Do you know transactional emails are 8 times more likely to be opened than any other marketing or bulk emails? In addition, you must also know that transactional emails have an average CTR of 4.8% which is three times higher than non-transactional emails which generate a CTR of 1.6%. These metrics and statistics prove that transactional emails can work wonders for building your brand, driving engagement, and boosting revenue.
Therefore, if you want to add value to your email marketing campaign, you must make extensive use of transactional emails.
What are transactional emails?
Before you start making the most out of your transactional emails, let’s find out what transactional emails are all about? Transactional emails are automated email messages that get triggered when a subscriber takes action with your website or application. Such emails include order confirmation emails, shipping and delivery emails, password reset, signing up for a newsletter, and many more. Here’s a transactional email template example from Proflowers which makes good use of order confirmation email.
Source: Really Good Emails
All in all, transactional emails are sent at a time when your subscribers are highly engaged with your brand. This means your customers are expecting and at times might be needing the information in the transactional emails. Hence, if you leverage it the right way, you will be able to get optimal performance results.
How to get the most out of your transactional emails?
You can extract the benefits of transactional emails to the core by following a few best practices. Take a look below.
Follow-up instantly
Make it a point to follow-up the moment your customer takes an action. This is the time they are ready and looking forward to hearing from you about the interaction. For instance, if they have signed up with your brand, send them a welcome email instantly and provide them with instant gratification. You can take some inspiration from this amazing welcome email template from Airtable.
Source: Really Good Emails
Include a recognizable from name
The from name is usually the first thing a customer notices. It plays a great role in determining whether the customer will open your email or not. So, instead of using a ” do not reply” address, include a sender name that identifies with your business or brand. See how Amazon uses [email protected] as their from address while sending a promotional email based on the customer’s recent browsing history.
Make your subject lines clear
If you wish to stand out in your prospects crowded inbox, you need to add clarity to your transactional email’s subject line. After all, 47% of subscribers open an email based on the subject line alone. Simply put, the clearer the subject line, the better will be your open rates. For instance, if you are sending a shipping confirmation email, let the customer get an idea about it through the subject line itself just the way Myntra does.
Provide relevant information
A transactional email is all about providing the information regarding an action your subscriber has taken. To put it in other words, you can provide relevant information your customer is looking for while thanking them for the activity they have carried out. Do it the way Allergy Buyers Club does in its recent purchase HTML email template. The brand isn’t only thanking the customer for purchasing a purifier but has also gone a step ahead and given a detailed guide to set up the air purifier.
Source: Really Good Emails
You can even add value to your transactional email by providing relevant suggestions at the bottom of the email. It is a great way of enticing users for a repeat purchase.
Leverage your preheader text effectively
Preheader text is the first line of the email that appears as a snippet of the text next to the subject line. Therefore, if there are important transactional details, you can include it in the preheader text. It will help your customer get a brief overview of the detailed information lying within the email copy. See how Myntra makes good use of the preheader text in its transactional emails.
Work on email copy personalization
90% of customers find marketing content personalization appealing. So, if you wish to have a huge and loyal customer base, you must work on personalizing your email copy. Remember, your customers receive transactional emails too often. Therefore, it becomes critical to work on email copy personalization to differentiate your email from your competitors.
From personalizing the first name of the subscriber to recommending them products based on their interests, there are a lot of ways to leverage personalization in transactional emails. This can help drive engagement while compelling your customer base to take action. See how Huckberry does it like a pro through its order confirmation email while recommending trending gear to the subscriber.
Source: Really Good Emails
Make way for cross-selling and up-selling
You can leverage transactional emails for cross-selling and up-selling. You can do so by showing customers how they can move to the next phase after purchasing a product, signing up for a free version of your service and so on. The next phase can include steps such as upgrading to paid service, joining a loyalty program or buying again. Simply put, it can help you give your customers a reason to click-through your transactional emails.
From opting for strategic product suggestions and recommendations with recent purchases to asking the subscribers to review their experiences, there are a lot of ways to use the cross-selling and up-selling techniques while driving your customers back to your website. Bellroy does it seamlessly by asking for the feedback while encouraging users to buy more from them.
Optimize your call-to-action (CTA)
Including a clear and precise call-to-action is necessary for encouraging subscribers to take action. So, make sure your transactional emails have well-defined and bold CTAs. It will not only make your customer base responsive towards your brand but also increase the conversion rate. Dunkin Donuts surely knows how to woo their customers through transactional emails. Take a look at its reminder email with a clear and strong CTA.
Source: Really Good Emails
A/B test your transactional emails
To determine what resonates the best with your subscriber, it is important to A/B test the various elements of your emails. From your email copy and subject line to CTA, font size, and fonts, you can test it all. It will help you understand what’s working for your email campaign and what’s not, thereby helping you make your email copy better.
For instance: You can send out a subject line as “Your order has been shipped” or “Your order is on the way” with an emoji. That will let you know whether your subscribers are fond of emojis or not. In addition to that, you can test the usage of different types of rich media in your emails too, and make the otherwise drab transactional emails interesting for the reader.
Wrap up
Transactional emails are a critical part of an email marketing strategy. If used in an optimum way, it can help you accelerate your purchases while increasing the customer lifetime value.
So, go ahead and follow the best practices mentioned above to get some amazing results in the form of a robust sales performance and an impeccable brand.
Kevin George is Head of Marketing at Email Uplers, one of the fastest growing custom email design and coding companies that specializes in Salesforce email templates creation and PSD to HTML email conversion; they are a Marketo certified experts. Kevin loves gadgets, bikes, jazz and eats and breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on his blog.
Author Bio:
Kevin George is Head of Marketing at Email Uplers, one of the fastest growing PSD to Email coding companies, and specializes in crafting professional email templates, custom Mailchimp email templates design and coding in addition to providing email automation, campaign management, and data integration & migration services. He loves gadgets, bikes, jazz, and eats and breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on his blog.
