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Transactional Emails: Definition, Main Types, and Best Practices Lilit Yeranyan December 19, 2022 12 min read In different stages of communicating with potential customers and users, businesses send transactional emails after users take certain actions on the website or mobile app. These are automated emails that marketers send to a single recipient at a time. Their goal is to deliver vital information to assist transactions between a customer and the company.  Users receive transactional emails when they open an account, request password recovery, or buy a product they need. By realizing the crucial role of this type of email, businesses should make them an integral part of their email marketing strategy. Defining transactional emails, their benefits, and characteristics There are different industries, including eCommerce, education, professional services, and many more, that can benefit from transactional emails. Let’s discuss why businesses, regardless of their type and size, need to put effort into creating the best transactional emails.  ✔ Increases customer trust If companies provide useful information and answer all customers’ concerns and questions, eventually, they will build trust with customers. Customers will feel safe after receiving updates about transactions. And as a result, they will prefer to stay loyal to your company because you managed to create an image of a trustful and credible company. ✔ Improves customer engagement and retention These emails are an excellent tactic to increase engagement as well. You can achieve that if you share with customers all the necessary details. This way, they feel valued and heard, and automatically customer satisfaction increases as well. ✔ Encourages more sales One of the main goals of transaction emails is to inform, but they also provide a great opportunity to drive sales by recommending additional products. ✔ Develop brand recognition There is a possibility that when sending this type of email, you start your first interaction with a customer. Therefore it’s your chance to present and highlight your brand identity by sharing logos and other design elements. This way, you can eventually improve your brand recognition and differentiate yourself from competitors. Transactional emails VS marketing emails: defining differences One of the essential steps for defining transactional emails is to understand their differences from marketing emails. First, the goals of these types of emails are different. The main purpose is transactional emails to confirm some type of transaction or a process that a customer has taken on the website or app and also deliver crucial information. But when businesses send marketing emails, their goal is to nurture email leads and promote their products and services. And because customers expect emails about transactions, the engagement level of this type of email is high. Based on surveys, transactional emails receive eight times more opens and clicks compared to non-transactional marketing emails.  Typically marketing emails are sent to many recipients simultaneously, but emails that are triggered by action are sent to individuals and are relevant to them. You can send these emails to anyone who has taken action on your website or app but didn’t subscribe to your email. On the contrary,  for sending marketing emails, you need the customer’s permission. They need to subscribe to the email list to let your company send your email content. In addition to this, the content for these two types of emails is different as well. The best transactional emails include more personalized and unique email content addressing customers’ specific needs. Whereas in the case of marketing emails, you send a group of subscribers the same content, hoping that a prospect would like to go further on the sales funnel. Marketing emails can contain intriguing elements, but transactional emails should be more concise and to the point. And for that matter, the subject line is simple and straightforward because the goal is to convey a clear message. In addition to that, these emails usually don’t contain unsubscribe buttons, and in some cases, they don’t have CTA buttons as well. Instead of CTA buttons,  marketers can include hyperlinks that make the customer journey easier by allowing users to check the order status.   8 Types of transactional emails that your business should consider sending Order confirmation emails  One of the most popular types of transactional emails is order confirmation. Statistics have shown that order confirmation emails have a 70% open rate, which is the highest rate compared to all email types. The order confirmation email is a vital part of the whole transactional email campaign. Businesses send order confirmation emails to successfully convert a prospect into a customer when they decide to purchase your product or service. The primary goal of this type of email is to prove that the transaction has been successful and to provide customers with all the necessary details of the purchase. Effective order confirmation emails should offer a quick link to track their order and include all necessary information: ✓  Product and order number ✓ Customer contact details ✓ Shipping address ✓ The shipping method and estimated delivery date Order confirmation should be sent immediately, especially if your goal is to increase customer satisfaction and drive additional sales. Your job is to make customers stress-free about their purchases and ensure that there won’t be any delays.  This type of email should be strict to the point, but you also need to appreciate your customers for trusting your brand. And here, you can offer various rewards to increase customer loyalty. Order confirmation emails can increase customer loyalty and turn first-time buyers into brand advocates.  Although the purpose of order confirmation emails is to give information, they shouldn’t be boring. Instead, an order confirmation is captivating and hooks their attention.  Shipping notification emails When buying a product from online stores, customers want to know the status of their shipment and more information about shipping. This type of email also has high open and email engagement rates as order management emails; therefore, they are businesses’ chance to develop the post-purchase experience. If your company doesn’t keep buyers updated, that will cause customer dissatisfaction. If you

