The most difficult task for any business, online or offline, is ‘acquiring customers’. Organisations spend millions of dollars in advertising and promoting their products or services across various channels. Be it offline media like Print, TV, OOH (Out-Of-Home media advertising), or online media such as websites, social media, etc., getting your target consumer’s attention is the top-most priority of all marketers.
The Problem:
A huge marketing spend and much effort later, you manage to grab eyeballs. But, with the omnipresent social media, it takes just a little effort for your competition to lure your customer away with newer offers, discounts, and promotions. So, how do you make a mark and get the customer to pick you? Do you wait for the next promotional campaign to woo the customer back? Or do you try to predict the customer’s behaviour? Is the typical approach of sending out periodic campaign mailers going to work? Especially when everyone is doing the same?
The Solution:
While you can explore all possible avenues of chasing your customer, the one guaranteed way to catch the customer’s eye is to use transactional email. Automated emails that are triggered by some action or inaction from the customer, transactional emails can be leveraged to personalize the information or promotion offered to the client, and thus, forge a deeper relationship. Recent studies have shown that approximately 38% of marketers are missing out on revenue that would have accrued via transactional emails. The power of transactional emails comes from the simple fact that since these are triggered by the customer, the open rate is nearly double that of standard marketing emails. The market is huge, and new tools are constantly being developed to help marketers optimize their transactional email marketing efforts.
The Clutter breakers
With transactional emails, the scope of up-selling, cross-selling or just building a level of trust with the customer is huge. And there are global leaders that are already harnessing the power of these mails.
Take Amazon, Kate Spade or Airbnb, for example. Amazon does a great job of up-selling, especially with their Amazon gift card offer.
A very enticing offer, indeed! And forthright. Who would not like that? Lesson to be learnt here – make your up-selling process simple and direct. Don’t waste your customer’s time, and, more importantly, don’t make the process cumbersome with too many details. Keep it simple.
Kate Spade does a great job of reminding shoppers about abandoned cart items. The message is simple, the colours are eye-catching and the extra incentive helps even the most indecisive customers make up their minds.
Airbnb’s referral mail is a part of their reservation email. No customer will skip this mail, so the referral part becomes a ‘MUST’ read! Clever, and wise!
Evolving Your Transactional Emails
Get better at sending more effective transactional emails, right away:
Get the right tools – Interesting and eye-catching templates are important. There are a number of great tools as well that allow you to collaboratively work on your transactional emails.
Define your Goals – Identify what you are trying to achieve by optimizing your transactional emails so that this objective can drive the content.
To the point messaging – More than half of all emails are accessed on mobile devices, so keep your design simple and your message, to the point. Make sure your emails are responsive.
Always Add Value – Don’t lose focus of the customer’s perspective. Offer value to the customer – what you are selling should be based on the customer’s unique behaviour and his need.
In Conclusion:
Remember that a transactional email does not necessarily have to be a message regarding order confirmation or a receipts. An event reminder, a password reset, or even an auto-reply – all these are examples of transactional emails. No matter what your purpose, Falconide has a solution for you. Offer more value to your customers and tap into a new stream of revenue through Falconide!