- January 6, 2015
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Seven Ways to Get Your Customer Service Emails Opened
Online marketers, consider this: As you’re carefully creating that customer service email, 48 other emails will compete for your customer’s attention today.
Most emails add chaos to an already cluttered inbox. Yet a few good ones rise above, prompting the recipient to open the email and maybe — just maybe — even take action.
If you want your customer service message to be one of opened emails, Easy SMTP says transactional emails are your best options.
What are Transactional Emails?
The term “transactional” sounds so boring, so why would a transactional email excite a customer?
“Unlike your bulk mailing campaigns… transactional emails are individually sent, one-at-a-time messages that you or your system send to your users whenever they interact with your site in a specific way,” the email marketers at Easy SMTP tell Ramon Ray of The Small Business Tech Report in an interview.
Examples of such activity-triggered messaging include: welcome emails, comment notifications, shipping notices, sales receipts, renewal requests and customer-service inquiry replies.
“This characteristic is also what causes the enormous attention-grabbing power of transactional emails,” the interviewees explained, citing open rates as high as 106 percent and unique click rates of 17 percent or more. In comparison, most bulk mailing campaigns are opened 15 percent of the time, with a 3 percent unique click rate, according to Ray.
How to Make Transactional Emails a Powerful Marketing Tool
If you’re ready to experiment with transactional emails, Easy SMTP says these are the most attention-getting ways.
- Serialize Your Emails. Break down transactional emails into smaller individual messages. Each one will increase your exposure to more conversion opportunities. This tip could boost revenue by 13 percent or more.
- Say Thank You. The simple act of showing appreciation in all of your welcome emails, shipping confirmations and order receipts can increase clicks at least 35 percent. We wrote earlier about this strategy in “What’s the Most Direct Response? A Thank You.”
- Personalize Your Emails. If you’re sending order confirmations, newsletter sign-up emails and welcome messages, personalize them with your contact’s name. Also, restate the benefits they will receive and reference special offers, news, discounts and tips relevant to their history with your site.
- Be Social Media Friendly. Your users might want to share your email content on their social pages or simply want to check out your own social media presence, so give them a chance to do either by adding social share and connect buttons in all of your transactional messages. According to Easy SMTP, social media buttons increase unique clicks by as much as 55 percent. While you’re at it, you might want to boost your SEO profile with social media, too.
- Customize Email Templates but Stick to Simple Designs. Test multiple email layout formats for different kinds of transactional messages, and A/B test them all to tally which format garnered the best responses. However, remember to keep things as simple and easy to load as possible for maximum readability across a range of devices, such as desktops, laptops, tablets and different brands of smart phone.
- Deliver Strong Calls to Action. Invite your users to engage further with your brand using simple-to-follow instructions and be friendly in explaining the value. If you have links to sales offers and discounts, make it clear-cut for customers to take advantage of them.
- Stick to the Transaction. To remain CAN SPAM Act-compliant and respect your customers, transactional emails need to keep their essential transactional message, even if you’re using them for promotions. Their high open rates exist because the recipient knows the value of the content. Another tip: keep your subject headings relevant. Find out more about writing subject lines here and here.
Finally, before testing transactional emails, make sure your website landing pages prompt visitors to take action and are mobile-friendly.