Onboarding emails: Definition and 7 Steps For Creating Awesome Onboarding Lilit Yeranyan December 12, 2022 12 min read Building positive relationships with customers and providing outstanding customer experience is one of the biggest struggles that almost all companies face. During that road and at every touchpoint, you should put effort into supporting and guiding your customers. When they interact with your company, buy or sign up for the free trial, it’s your chance to show that you care about them by sending onboarding emails. These emails can have different goals, and if you manage to create an excellent one, you will build powerful relationships with customers and also boost customer retention and loyalty. Why onboarding emails are important and when to send them When starting to create an onboarding email sequence, you should define your goals and understand what type of email to send to effectively onboard your customers. There are different objectives you can accomplish through this type of email.  Let’s dive into when your company should send this type of email.  Welcome new customers First and foremost, you should send onboarding emails to welcome your new customers and to show your appreciation that they decided to use your products or solutions. Your goal is to just welcome your new users right after signing up. What is interesting is that the open rate is 84.22% for welcome emails, and the click-through rate of 25.91%. When trying to welcome customers, you shouldn’t be promotional and salesy. Customer onboarding emails should include elements of encouragement, showing customers that an exciting journey is waiting for them. Your job is to try to welcome customers and meanwhile try to engage them. Share your values and give a sense of belonging   You can use your emails to follow onboarding emails best practices to share your values and tell in which ways your company will try to make your customers’ lives better. In your customer onboarding emails, you can highlight the reasons why they will continue to do business with you.  Another great factor in increasing customer loyalty is offering a sense of community. You can start the process of building an emotional connection with your customers and build a community through onboarding emails. You are not trying to trigger actions and make customers take another action. Instead, your company shows that you are part of something exciting, and you are included in a group where they share similar values. Encourage them to use your products and upsell other offerings In most cases, you send this type of email to the customers when they first sign up. Then, to show the values that you mentioned earlier, you should inspire the customers to use the products by explaining how they work. Encouraging taking steps for using the products, you can also send onboarding emails to upsell your other tools. Boost your sales by promoting your additional products or services. Let’s say you offer a digital board for an online teacher, and they signed up to use it; you can also offer your other educational products, like a video conferencing app. Engage and entertain your customers It’s beneficial if you use gamification methods like sending quizzes to entertain customers, making the first interaction smooth and fun. Of course, it depends on the type of your company and whether it suits your brand voice. If you manage to follow email  and engage users, it will make a human and positive connection. By provoking positive emotion, you can increase email engagement and foster meaningful connections. And the chances are higher that they will choose to use your products and solutions. More than that, an excellent onboarding process can encourage customers to advocate products and solutions. How to write an onboarding email that is great in seven ways We already discussed the goals you can accomplish through this email, and let’s go through how to create onboarding emails that will drive great results. 1. Create a subject line It’s never enough to mention how important subject lines are when sending any type of email, and these emails are not an expectation. Great subject lines will increase open rates. Statistics have proved that 47% of email recipients open emails based on the subject lines. They are the first thing customers see in their inboxes, so it’s your chance to build a relationship with them through outstanding subject lines.  In the short space, you should try to imply what benefits they can expect from you. Great onboarding email subject lines should be catchy and concise. Remember, the subject line should hook customers’ attention and make customers open your email. You can add intriguing elements but avoid giving false expectations.    2. Highlight value proposition and benefits To succeed in almost every marketing campaign, you should prioritize the value proposition that separates you in the market. It will give you a competitive edge. And for that, you should think about including your value proposition in your onboarding emails as well. Use the opportunity and tell that users picked the perfect solution for signing up and deciding to use your product. Also, they know what products or services will give to them and what value they will receive. Focus on the benefits and solutions that your brand offers. Lastly, when it comes to SaaS products,  SaaS email marketing plays a pivotal role by delivering onboarding emails that guide customers and help them fully leverage the product’s potential. 3. Try to be helpful and guide your users Your product can be extremely valuable, but if your user doesn’t know how to use them, they may stop their connection with your company. And for that matter, you can share with them all the helpful content that will show them how the complicated features work. It can be FAQs, tutorials, and or blog posts that tell step-by-step how to use the solution or product. This way, they don’t need to research on their own and feel disappointed. Give them all resources to increase customer satisfaction, which is the

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