Inject some life into transactional messages

Working in the email messaging space means I receive more email than the average person, not just from the day to day emails at work, but also various newsletters and services that I've signed up to. As a result, I tend to expect a lot from the emails I receive - all the boxes must be ticked.

Today, most of the transactional emails hitting my inbox (eg. notifications) are still devoid of any branding, let alone any form of marketing message. Companies aren't capitalizing on the valuable marketing opportunities that these emails present.

Make use of the best marketing real-estate

Incorporating marketing offers within your transactional communications provides you with some of the best marketing real estate. Why? Because these are emails that customers are expecting, be it a confirmation email or even an eBill. These emails have the highest open rates, due to the fact that customers are expecting and willing to receive them.

 Filling the massive gap

Transactional messages vary from birthday emails, to invoices, statements and order confirmations, to name but a few. The biggest issue is that these well performing email communications are usually poorly structured, almost never updated and usually not tracked at all.

We have turned email marketing into a science and this science shouldn't be lost on these opportunities. It's not just about including a marketing banner on transactional emails, but also about including marketing offers that are relevant to each customer.

Relevancy means you need to know your customer, so you can identify which products or services are interesting and relevant to them, at the time the operational message is sent. This way, you can provide messaging that is complementary to the operational message, without overpowering the core message. Take a flight confirmation email for example: including great hotel offers is complementary marketing, but including information on other flight options is not. Therefore, profiling and customizing offers is important.
 

The stats say it all

Here are a few stats to give you some indication of the power of these emails:

• A major travel site generates 45% of its email profits from triggered messages that take up only 3% to 5% of its total message volume.
• An online specialty-products retailer found that 40% of its email revenue comes from transactional/triggered messages, which take up only 4% of volume.
• Birthday email messages generate 25 times the revenue as a regular broadcast email for a uniforms retailer.

Source: Email Insider "Triggered Emails: Low Volume, High Returns" (2010)

 So where to from here?

Once you have identified these transactional emails, start incorporating your company's branding, because it's not always about marketing your products, it's also about marketing your brand. Once that is done, start profiling the customer base and adding marketing that is relevant, not only to the message, but also to the customer. Remember that it's not always about the company, but more importantly it's about the customer and meeting their needs.

Mia Papanicolaou
striata.com