Do not neglect transactional emails

There are different types of emails, including marketing emails and transactional emails. Marketing emails are generally sent to many recipients simultaneously and include a commercial message (for example: newsletters or sales announcements). Unlike marketing campaigns, transactional emails are typically sent to a single individual after he has taken a specific action. Here are some examples of transactional emails: order confirmation, password reset, registration validation, authentication…

Transactional emails such as confirmation emails are very important in consumers’ daily lives. Nearly a third of them receive more than four transactional emails per day, and eight out of ten would be ready to give up a brand in the event of a bad experience with a transactional email.

Also, as transactional messages are more expected than marketing campaigns, those types of transactional emails have higher opening rates. This is why the design and messaging of those emails should not be neglected by marketers. When used correctly, transactional emails can even be a powerful leverage to differentiate from competition and boost revenue. 

How to design a great transactional email 

Here are some best practices in order to design well-performing transactional emails and turn them into marketing opportunities: 

• Maintain brand consistency. To gain the trust of your recipients, the graphism and the tone of your transactional emails should respect the graphic and editorial guidelines of your brand, and be aligned with your website and marketing emails. Having a consistent brand image and voice across all channels is key in order to provide a harmonious user experience to your customers. 

• Up-sell and cross-sell. Transactional emails represent a great opportunity to offer your customers complementary or related products and services like the ones they just purchased. You can also encourage customers to purchase comparable higher-end products and services than the ones in question. Keep that in mind when designing your transactional emails. 

• Promote sponsorship and loyalty programs. Use your transactional emails to support your existing programs. For example, you can design a dedicated banner at the end of your email to encourage readers to sponsor their friends via a dedicated code, or to offer them points to add to their loyalty account so they can benefit from exclusive advantages.