Just a quick note that The Marketing Blog is on vacation this week. We'll provide a new post sometime this coming weekend or Monday, July 28th.

How to Make the Most of Order Confirmation and Ship Notification Emails

As the internet has evolved over time, marketing to customers via email has become more challenging. People and companies have implemented SPAM filters resulting in fewer messages being delivered to inboxes. When marketing emails are delivered, the messages still need to be opened. Email is obviously a cost effective way to market to existing customers.

This begs the question, "How can I get more existing customers to see my email marketing messages?" One way is to put marketing material into order confirmation emails and shipped notification emails (emails that are sent when orders are placed and shipped).

These types of emails have a tendency to get delivered more often. Much of the content is unique (order number, customer’s name, items purchased), making the email less likely to be flagged by a spam filter. Additionally, customers are likely to open these emails to confirm their order has the right contents or to see when a package might be delivered. It's a good medium to ask for an additional sale.

Should you decide to merchandise additional products in the email, consider putting them below the core data. For example, if a customer receives an email confirming his order, put the promotional copy and/or images below the invoice. Customers don't want to feel like they are being deceived when opening emails. Also, make sure the email addendum contains links so that it's easy for customer to get to the products that are being merchandised. Use clean crisp images that will pop and get the customer's attention.

It's an unfortunate fact of email marketing that fewer emails are reaching their intended recipients. However, merchants that seize the opportunity to market to their customers upon every touch point will have more success in generating repeat business.