Welcome to Vol.7 of Email Advice in Your Inbox!

Hey, friend! It's your regular neighbourhood email marketing plug 🔌 Ready for the (email) goods this week? 
 

Here's what you'll learn this week
 

• Transactional & Automated Emails: Getting the best out of both email worlds

• Some nifty (free) recourses to help you become a better email marketer
   

• The top 3 marketers to follow on LinkedIn this week
   

• The fun stuff: What do buying an email list and your Ex have in common?
   

• This week's expert discussion you may have missed
   

Let's learn more about email marketing! 🚀

Transactional & Automated Emails: How to get the best out of both email worlds

Do you know the difference between a transactional and automated email?

The terms transactional emails and automated emails get thrown around a lot in the email world.

They're often used interchangeably too, which causes much confusion. Today we're here to set the record straight 🔎

What many email senders don't realise is that this definition matters from a legal and compliance perspective too.

Let's shed some light, clarify which one is ACTUALLY which, and how you can get the most out of both your transactional and automated emails.

Defining automated & transactional emails

We begin this exploration by looking at the difference between these two emails.

First off, you get transactional emails.

Transactional emails are typically triggered by specific actions or events users take within a system or application.

These emails are one-to-one communication and are sent in real-time or near real-time. They are mostly personalised and contain information directly related to the user's interaction with such systems.
 

What about automated emails?

Automated emails, on the other hand, are not necessarily triggered by user actions but are scheduled to be sent at specific times or intervals.

Most commonly, these are a series of emails that kick off when you set certain starting conditions. These often include emails, delays and certain conditions.

Sounds complex but any time you get a welcome email or series of emails enticing you to buy something, you're receiving automated emails.

I want to avoid getting hung up on specific terminology. Many platforms and resources refer to automated emails as drip campaigns, journeys or even automation, but the premise remains: They're automated, not scheduled.
 

Now that we're pretty familiar with the distinction between the two, let's look at a few opportunities you have in your email environment to get the most out of both types of emails. 

Transactional emails: The lowdown 💸

If we had to sum up what all Transactional emails have in common it would be the fact that they contain information that is uniquely relevant to an individual recipient.

While transactional emails can help fulfil marketing needs (think recovering abandoned carts or re-activating inactive users) these emails are primarily functional and provide an anticipated response to an action or a request made by the recipient.

One thing many marketers also don't consider about marketing within transactional emails is email regulations.

It is generally accepted practice that transactional emails are sent in the process of a purchase or transaction, so your traditional marketing consent or marketing email considerations (more on this here) aren't necessary.

That said, certain regulations such as the USA's CAN-SPAM Act prohibit senders from using transactional emails for marketing purposes.

A fine line to tread, because these emails generally garner fantastic open and engagement rates.

Now that you know what these actually are, let's look at a few transactional email opportunities you can begin using.

5 Transactional emails you can use today

Depending on the type of business, website or content offering you run, here are 5 transactional email examples you can implement:
 

1. Order Confirmations: After a customer places an order on your e-commerce site or store, send them an order confirmation email with detailed information about their purchase, reassuring them that their transaction is successful.
    
2. Password Reset Emails: When a user requests to reset their password, promptly deliver a password reset email to create a secure way to facilitate a password reset.
    
3. Purchase Receipts: Upon a successful transaction, send a purchase receipt to your customers, summarising the order details and thanking them for buying. These are a great place to add future purchase discount codes or incentives (without aggressive marketing needed).
    
4. Account Notifications: Keep subscribers informed about any changes in their account status or activities with these emails. This keeps subscribers in the know and allows them to take action if any is needed.
    
5. Delivery updates: If you sell products, letting buyers know how far their packages are and providing updates on the delivery process creates a great experience and builds trust.
    

There are a ton more opportunities we'll explore in later editions, but begin with these, where applicable.

Automated emails: The lowdown 🤖

Unlike transactional emails, automated emails are emails set up to run based on certain database criteria.

These often involve sequences of emails that relate to certain points of a subscriber's journey or engagement with your business.

You've likely received a plethora of these in various forms. I'd be willing to wager a bet that you've received a welcome email, birthday email or even an email saying you're no longer reading emails with an incentive to engage (if you follow a few smart email senders 😉)

These are predominantly marketing-oriented, which means you'd need the right consent in place to send these. Generally, marketing email consent or signing up for a product or newsletter covers this.

These are likely the most underutilized and potentially powerful emails you can send. One study showed that marketers rated email automation as one of the most effective email marketing strategies.

That's massive! 

You probably already use a welcome email, so we're going to skip this below, but let's dive into 5 opportunities for email automation that almost any email sender can use.

5 Email Automations you can use today

Again, depending on the type of email strategy you have in place, here are 5 automated email examples you can implement:
 

1. Birthday or anniversary emails: Everyone loves their birthday (well, I know I love the gifts, not the family drama 🙄). But seriously, these are awesome and show your subscribers you care about their special day or event with your emails (like a 1-year thanks for being an audience member).
    
2. Product information sequences: No one reads the instruction manual, do they? Why not teach users something like a course of emails over a few days or a series of emails teaching buyers how to use their newly purchased products?
    
3. Re-engagement emails: No one likes getting ghosted (we discussed this here). Why not set up automated emails to subscribers who stop engaging with your emails? Simple yet super effective for your email strategy.
    
4. Pre and post-event emails: If you run an event, webinar, podcast or anything really, you can build hype, share information or just let folks know what they're in for through automated emails! Once the event is complete, you can automate the sharing of resources or notes. Really helpful emails.
    
5. Product reminder emails: If you have an item or service that's out of stock or unavailable, potential buyers can sign up for reminders to let them know when back in stock or available. Use these to help fulfil the replenishment of your products too!
    

The possibilities are endless. We encourage you to simply set up a few automated emails and watch how easy scaling your email program becomes.

Now that you have some knowledge about these emails and what defines how they work, you'll be the coolest cat around the water cooler with this nugget of knowledge. You're welcome 😎

Want to become an email expert? We've got what you need!

Email resources of the week

A few badass resources and tips to help you become a better email marketer

Who to follow this week?

Learning is the name of the game. The best way to do so? Learn from other experts!

Here are 3 marketing experts to follow this week

Some more (email) fun to make your day better

Yep. Buying email lists has become such bad news that they're making memes about it.

Marketers know that one of the most dangerous tactics in email is buying a list. Pretty much drunk-texting your ex. You never know what you're going to get.

This meme comes from one of the The Marketing Millenials emails, and we thought it too relatable not to share. Their emails are pretty cool too, if you're not on the list already.

Check out The Marketing Millenials

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Before you go! Don't miss this week's discussion

Netcore Cloud, a leading software organisation runs an amazing interview series called "Ask the Expert".

I had the privilege of sharing my thoughts on all things email segmentation in their latest edition of this series.

If you're interested in learning about effective segmentation strategies and aligning your data collection and analysis processes with data privacy regulations, then this article is for you!

Click here or below to read more and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed answering these brilliant questions. 

Before I go! Remember, I help businesses and content creators, just like you, win at email. How? Here are three ways I can help:

Get the guide! We've spent 200+ hours compiling over 250 pages covering everything you need to launch and win at email. Find out more here. 

Get email help! I help businesses improve and grow their email marketing. Book your free email platform audit here.

Get expert service! I've partnered with the best to help take your email to the next level. Find out more here.

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