Three types of lifecycle triggers (and how to reach customers with this data)

Trigger marketing is all about relevance—getting the right message in front of the right people at the right time. Consumers and businesses that are in a state of transition are much more likely to seek an opportunity to change providers or buy new products. Therefore, trigger marketing is a great way to acquire new customers and present a unique cross-sell opportunities to those clients in that transition state.

Here at Deluxe, we think about the lifecycle triggers in three different categories:

Lifestyle triggers

This includes people who are newly married, newly engaged, newly single, new parents and expecting parents.

Household triggers

This includes new movers, which is our biggest category of triggers with about 900,000 new movers each week; pre-movers, who have either listed their home for sale or are in the contract phase; new homeowners; and household composition changes, which occur when someone either enters or exits the household and the number of individuals in that household changes.

Enterprise (business) triggers

This includes new business owners, new home businesses, relocations and young professionals. Since 2020, business applications have shot up for both all businesses in general, and for high-propensity businesses (those expected to have employees and payroll). There are roughly 150,000 new business filings each week, with the biggest increases in the categories of retail and warehouse management.

When this data is combined, about 2.5 million unique households per week generate triggers signaling they are experiencing some sort of lifecycle transition.

How to reach customer with lifecycle trigger data

The financial services industry has long used lifecycle data from consumers and businesses to promote services like new account openings and lines of credit. But lifecycle trigger information is also a relevant solution for many other industries.

Customers undergoing lifecycle events are more open to switching providers or needing new products across all areas, including telecom and utilities, restaurants and online grocery stores, office supply companies, big box furniture stores, electronics and software companies, and more.

Alexandra Moss, a vice president with Deluxe Data-Driven Marketing, explored these possible use cases in more detail as a presenter at Deluxe Exchange 2022 in Miami: