If there's one mistake a marketer can make, it's underestimating the value of the transactional email. Based on either an action or inaction (i.e. password change or shipping notification), transactional emails are consistent opportunities to leverage preexisting engagement and build strong relationships with your customer base. Transactional messages are distinguished by the lack of a sales angle and generally contain critical information that the consumer is anticipating. Marketers can use this anticipation and guaranteed open to advance the ultimate goal: sales.
Truly successful email marketing campaigns must consist of more than basic promotional messages that are destined for the trash folder. Because transactional emails are vital to any strong customer lifecycle management program, they are the perfect trigger for further engagement, if executed smartly and strategically. In fact, researchers have found that transactional emails are eight times more likely to be opened than standard promotional emails from the same company.
Here are a few techniques you can use to take your email marketing campaign to the next level by capitalizing on the potential of transactional emails:
Avoid the Spam Folder: Hold the Promotional Content
Although transactional emails are a great opportunity for engagement, they are not a backup marketing campaign. By delivering the informative message that your contact is anticipating, you will earn the opportunity to entice your contact into further engagement with your brand. However, by overloading the message with flashy sales or promos, you risk losing his attention overall. The key is finding the right balance. For example, using HTML to create messages that visually stand out will catch your contact's attention without taking too much away from the transactional content.
Overwhelming promotional messaging within transactional emails could ruin contact relationships and banish your emails to the spam folder. Transactional emails contain valuable consumer information, and that's ultimately what the customer is looking for. Adding too much marketing content could deter contacts from continuing to engage with your brand. A good rule of thumb is to keep about 80 percent of transactional emails purely transactional - with no promotional content -- to maintain credibility with your subscribers.
Be Social Savvy
Social links are a great alternative to obvious promotional content in transactional emails. Contacts may be caught off guard by a promotion in a confirmation email, but they are used to seeing social media icons. Transactional messages that include social media links have a 55 percent higher click rate than those without. When traditional email marketing messages don't move the needle, use transactional emails to bridge contacts to your brand's social media platforms. If your contacts aren't psyched about social, consider using free tips, whitepapers, a new case study, or even a fun video to re-engage.
Unite Transactional and Marketing Email Systems
Many marketers make the mistake of managing marketing emails and transactional emails in two separate ways. Just because these emails are often created on different systems does not mean they shouldn't be unified under a comprehensive marketing strategy. If you're using a point-of-sale system to send transactional emails, link those messages to your email marketing system so that all of the content will be integrated. This offers a more holistic view of the customer life cycle management system, where you can track open and click-through rates of transactional emails just as you would marketing emails. Be sure your email marketing system integrates the two streams of emails while still labeling the messages as SMTP or transactional. Remember, you don't want to rub a transactional customer the wrong way by treating them as a marketing subscriber.
Taking advantage of transactional emails' high open-rates is a fantastic way for marketers to increase engagement with their customers. Transactional emails should always include the information that the recipient anticipates, but injecting subtle, no-cost promotional offers can open a steady channel of engagement between you and your contacts. Transactional emails are a small but key piece in the customer lifecycle management process.