We’re on the last leg of our journey through the types of emails you will most likely have to send out as a part of one autoresponder series or another.
As I’ve mentioned, each of these emails serves a particular purpose. Not all of them will get the engagement you’re hoping for but that’s ok. You just have to know which emails do work and you can actually tweak them and sneak something extra into each one.
This is especially true for the following two types of emails: thank you/ confirmation emails and transaction emails.
After the welcome email, these two types have the highest open rates. Leaving them bare and failing to incorporate an offer in them is a huge mistake – but I’ll get to that. Let’s first check out other types you will be sending out on a regular basis.
Post-purchase Emails
These are commonly mistaken with the thank you or transaction-related mails but they serve a completely different purpose when executed correctly.
Post-purchase emails are sent out once the customer has received your product or service and had a chance to test it out. Of course, you will take the opportunity to thank them for their business and perhaps try to upsell them if there is a chance but that’s not the reason why you should send this email out.
You want to send out a post-purchase email to collect social proof and have a constant stream of it pouring in. The best way to do this is to ask your customers to write up – or even better, record – a review of your product and send it to you. Include a discounted offer in the deal and chances are you will have more user-generated content than you’ll know what to do with!
Re-engagement Emails
Every marketing list needs an occasional clean up otherwise you’re running the risk of being marked as a spam sender by the ISP’s. However, deleting unresponsive subscribers without making a final bid for their attention might prove to be a mistake.
I have three different approaches to reengaging disinterested subscribers.
A no-nonsense, straight to the head final email
Basically, I ask them ‘Hey, what gives?’ This is a great approach if you want to connect on a personal level and get an honest feedback from people who are no longer interested. Try asking them why they’re no longer interested – quality of content, ill-targeted offers, or maybe something else – and use the answers to improve if the blame really lies in your court.
Reminding them of all the goodies
This is a great approach if you’re regularly handing out free content and advice. Send out an email reminding all those inactives about what they’re missing out on. Link to your most popular article or even consider putting together an e-book of your best and most valuable content.
Hitting them with a massive discount
This is definitely not the best tactic out there but it might be worth exploring. If you can afford it, try offering a large discount on your products. The best approach would be to have segmented lists and offer discounts on products your subscribers already purchased with you – or products that are closely related to them.
You might be able to reengage some of your customers this way but don’t count on them sticking around for long. They will probably slip back to their inactive behavior as soon as you stop running incentives – but you might be able to push through another sale or two.
Reengagement mails have to have a couple of essential components:
A reminder of why they opted-in in the first place
One last great offer that is difficult to refuse
A large, prominent unsubscribe button
This unsubscribe button is an important addition. You want to give people an opportunity to gracefully bow out if they are no longer interested. It shows that you acknowledge their sentiment – and that you don’t need friends who don’t want to hang out with you, anyway.
Transaction Emails
Transaction emails are emails that you send out to your customers confirming their purchase. They usually have all the details on them; name, address, product, shipping method, and so on. And sometimes they stop there.
If you’re sending out transaction emails, use them for more. Use them to pitch a related product or to upsell the customer to a higher tier service. Otherwise you’re wasting their 40 % open rate!
Thank You Emails
‘Thank You’ emails are another great opportunity to do more than simply thank people for their purchase. First of all, it is your opportunity to showcase your great customer relations skills. Add in a product guide and a guide video and make sure to link to frequently asked questions. It will save your team from dealing with unnecessary emails that usually follow a purchase.
Again, don’t forget to offer more. ‘Thank You’ emails are the second most opened emails, falling right behind welcome mails and getting the open rate of roughly 48 %, according to research. Most of your upsell emails get the open rates of 25%, which means that including an offer in the ‘Thank You’ email will double the number of people who’re going to see it.
Email Templates You’ll Find Useful
Post-purchase Email
Hi Abe!
We’re delighted you’ve decided to purchase our XXX product! We already have thousands of happy customers and are lucky to count you in among them.
Check out these testimonials for a couple of our satisfied customers:
We greatly appreciate your feedback so if you’d like to leave a review, please visit this page.
After you submit it we’ll contact you with a 20 % discount code for your next purchase!
Thanks again,
XYZ Team
Reengagement Email
Don’t You Like Us Anymore?
Hi Abe!
You’ve been our subscriber since October 2014 and we’re happy you stuck with us for this long!
However, we did notice that you rarely open our emails lately and we wanted to check out if it’s something we did.
We know that people grow apart that’s why we wanted to let you know that it’s ok if you decide to unsubscribe from our mailing list. It’s going to be sad, but we’ll pull through, we promise.
UNSUBSCRIBE BUTTON
Of course, we’d be delighted if you took a moment to tell us why you’re doing this by using this link.
In hopes that you do decide to stick around,
XYZ Team
Transaction Email
XYZ Company – Order Number # 448585
Hey there Abe!
We’re just dropping by to deliver the information regarding your latest purchase.
Order number: 448585
NAME: Abe Product: XYZ Shipping Method: Expedited Shipping Total Amount $ XYZ
Thank you for your purchase!
XYZ Team
Thank You Email
Thanks For Shopping With XYZ!
Hi Abe!
Thank you for staying a loyal customer!
We’re happy that you decided to purchase XYZ and want to let you in on a couple of product secrets. Even though you will be receiving a guide with your product we think that you will find this How-to video useful as well.
LINK TO HOW TO VIDEO
If you have any questions about the product make sure to check out the Frequently Asked Questions section – we might have already answered it. If you can’t find the answer there send us an email here.
Also, check out these products that are frequently bought with XYZ – our customers swear by them and note that they improve the efficiency of XYZ by nearly 25 %!
Thanks again!
XYZ Team
I hope that these email series were useful for you.
If you would like to read all 3 Series click below:
Series 1: Handy Welcome Email Templates
Thanks for reading!
Abe