Customers love order confirmation emails, as they serve as a verification, a reminder, but also a proof of their recent order. How can a brand use them more effectively?
Order confirmation emails seem to have the highest open rate among customers and according to Litmus, 64% of consumers consider them as their most important messages in their inboxes.
This means that any brand that is involved with ecommerce and order confirmation emails should ensure that their emails are useful, appealing, and effective.
Just because a confirmation email is transactional, doesn’t mean that it cannot include secondary content, aiming to create a stronger relationship with consumers.
Image source: Listrak
How to increase engagement in a confirmation email
Showcase your brand’s uniqueness
An order confirmation email can go beyond its transactional nature by showing the brand’s uniqueness. Whether it’s the text, the graphics, or the unique formatting, there are many creative ways that a brand can promote its personality.
Beware, an order confirmation mail is still focusing on the purchase, so make sure that the order details are highlighted, before any attempt to become creative.
An order confirmation mail shouldn’t be boring and it may become engaging if the branding can make it memorable to the recipients.
Graze is popular for its creative (and effective) email newsletters and its order confirmation mail is no different.
The confirmation of the order was more creative than most, while it also informed recipients that they can rate the products of their order to improve their next purchases (ensuring that they are committing to receive more).
Focus on customer service
An order confirmation email should reassure its recipients that the brand is available any time to address their questions and that’s why it may be useful to include the contact details (email, contact link, phone number, etc.) in the (Read more...).
This helps customers appreciate the relationship that they are creating with the brand, enhancing the chances of building loyalty.
Personalised recommendations
A personalised recommendation shows to the recipient of the mail that the brand cares enough to include different recommendations in each order confirmation email, depending on the item of purchase.
Recommendations are usually displayed at the end of the order confirmation email, as a way to encourage further purchases, while their personalisation (instead of a generic promotion of a product), helps increase the purchase intent, or at least makes them more appealing to the recipients.
The recipient is likely to feel more valued with a carefully selected promotion of a product, especially if the suggestion is creative.
For example, Amazon never misses an opportunity to offer customised recommendations and this helps encourage further purchases that are relevant to the customers.
Promote social presence
A brand’s social presence can be promoted as a way to highlight a campaign, a competition, or simply the brand’s unique content that is posted on every social network.
What’s more, it can be used to encourage user-generated content, with customers feeling closer to the brand. This may lead to an additional level of engagement, while customers may be interested in following the brand to strengthen their bond with the brand and follow its latest updates.
It is common for brands to include social buttons at the end of their emails, but their social presence can be promoted in more creative ways, especially when they want to highlight a specific campaign, or the use of a specific hashtag.
Reward customers
A confirmation mail for a complete order should not discourage a brand from rewarding its customers for further purchases. In fact, this may be the first step for a new customer journey and an increased engagement that may lead to further sales.
Whether it’s a gift, a special offer, a discount, or the promotion of a loyalty programme, there are many ways a brand can prove how it values its customers. And this becomes even more important for new customers, as this email may be their first experience with the brand.
Optimise for mobile
According to the Email Benchmark Report by Experian, 59% of total email opens occurred on mobile devices and tablets during Q1 2016, rising from the percentage of 56% in Q4 2015.
Brands cannot overlook an increasing mobile audience and this makes it imperative to have all their emails optimised for mobile.
Whether it’s a promotion, or an order confirmation, an email has to be equally appealing both for desktop and mobile.
A responsive mobile design is usually:
- simple
- effective
- allows plenty of space
- includes links that are easily clicked, without being too close to each other
- is easily legible with emphasis on the type and the size of the font
Takeaway
An order confirmation email may be transactional, but it doesn’t have to be boring. There are many ways that a confirmation of an order may lead to further engagement, increased interest and most importantly, future purchase intent.
A brand should protect its branding in every occasion and if an order confirmation email is the first impression on its service, then it has to be an impressive one in order to build a positive sentiment and convince customers to trust the brand again in the future.