shades of gray: incorporating marketing into transactional email
DESCRIPTION
Transactional email is one of the most engaging communication channels, yet many companies fail to take advantage of its potential. With the CAN-SPAM act and deliverability concerns, many companies are afraid to incorporate marketing into their transactional messages. Carly Brantz and Brian O’Neill broke down ways to increase ROI and engagement with your customers through discrete marketing in your transactional email.TRANSCRIPT
Shades of Grey Incorporating Marketing into Transactional Email
Delivering Email at Scale
Serving 60,000+ customers
Sending 4 billion emailsper month
Transactional and marketing email solutions
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Agenda
• Categories of Email• The Value of Transactional Email• Ways to Incorporate Marketing into Transactional • Knowing Your Audience• Shades of Grey• Examples
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Categories of Email
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Transactional• Sent based on direct
interaction and within the bounds of a previously agreed upon contract
Marketing • Commercial in nature,
either advertising or promoting commercial product or service
Definitions
VS
Categories of Email
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Transactional• Receipts• ‘Like’ Notifications• ‘Check-Ins’• Bank Notices
Marketing • Newsletters• Product
Announcements• Daily Deals
Examples
Categories of Email
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Transactional
• 1% of all email volume
• 2% of all recipients email
Marketing
• 99% of all email volume
• 98% of all recipients email
Typical Volume
Source: SendGrid Source: Jupiter Research “US email Marketing Forecast”
Categories of Email
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TransactionalOpen: 41 - 54%Click: 18 - 23%Unsubscribe: < .4%
MarketingOpen: 15 - 19%Click: 2 - 5% Unsubscribe Rate: 1.2%
Success Rates
Average of ~20% Better Open and 16% Click Rates!
Source: SendGrid Source: Juniper Research
System Statistics
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9/22/0
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10/13/0
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11/3/0
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11/24/0
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12/15/0
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1/5/0
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1/26/0
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2/16/0
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3/9/0
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3/30/0
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4/20/0
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5/11/0
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6/1/0
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6/22/0
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7/13/0
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8/3/0
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8/24/0
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9/14/0
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10/5/0
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10/26/0
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11/16/0
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12/7/0
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12/28/0
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1/18/0
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2/8/0
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2/29/0
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3/21/0
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4/11/0
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5/2/0
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5/23/0
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6/13/0
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7/4/0
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7/25/0
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9/5/0
80%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
14%
16%
18%
20%
OpensUnique OpensClicksUnique Clicks
A Warning
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5 Easy Ways to Incorporate Marketing
Surveys Referrals Opt-ins Follows and likes
Proactive support
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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.
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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.
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Opt-Ins
• Allow recipients to subscribe to your marketing emails
• Incorporate a link inside the transactional email.
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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+.
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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.
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Know Your Audience
Who are you? Who who, who who?
He really wants to know.
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Know Your Audience
Be Personal• Include personalized content
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BobTina
Dave
KateJon
Know Your Audience
Be Gentle• Don’t go overboard, use the space efficiently.
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Know Your Audience
Be Relevant • Present applicable, targeted offers
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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?
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Know Your Audience
Know Your Customer’s Interaction LifecycleMap your application’s transactional work flow:Example Work Flow1. Email Validation2. Sign-Up Completion3. First Purchase4. Shipping Notification5. Delivery Follow-up
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Know Your Audience
Example Work Flow1. Email Validation2. Sign-Up Completion3. First Purchase4. Shipping Notification5. Delivery Follow-up
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Complementary Marketing Message
- Account Completion- Product Walk-Throughs
Know Your Audience
Example Work Flow1. Email Validation2. Sign-Up Completion3. First Purchase4. Shipping Notification5. Delivery Follow-up
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Complementary Marketing Message
- Further engagement, push next steps
- Product Recommendations
Know Your Audience
Example Work Flow1. Email Validation2. Sign-Up Completion3. First Purchase4. Shipping Notification5. Delivery Follow-up
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Complementary Marketing Message
- Recommendations- Social Sharing reminders
Know Your Audience
Example Work Flow1. Email Validation2. Sign-Up Completion3. First Purchase4. Shipping Notification5. Delivery Follow-up
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Complementary Marketing Message
- “Thank You”s- Social Sharing reminders
Know Your Audience
Example Work Flow1. Email Validation2. Sign-Up Completion3. First Purchase4. Shipping Notification5. Delivery Follow-up
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Complementary Marketing Message
- Surveys- Proactive Support
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
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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
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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
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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
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Measuring Your Results
• Tools To Use– Content Versioning• Allows you to track changes to similar content over
time
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Version 1
• 13% Click
Version2 • 14% Click
Live Version
• 15% Click
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Example
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Key Takeaways
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Questions?
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