons I strongly recommend the Rainmaker platform. If you want more information, you can read my other Rainmaker articles, or give me a call on Clarity for specific advice.