In everyday life, we respond naturally to events happening around us. Identically as a reflex responds to a certain trigger. Our “offline” habits are already shaped so to ease the interaction with other people and to help us react quickly to the various stimuli from the environment.
Then why not bring this natural behavior in the online environment, more exactly in your ecommerce business? This is exactly what email automation and triggered emails can do!
Benefits of transactional emails
Using transactional emails you give customers a more familiar and personalized approach to keep in touch with you. In figures, a simple autoresponder’s open rate can be 5 times higher than the one of generic emails. The click-through rate of triggered emails is 152% higher than the one for traditional emails, according to recent Epsilon statistics. And the conversion rate is on average at 8%, 4 to 5 times higher than the general email channel (view some stats here)
There are several types of triggered emails that marketers use. The goals of these cover the most important aspects in building a long-term customer loyalty:
- turn prospects into first time customers
- and first time customers into returning and loyal ones.
These emails are sent with the occasion of certain events, or when certain triggers are activated.
Types of triggers used for email automation
Recurring triggers – You can set up emails simply based on what you already know about your customer: their birthday, their gender, the date they subscribed on your website etc. Based on this profile information, you can automate the sending of emails containing congratulations or special offers.
Behavioral triggers – Email automation can help you notice certain behaviors. For example, your customer decided to open a new account and you have to say “Welcome!”. Or an older customer has decreased their average shopping basket value and you need to send them an incentive.
Transactional triggers – This is the type of trigger you are hoping for, because it means that your customer has made or is very close to a purchase… There is a large range of triggered emails you can think of:
- cart abandonment emails asking your customer to return and finish their purchase
- lead nurturing emails helping your customer decide upon the best product to buy
- customer satisfaction emails asking for feedback after a purchase
Daily use of transactional emails in ecommerce
In the past years usually email marketers set triggers to send an email to customers on their birthday, a reminder that he forgot something or a welcome email. Meanwhile, technology has evolved to the point that it can react automatically to on-site behaviours such as browsing or clicking.
Now marketers have to think more strategically about how and when they’re using triggers to reach a customer’s inbox. Examples:
- if you are selling dresses, just send a transactional email to target those who browsed at least 4 items from a specific brand.
- if a visitor only looks for products with discount, then find out a way to send a bigger discount and still make some profit.
There are unlimited combinations to send an automated email. Just brainstorm on your business case and use a good service provider.
Email automation trends
As stated in this interesting infographic, triggered emails become more and more popular as marketing professionals learn about their advantages. In 2013, there has been a 30% increase in sending triggered messages compared to the previous year. Though, triggered emails still account for only 3 or 4% of total emails sent.
The unstoppable growth of mobile commerce and web applications will generate in the future a proportional growth in marketing automation. The technology of sending triggered emails will also become more and more refined.
Why should I start with transactional emails
Automating your emails might still feel like a big initial investment, but it is surely worth your money! It reduces your costs with manually tracking certain events and sending messages on those occasions. And it brings higher revenues, because you are able to engage your customers in a dialogue that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.
So get on the wave now! Email is proven to be a leader among current marketing channels when it comes to sales results. We are here to support you with information and solutions in order for you to get best results in your ecommerce business. Contact us for a free quote.
