07 Nov How to move your prospects down the sales funnel with transactional emails

Okay, your first question may be, what are transactional emails?

Basically, they are follow-up emails to a prospect thanking them for engaging in some kind of interaction—a transaction—with your company. For instance:

•  Downloading gated content on your website

•  Subscribing to a webinar

•  Placing an order

The transactional email provides the information requested, such as the download or login information to join a webinar, with reminders of the date and time.

But transactional emails also provide a great opportunity to move your prospect further down the sales funnel.

Having engaged with your company at least once already, the prospect is obviously interested. So transactional emails can offer more information. For instance:

•  Download relevant content

•  Sign up for a demo

•  Schedule a sales call

•  Take a free trial

Offering a secondary conversion opportunity of higher commitment and value helps move the prospect further along in the sales cycle.

Another benefit: if your email contains content of interest, prospects often forward it to others, creating additional potential new customers.

How effective are transactional emails?

HubSpot reports that transactional emails have among the highest open rates of all email types. That’s because the prospect has been previously qualified and is more apt to be interested in the contents of the transactional email.

In fact, HubSpot says transactional emails are twice as engaging as general marketing emails.

Tips to producing effective transactional emails

•  Keep them short and simple

•  Include links to relevant content or enticing offers

•  Make your call to action prominent

•  Encourage recipients to share the email with others

•  Consider including social media links