If your business has a website, mobile app, or connected product, then you’re probably sending thousands of transactional emails to your customers every day.

These emails – welcome emails, password resets, order confirmations, and more are typically hard-coded and controlled by IT or development teams. As a result, they’re often dated, off-brand, and deliver an inconsistent customer experience with all your other marketing efforts

You’re missing a huge opportunity to generate sales & revenue for your organization as research shows transactional emails have 8x the open and engagement rate of traditional marketing emails.

In this guide, you’ll learn what transactional emails are and the massive opportunity they present to marketers, as well as get some ideas for transactional campaigns you should own and optimize to grow your business.

5 types of transactional emails that can grow your business

To help you elevate your transactional emails to the level of quality as all your marketing efforts – and drive additional sales and revenue in the process – we’ve compiled a list of 5 types of transactional emails your business is likely already sending and provided some best practices for optimizing them.

1. Registration Email

A registration email is sent when a user first creates an account on your website or in your application. Common examples include a welcome email when you sign up for a web service for business, a mobile application such as a banking app, or an introductory email when you signup for an online dating site.

When implementing a registration or welcome email for your organization, keep these best practices in mind:

  • Give people their credentials – Research shows that most people have 5 or more login credentials they need to remember, and that 38% of adults think it would be easier to solve world peace than remember all their passwords. So to help these people out, make sure to include information on how they can sign in to their account, such as their login URL and username. This means they’ll always have it available when they inevitably forget the details.
  • Help With Getting Started – Particularly for web & mobile applications, on-boarding your users efficiently is a critical part of acquiring new, paying customers. Use the registration email to provide links to videos, articles & tutorials that they can use to familiarize themselves with your product and get started using it. This can help increase the number of people you convert into paying customers and help grow your business.

2. Notification Email

A notification email alerts the user when a relevant action or event takes place in your website or application. Common examples include notifications that you’ve been tagged in a photo on Facebook, that your package has shipped, or the king of all transactional emails: the password reset.

When users request a new password, they want it fast, so making this complex, isn’t recommended.

When sending a password reset email and other types of notification emails, keep in mind the following tips:

  • Include relevant, personalized information – In order to make your notification emails as useful as possible for the recipient, make sure to include all relevant information about the event you are notifying them of. For instance, if your email is notifying people of a new comment, ensure to include information like commenters name, the comment itself, when it was posted, and so on. This gives users all the information they need to take action, and helps ensure they do so.
  • Provide a clear next step – Notification emails are a great way to drive people back to your website or application and increase usage, so provide a clear next step for the recipient to take.
  • Align your emails with your brand – Transactional emails, and particularly notification emails, can often be the most frequent point of contact you have with your customers. Because of this, you need to make sure they are aligned with your brand’s signature which includes colors, fonts and tone to ensure customers have a consistent familiar experience with your organization at every touchpoint.

3. Confirmation emails

A confirmation email is designed to notify the user when a specific action, initiated by a person, is complete. A receipt from an online shopping purchase, a confirmation your hotel room has been booked, or a ticket purchase confirmation.

The email contains the key information the customer will need to attend the event: the order number, ticket delivery method, and resources to start planning for the event.

When optimizing confirmation emails for your organization, make sure to incorporate some of these best practices:

  • Optimize for Mobile – In this day in age, most people don’t print their confirmation emails like they used to. Rather, they will save the email in their inbox and refer to it when needed – more than likely from their mobile device.
  • Provide Helpful Resources – Given that people receiving these emails have likely just had a positive transaction with your brand, there’s no better time to point them toward helpful resources that will make them even more successful.
  • Utilize a Referral Purchase – since your customer has just made a purchase and likely has a positive impression of your brand, it’s a great opportunity to ask for referrals. If you have a “refer-a-friend” program, point your customers toward it. Or, ask your customers to post a review about their experience to social media or a relevant feedback website.

4. Feedback Email

While most transactional emails provide relevant information to recipients, a feedback email requests some form of feedback on a recent transaction they had with your organization.

You have probably have been asked to submit a review about a products on online, rate a recent online shopping experience, or leave ratings on movies you may have watched on Netflix or similar services.

When optimizing feedback emails for your organization, make sure to incorporate some of these best practices:

  • Provide context – It’s important to provide information on what you are requesting feedback about, particularly if your feedback email comes some time after the original transaction. An airline could accomplish this by referencing the recent flight. Optionally, you could choose to include additional information such as date of travel, routes, cost, and more.
  • Use a prominent call to action button – When we tested using buttons in our email campaigns over simple text links, we got a 28% increase in click-throughs. In order to get people to click-through from your email and leave a product review or feedback, make sure to include a prominent call to action button that makes it super simple to take the next step.
  • Create a seamless feedback experience – Ensure that the feedback loop is easy for your consumers. Embed the link for feedback prominently in the email and don’t complicate the email by including other messages or call to actions. Lastly, the transition from the email to the survey itself should be fluid.

5. Shopping Cart Abandonment Email

An inactivity email is sent to a person who previously interacted with your website or application, but left before completing a transaction or hasn’t been active for a while.

The email is particularly effective because it’s sent just hours after the user abandons their shopping cart. It also provides helpful context by reminding the user exactly what they left in the cart – and what they’re missing!

When optimizing inactivity emails for your organization, consider these best practices:

  • Make an offer – If you’re reaching out to an inactive user or customer, it’s likely that people have become inactive for a reason, and simply telling them you want them to come back won’t change that. However, by including an offer like a 45 day free trial or 25% off your next purchase, you can incentivize people to come back to your website or application and start engaging again.
  • Include a clear call to action – In order to get people to click-through from your campaign and re-engage with your application or website, you need to include a prominent call to action.
  • Be Timely – Be mindful about when you send the email. If you’re a software company or provide a service, you may want to wait a week or two before reaching back out so you don’t risk coming across as pushy.

Building Your First Transactional Email

With HUB4 Mail’s transactional email service, marketers now have complete control over the email that their customers open and engage with most. This means even minor tweaks to an email’s branding or messaging can be done on the fly – and without the help of a developer. More substantial changes – such as adding or changing a promotional CTA – is also just as easy as creating a traditional marketing email in HUB4 Mail.

To create your first transactional email, you’ll utilize the same tools many marketers around the world already use to build their traditional marketing campaigns:

  • Drag & Drop Email Builder – Our email builder is designed for the modern marketer who wants to build a beautiful, branded email for business – without a line of code. With over 25 pre-built templates to choose from, it’s easy to drop in your own images and copy. And with unlimited colors and fonts, you can customize your email to be completely branded to your business.

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  • Built for today’s multi-inbox and mobile world – All of HUB4 Mail’s pre-built templates have been designed to cater for both desktop clients and mobile devices. Once you’ve created your email in the builder, you can preview it to see how it will look on both desktop and mobile.

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  • Reporting – Traditionally, transactional email has gone totally unmeasured or reports are buried somewhere with developers. HUB4 Mail provides access to performance for each email so marketers can see how these emails are performing in real-time. Track metrics such as opens, clicks, bounces, and see what messages and CTAs are working – and continually optimize for business performance.

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Conclusion

Your business is likely sending thousands of transactional emails today and there is no better time to create an edge against your competitors by tapping into this massive opportunity to connect with your prospects and customers.Whether it’s a shipping notification, purchase confirmation, password reset, or a system-triggered email totally unique to your business, the opportunity to drive positive brand awareness, sales, and revenue is massive. And with our simple and elegant email marketing software for business, building a beautiful, branded transactional email has never been easier.Don’t miss out on these golden opportunities to connect with your customers.