Shades of Gray: Incorporating Marketing into Transactional Email
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
2 likes•1,072 views
The document discusses incorporating marketing into transactional emails. It defines transactional and marketing emails, and notes that transactional emails typically have higher open and click rates. The document provides examples of ways to subtly incorporate marketing, like through surveys, referrals, opt-ins, social follows, and proactive support. It stresses knowing your audience and their interaction lifecycle with your product or service. The document also covers measuring the results of these hybrid emails through metrics like open and click rates.
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
Similar to Shades of Gray: Incorporating Marketing into Transactional Email
Similar to Shades of Gray: Incorporating Marketing into Transactional Email (20)
More from SendGrid
More from SendGrid (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Shades of Gray: Incorporating Marketing into Transactional Email
- 1. Shades of Grey Incorporating Marketing into Transactional Email
- 2. Carly Brantz carly.brantz@sendgrid.com @carlybrantz Brian O’Neill Brian.oneill@sendgrid.com @emailpm 2
- 3. Delivering Email at Scale Serving 60,000+ customers Sending 4 billion emails per month Transactional and marketing email solutions 3
- 4. Agenda • Categories of Email • The Value of Transactional Email • Ways to Incorporate Marketing into Transactional • Knowing Your Audience • Shades of Grey • Examples 4
- 5. Categories of Email Definitions Transactional Marketing • Sent based on direct • Commercial in interaction and within nature, either the bounds of a VS advertising or previously agreed promoting upon contract commercial product or service 5
- 6. Categories of Email Examples Transactional Marketing • Receipts • Newsletters • ‘Like’ Notifications • Product • ‘Check-Ins’ Announcements • Bank Notices • Daily Deals 6
- 7. Categories of Email Typical Volume Transactional Marketing • 1% of all email • 99% of all email volume volume • 2% of all recipients • 98% of all recipients email email Source: SendGrid Source: Jupiter Research “US email Marketing Forecast” 7
- 8. Categories of Email Success Rates Transactional Marketing Open: 41 - 54% Open: 15 - 19% Click: 18 - 23% Click: 2 - 5% Unsubscribe: < .4% Unsubscribe Rate: 1.2% Average of ~20% Better Open and 16% Click Rates! Source: SendGrid Source: Juniper Research 8
- 9. 10% 12% 14% 16% 18% 20% 0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 9/22/06 10/22/06 11/22/06 12/22/06 1/22/07 2/22/07 3/22/07 4/22/07 5/22/07 6/22/07 7/22/07 8/22/07 9/22/07 10/22/07 11/22/07 12/22/07 1/22/08 2/22/08 3/22/08 4/22/08 5/22/08 System Statistics 6/22/08 7/22/08 8/22/08 9/22/08 Clicks Opens Unique Clicks Unique Opens 9
- 10. A Warning 11
- 11. 5 Easy Ways to Incorporate Marketing Follows Proactive Surveys Referrals Opt-ins and likes support 12
- 12. Surveys • Gain customer feedback by asking them to complete a quick Net Promoter Score survey • Ask them to answer a single question. A click-to-answer approach works well. 13
- 13. Referrals • Ask happy customers to refer your company to their friends • Give the opportunity for them to earn a reward. • We’ve seen great success with this approach at SendGrid. 14
- 14. Opt-Ins • Allow recipients to subscribe to your marketing emails • Incorporate a link inside the transactional email. 15
- 15. Follows and Likes • Include a few unobtrusive (and nowadays, almost obligatory) social icons • Facilitate extra follows and likes on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and Google+. 16
- 16. Proactive Support • Include a link to documentation, forums or support page to offer help when the user most needs it. • Help your users while avoiding customer support time. 17
- 17. Know Your Audience Who are you? Who who, who who? He really wants to know. 18
- 18. Know Your Audience Be Personal • Include personalized content Dave Jon Bob Tina Kate 19
- 19. Know Your Audience Be Gentle • Don’t go overboard, use the space efficiently. 20
- 20. Know Your Audience Be Relevant • Present applicable, targeted offers 21
- 21. Know Your Audience Know Your Interaction Lifecycle • How do your clients react with your application? • What is the typical path a customer takes when making a decision to purchase? 22
- 22. Know Your Audience Know Your Customer’s Interaction Lifecycle Map your application’s transactional work flow: Example Work Flow 1. Email Validation 2. Sign-Up Completion 3. First Purchase 4. Shipping Notification 5. Delivery Follow-up 23
- 23. Know Your Audience Example Work Flow Complementary Marketing Message 1. Email Validation - Account Completion - Product Walk-Throughs 2. Sign-Up Completion 3. First Purchase 4. Shipping Notification 5. Delivery Follow-up 24
