Using Transactional Emails as High-Value Marketing Vehicles.

Retailers looking to up the value of their email communications and get more messages opened and clicked on should look to their transactional mailings as a vital marketing tool, based on data in Experian Marketing Services’ “The Transactional Email Report.”

The study compared the performance of various transactional messages sent by Experian clients with that of bulk mailings pushed out by the same companies. Open rates soared for transactional emails customers knew would be relevant, surpassing 100% for order and shipping confirmations, which were opened multiple times by the same recipients. Open rates for comparable bulk emails were much lower: about 14.5%.

Click rates tell the same story, reaching as high as 20.8% on shipping confirmation emails. Click rates on bulk mailings fell to between 3% and 4%—below the average performance reported for North American marketing emails in 2010 by Epsilon and the Email Experience Council.

Higher open rates, click rates and transaction rates translate to higher average revenue per email. Transactional emails brought in revenues between about 3 and 6 times higher than bulk mailings from the same clients.

Email marketers who are ignoring the transactional messages sent by the company are missing out on a significant opportunity. Rather than mostly text-based informational messages, shipping and order confirmations can be used to suggest other products and services customers may be interested in based on their recent purchase, or to direct them to specials and discounts available on the site.

For more information at http://www.emarketer.com