By Tom Van Dyke.

Drive More Sales: Trigger Marketing Strategies for RTO Retailers

In the competitive world of rent-to-own (RTO) retail, standing out and capturing consumers' attention is more critical than ever. Your RTO business isn't just competing against other RTOs—it also faces competition from traditional retailers, online marketplaces with buy-now-pay-later options, and major discount and big-box stores.

As the market grows and evolves, RTO retailers face the challenge of engaging customers in a competitive landscape. Enter programmatic direct mail (PDM), also referred to as trigger marketing. Trigger marketing is a strategy that harnesses timely, personalized direct mail to boost customer engagement and drive more rental agreements. Let’s explore how trigger marketing can be a game-changer for your RTO business.

Understanding Trigger Marketing

Trigger marketing is an automated approach that involves targeting consumers based on specific events or actions—known as "triggers"—that indicate a readiness or need to engage with a product or service. These triggers can range from purchase history to life events or time-based milestones. By delivering timely, relevant messages and offers, you can increase engagement up to 5X when direct mail is triggered by the recipient’s own action.

Trigger mail is highly effective when paired with digital marketing efforts. Using mail and digital in tandem creates a seamless omnichannel experience that reinforces your message across different touchpoints. By combining personalized direct mail with email, social media, or retargeting ads, you can further increase brand visibility and engagement.

Automated Programs to Keep Customers Coming Back

Darwill has built several automated programs for programmatic direct mail. When an action, behavior, or milestone is flagged in the customer relationship management (CRM) system's data, a mail piece automatically sends to effectively communicate with your customers. Darwill’s RTO clients see an average response rate of 8% on trigger campaigns.

Here are just a few of the trigger campaigns we offer for RTO clients.

New Customer Letter – Sends weekly to all new customers who signed up within the past week and do not currently have another agreement.
Paid in Full Letter – This program is designed to contact customers before and after their payout date to encourage them to open up new agreements.
Past Due Letter – Reminds customers when their payment is past due.
Birthday Card – Wishes your customer a happy birthday while extending a special offer.

Connect with us to learn more about our trigger programs.

The Psychology Behind Trigger Marketing

Trigger marketing is deeply rooted in consumer behavior. When marketing messaging aligns with a consumer's current needs or emotions, it creates a sense of relevance and urgency. This psychological connection can significantly influence purchasing decisions, making trigger marketing an effective strategy for boosting engagement and conversion rates.

Leveraging Trigger Marketing in RTO Retailing

Implementing trigger marketing for your RTO business requires a strategic approach and an expert partner like Darwill. We’ll start by analyzing your customer base to identify common behaviors. Using these insights, we’ll align your customer behavior with our tested and proven automated trigger programs. We can even build a new trigger based on your needs.

Other areas to discuss and align with your PDM strategy include:

CRM Integration: Using a robust CRM system to track customer behaviors will allow us to automate responses. You must have a CRM to run these campaigns as trigger mail is driven by the data in the CRM.
Omnichannel Outreach: What digital marketing efforts are you currently running that we can align with trigger mail? If you're looking to build a complete omnichannel strategy, Darwill can help you get started. We can integrate your trigger mail with email, paid social media, and other digital advertising efforts, creating a cohesive and impactful campaign.
Personalized Offers: Leverage your data to tailor messages, offers, and discounts that best resonate with your customer’s needs.

Automated Direct Mail Helps Client Capture Sales Before Competition

One of Darwill’s clients leveraged programmatic direct mail to reach new movers before their competitors, achieving impressive results. Using our new mover trigger program, we sent personalized mail based on mover behavior data, allowing the client to automatically target households that had just moved into the area with a tailored message and special promotion. Throughout this campaign, Darwill mailed 11,000 households resulting in an ROI of 1,439% for the client.

Measuring Success and Continuous Improvement

To ensure the effectiveness of your trigger marketing campaigns, it's essential to establish clear key performance indicators (KPIs). These might include conversion rates, customer engagement levels, new agreements, QR code scans, and customer retention. When partnered with Darwill, we monitor and track these metrics for you. We will put together and walk you through a comprehensive report that details how your trigger campaign is performing.

Drive More Sales with RTO Trigger Marketing

Trigger marketing provides RTO retailers with an effective way to personalize customer interactions, boost sales, and foster loyalty. By leveraging trigger mail strategically, you can effectively engage with customers through personalized messages and offers that hit at the right time.

The benefits of trigger marketing extend beyond immediate sales, stay top of mind all year round, and nurture your customer relationships. That way, when they need a product, they come back to you instead of your competition.

Ready to take your RTO business to the next level? Reach out to Darwill to explore how programmatic direct mail can grow your RTO business.