- 24. Know Your Audience Example Work Flow Complementary Marketing Message 1. Email Validation - Further engagement, push next steps 2. Sign-Up Completion - Product Recommendations 3. First Purchase 4. Shipping Notification 5. Delivery Follow-up 25
- 25. Know Your Audience Example Work Flow Complementary Marketing Message 1. Email Validation - Recommendations - Social Sharing reminders 2. Sign-Up Completion 3. First Purchase 4. Shipping Notification 5. Delivery Follow-up 26
- 26. Know Your Audience Example Work Flow Complementary Marketing Message 1. Email Validation - “Thank You”s - Social Sharing reminders 2. Sign-Up Completion 3. First Purchase 4. Shipping Notification 5. Delivery Follow-up 27
- 27. Know Your Audience Example Work Flow Complementary Marketing Message 1. Email Validation - Surveys - Proactive Support 2. Sign-Up Completion 3. First Purchase 4. Shipping Notification 5. Delivery Follow-up 28
- 28. Know Your Audience • Pro-Tips: – Don’t repeat yourself. – Aim, then fire – Weekly Summaries: Consolidate the transactional notifications to increase your ability to engage your customers 29
- 29. Measuring Your Results • Metrics To Track – Open Rate • Unique Opens / Deliveries • Reflects on the effectiveness of your subject lines, the timing of your message, and the strength of the call-to- action implied – Click Rate • Unique Clicks / Deliveries • Measures the strength of the call-to-action and the perceived benefits 30
- 30. Measuring Your Results • Metrics To Track – Email-To-Action • From Open to Purchase • Open -> Click -> Landing Page -> Desired Action • Find weak-points in your customer interaction cycles • Desired Actions: Purchase, Sign-Up, Engagement 31
- 31. Measuring Your Results • Tools To Use – Multiple-Link Tracking Reports • Show where in the email recipients are clicking • Help you tailor and adjust your messaging to put the most important links where users are most likely to click – A/B Testing • Automatically test out content variations to send our messages with proven mark-up 32
- 32. Measuring Your Results • Tools To Use – Content Versioning • Allows you to track changes to similar content over time Version • 13% Click 1 Version2 • 14% Click Live • 15% Click Version 33
- 33. 34
- 34. 35
- 35. Example 36
- 36. 37
- 37. 38
- 38. 39
- 39. Key Takeaways 40
- 40. Questions? 41
Editor's Notes
- Industry-wide there are traditionally two main types of B2C emails; transactional and marketing. The definitions are important because this is how they are classified by the CAN-SPAM regulation.
- Some examples of the types of emails sent in each category. Generally, the transactional are all driven by actions that have taken place and marketing are scheduled
- These figures show the average volume of each type of email.The high percentage of the marketing emails show the noise a typical recipient will have in their inbox, hinting at the value transactional emails contain.
- As you can see, transactional emails have a much better open and click rate. Recipients more willingly engage with emails that are action-driven and targeted.This data was pulled from emails sent through our system over the course of the last 3 years. The ranges percentages are a reflection of the differences that are seen between industries, industries like music, politics and medical see open rates on the very low end (13%) and industries like Construction, Home and Garden and Photo&Video see higher rates (28%).The unsubscribe rates are both low, but when you add in SPAM reports, Blocks, and Bounces, you see a much more successful engagement rate overall for transactional emails
- Here is a little look at our systems’ aggregate data for the last few years. The numbers are artificially by approximately 5% because a not all of our email is sent with open and click tracking enabled.
- Warning: You must exercise caution when adding marketing content to transactional emails as you run the risk of spoiling your most valuable emails. Make sure you proceed with changes slowly to minimalize the risk to your critical emails.
- One of the most important aspects of successful marketing through transactional email is knowing your audience. You have to know your customers, your product and how they interact.
- Remain CAN-SPAM compliant by not taking up too much space. Keep the main focus of the email on the transactional message
- Some ConsiderationsWhat state is your customer in?What is the next thing you want them to do?What has changed since their last visit?What are their friends doing?
- Expand all examples and call out why they’re succesfull
- Use Dynamic ContentUse place holders in your content and replace with personalized call-to-actions