Creative ways to enhance your post-purchase experience with transactional emails
By Sal Noorani on
If you’re not using transactional emails to promote your business, then you’re missing out — on quite a bit.
Transactional emails receive 8 times as many opens compared to regular marketing emails.They have very high open rates, which makes them a great opportunity to upsell your products and engage with your customers. They also get an average of $0.75 per open compared to $0.13 for bulk mailings on orders.
Types of transactional emails (and a few follow-ups..)
A lot of people believe that transactional emails are those sent during financial transactions like order confirmation emails and shipping confirmation emails. It’s not a wrong assumption, but it could also include the following:
- Email address confirmation
- Password reset
- Purchase receipt
- Account balance updates
- Support requests
- Shipping information
- Monthly invoices
- Replenishment emails (follow-up)
- Cart abandonment reminders (follow-up)
- ‘Thank you for..’ (follow-up)
- Product care tips (follow-up)
How do successful brands use transactional emails?
Like any email, your transactional emails should strengthen your branding. Is your brand funny, witty or playful? Whatever your answer is, your brand’s transactional email copy and visuals should reflect that. You should also use a brand voice and design that’s consistent when interacting with your customers.
For example, Indiegogo, an international crowdfunding platform, sends transactional emails that have short and casual copy. It also promotes similar causes that would be of interest to the users.
Basic components of a transactional email
How do you get started with transactional emails? Here’s a list of the basic components you need to include in your email.
Brand logo
This is self-explanatory, but basically a symbol or stylized name used to identify a company, organization, product or brand.
Brand colors
Your email’s background should reflect your brand’s colours. It’s super easy to do this. Simply list down the hex codes that you use for your website or marketing materials.
Consistent Typography
Choose appropriate fonts that represent your brand’s personality. You can visit the The Daily Type to get some inspiration.
Brand voice
Customer won’t remember your brand if you don’t have a consistent brand voice. As a result, determine how you want to communicate with your audience. Are you casual, formal or funny? The answer to this question will determine how you will interact with them.
Place relevant links
Include links that are relevant to your transactional email. For example, if you’re sending a shipping confirmation email, include links to the original order. Similarly, if you’re including product recommendations in your email, include links to the original product.
Use visuals
Emails without pictures are boring. You need to include visuals to draw your customers in and encourage them to keep reading. This can be as simple as featuring photos of your products or including visuals that represent your brand.
How to drive additional revenue to your transactional emails
How do you get more from your transactional emails? You can plug in the following components to increase repeat purchases and increase CLV (customer lifetime value):
Product recommendations
A study found that product recommendations can increase CTR by 300% or more! The caveat is that you have to recommend products based on the past purchases and browsing behavior of your customers to increase the probability that they’ll make a purchase.
Here’s an example from Birchbox,
Referral Codes
Your most loyal customers undoubtedly promote your brand to their friends and family. But you can make sure that the referral process is successful by incentivizing customers for a successful referral.
For example, The Dollar Shave Club’s transactional emails features the a logo, design and fonts which look consistent with the brand’s website. In addition, they promote their referral program at the bottom of the email. If a customer successfully refers their friend, they get a free month.
Next-purchase discount codes
Next-purchase discount codes can quickly encourage customers to make another purchase — customers love to get a small discount on the products they want.
For example, True Citrus gives customers a 25% discount on their next purchase,
How to leverage automated email follow-ups
Besides adding plug-ins, you can also send automated email follow-ups to interact with your customers post-purchase. Here are some ideas to get you started,
Thank you email
Thank you email lets you show appreciation and increases customer trust and goodwill. In fact, nearly half of American consumers say that appreciation is a vital part of excellent customer service. Additionally, 68% of businesses lose customers because of indifference.
For example, Etsy thanks its customers by offering them a discount code for their next purchase,
Product care tips or feedback
If you shop online, then you know that online reviews are key to your purchase decision. In fact, product reviews can increase conversion rates by 270%, and 92% of consumers hesitate purchasing an item with no reviews.
One trick to getting more reviews in your online store is sending a follow-up email a few days after a customer has received the product. That way, they can write quality feedback.
Here’s an example from Schuh,
Abandoned checkouts
SaleCycle reported a 75.60% shopping cart abandonment rate. That said, you should send shopping cart abandonment emails to remind customers and potentially turn an intent to purchase into an actual purchase.
Here’s an example from Kate Spade,
Their abandoned checkout email contains a product photo and price. There’s also a “View Cart” CTA button which allows them to quickly make a purchase.
Replenishment emails
Products that have a short shelf life such as food, makeup and so on are usually re-ordered by customers, but you can also send replenishment emails to remind customers that the product they bought is almost running out.
Here’s an example from Graze,
Interested in creating your own transactional emails?
Creating your own transactional emails is easy. You don’t need to learn how to code or design.
Our template builder has a simple drag and drop functionality, which you can use to plug-in product recommendations, unique discount codes and more in your transactional emails.
