TulipTools Internet Business Owners and Online Sellers Community

Quote: With many retailers relying on holiday buying for a large part of their annual revenue, the stakes are high. E-mail marketing remains one of the most cost-effective ways to reach customers, but filtering and other ISP tactics to combat spam are making it increasingly difficult to get the marketing message to the inbox. And even if the messages make it to the inbox, they can easily get lost among all the clutter from spam and competing offers. Recent studies by Epsilon Interactive and Goodmail provide even more discouraging news. The former found that 65% of users receive e-mails with images suppressed and the latter that 59% of users delete messages that have blocked images or links.

With this challenging environment, marketers need to look at ways to supplement their regular e-mail marketing efforts. The good news is that many retailers already have one form of e-mail communication that is able to cut through all the clutter—the transactional e-mail. These service-based communications have the highest open and click-through rates of any type of e-mail, yet they’re seldom used to deliver relevant marketing messages. In fact, JupiterResearch estimates that less than 1% of e-mail marketing funds are being spent industrywide on transactional e-mail...

Quote:You see, I went up an entire dress size while coping with six months of gray unrelenting winter. So, now, I'm having to replace nearly every painfully tight item in my spring and summer wardrobe -- from linen trousers to swimsuits. Which is why my personal email in-box is now overflowing with online receipts and shipping notices.

One thing is *missing* from most of them. No promotions.

Very few online retailers, aside from travel sites, bother to put house ads on shipping and sales receipts. Instead, there seems to be a church and state divide between transactional and promotional emails...

Quote:Although transactional emails serve a functional purpose and must include specific, key information, don't miss the opportunity to also use them to brand and cross sell.

Ask yourself a few questions: How many online purchases do you complete per month? How many confirmation emails do you receive, and how many are in HTML format? Of these confirmation emails, do you read the email in full or do you scan down the email to see the reference number, the amount deducted from your credit card and the product name?

As a marketer and an avid online purchaser, can you see the missed opportunity of branding, customizing and personalizing these emails?...

Quote:Transactional e-mails represent a vast and mostly untapped selling opportunity. Messages such as order and shipping confirmations and account updates generally get opened and clicked far more than promotional e-mails.

Beside the fact that transactional e-mail messages are relevant and targeted, the recipient likely has a good feeling for the sender at the point a transactional e-mail arrives — that is, as long as the sender is not a financial services firm at the moment.

Moreover, transactional e-mails are not considered commercial communications under the Can Spam Act, so there's no need to include an opt-out mechanism...