More out of transactional emails?
Question: I want to juice up our transactional emails so we can get some marketing mileage out of them, because they have a better open rate than our regular newsletters. What can I do that will keep them legal? Answer: Transactional emails represent an untapped resource because recipients look for them and open them more often. You have some latitude to add some marketing content to emails sent to confirm a purchase, registration, bill payment or other transaction. But remember, the primary purpose of the email must be to provide the transactional information. If half or more of the content is commercial, though, it tilts the balance from transactional to commercial. In particular, you would need to add a working unsubscribe link and physical postal address, which is never a bad practice for any message, transactional or not. Three tips: • Add only 1 commercial element such as an opt-in invitation, a link to related or complementary purchases, or an offer to download a white paper. •
