Here’s Why You Should Optimize Your Transactional Emails
Transactional emails — they are the welcome emails, shipping notices, order confirmations, etc. that are so important for proper customer support and a positive company reputation. Not only do they give customers peace of mind in knowing that their transactions have been processed properly, but they also provide companies with major opportunities for growth and success.
According to Experian’s Transactional Email Report, transactional emails have a higher revenue per email, transaction rates, opens and click rates than bulk mail averages. In Experian’s chart below, you can see that the average revenue per transactional email is two to six times greater compared to a bulk mailing.
WHO SHOULD HAVE CONTROL OVER TRANSACTIONAL EMAILS? MARKETING.
Since transactional emails can lead to a 1–3% increase in revenue, it is very important to spend an adequate amount of time and resources on these emails.
Which department should be spending the time perfecting these emails and making them as effective as possible? If the marketing team is in charge of your website, blog, social media pages, commercial emails — essentially everywhere that customers can see your brand — shouldn’t they be in charge of your transactional emails as well? However, that is not the case; in fact, approximately 53% of transactional emails are controlled and written by IT, customer operations, or other departments, rather than marketing. As a result, these emails often lack personality and branding.
That being said, all communication avenues (blog, social media, commercial emails, transactional emails, etc.) should portray your brand in a similar way so they should, therefore, be controlled by the same department — the marketing department.
GIVE TRANSACTIONAL EMAILS THE ATTENTION THAT THEY DESERVE
Since transactional emails are proven to drive significantly higher response rates than regular commercial email campaigns, they should be paid equal, if not more attention, than regular campaigns. That being said, in order to optimize transactional emails, marketers should A/B test different versions of the emails and segment messages by different customer segments. In addition, all of the links in the emails should be tagged for reporting purposes. If you test and report on the results from commercial emails, shouldn’t you be doing the same for transactional emails?
OPTIMIZING YOUR TRANSACTIONAL EMAILS
DESIGN
The majority of the order confirmation, shipping notices, and other transactional emails that I receive are…lackluster at best. They rarely reflect the brand image of the company that I have participated in a transaction with (whether it’s signing up for a newsletter or ordering clothes) and are usually in plain text. For example, check out the difference between a transactional email (left) and promotional email (right) from United Airlines:
The email that I received after checking in for my flight was in plain text & didn’t even include United Airlines’ logo in it. While I’m grateful that it included pertinent information, I think they could have spruced it up a bit — even if they just added a banner at the top of it, similar to the one in the promotional email.
With that being said, HTML design elements should be used in transactional emails in order to create an appealing and organized message. These design elements will enable you to add personality that supports your brand or company image and show that real people are behind your company. When used properly, HTML can add warmth to an otherwise cold, corporate text-based email and showcase how much the company cares for its customers. However, it is an absolute necessity that the transactional information is present and clear whether images are disabled or not.
CONTENT
The content of a transactional email should be mostly transactional. The transactional message should be at the front and center of the email so that subscribers can easily decipher that it’s a transactional email, rather than a promotional one.
However, due to the fact that there is a huge opportunity for upselling and cross-selling in transactional emails, Bronto suggests following the 80/20 rule in which 80% of the email’s content is transactional, while the other 20% is promotional. Marketers can cross-sell order transactions by suggesting products/services that are associated with the purchase (such as an accessory) and upsell by suggesting upgraded/premium versions of the purchase.
In addition, a transactional email is a great place to invite subscribers to sign up for promotional emails or newsletters; simply, include a brief value proposition and a link to subscribe. Another great idea is to invite customers to update their personal information, which will ensure that your data is accurate and that your customers will be receiving necessary information. All of this additional content is relevant and valuable content to the reader.
SUBJECT LINE, “FROM” NAME & REPLY-TO ADDRESS
The subject line and “from’” name should be extremely clear in transactional emails. The “from” name should be something easily recognizable, such as the company name; the subject line should clearly state the content of the email, such as “Your Amazon Order Details.” And what about the “reply-to” address? It should definitely NOT be a “no-reply” address. When companies use “no-reply’” addresses, it makes the transaction a one-way street and eliminates the opportunity for further customer interaction. Make your “reply-to” address something friendly that will encourage customer engagement — in addition, make sure someone is actually monitoring that inbox for prompt replies.
A SUCCESSFUL TRANSACTIONAL EMAIL
Timbuk2 does transactional emails right. Check out the confirmation email that my colleague received after ordering a backpack:
For starters, the email’s content is great. The top of the email provides a clear summary of the order and, while it doesn’t try to cross-sell or upsell, it does provide some additional information that a customer would be interested in, such as how long until his or her order will ship, etc., at the bottom of the email. In addition, the content is full of Timbuk2’s fun personality. It isn’t the boring text of typical transactional emails; it has personality and humor in it, which makes customers feel that Timbuk2 is made up of people, rather than computers.
In addition, the subject line, “from” name, and “reply-to” address are great in this email.
The subject line, “Thanks for your order!” and the “from” name, “Timbuk2 Customer Service,” make it clear that this is an order confirmation email from Timbuk2, which is exactly the point of the email. In addition, the “reply-to” address, customerservice@timbuk2.com, welcomes recipients to respond back to the email if they have any questions. This creates an open line of communication between Timbuk2 and their customers and can lead to customer loyalty.
I also really like the HTML of this email. While it’s extremely simple, it’s so much more appealing than a simple text version. The images in the banners at the top and bottom of the email, as well as the backpack that the customer has purchased, bring life to the email. This email would also look great in text since there is no transactional information in the images. Timbuk2 does transactional emails right.
What are your favorite transactional emails? Would love to hear in the comments.
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This post originally appeared on the Litmus Blog.
