Are your transactional emails one of the workhorses of your email marketing program? Or just sitting in stalls not helping at all?

“Whoa!” you be thinking right now. “Transactional? Marketing? Aren’t those two different kinds of emails with two very different jobs?”

Your transactional emails aren’t marketing. They’re business, you’re right. But they can do some heavy lifting on behalf of your marketing. They can subtly promote product and build brand without distracting from their primary purpose.

People are very receptive to transactional emails because they are sent in response to an action on the part of the customer or subscriber. It’s therefore an email they anticipate and open. By transactional emails we mean communications like:

• Welcome emails
• Order confirmations
• Receipts
• Shipping confirmations
• Billing notices
• Regular statements

These types of emails are more likely to be opened by the recipient than your regular promotional email marketing messages because they are anticipated and welcomed. That makes them ideal partners to their marketing cohorts.

Transactional emails are an opportunity. The people getting transactional emails from you are already communicating with you and even buying from you, so the trust is there. And they are already opening those transactional emails, so the opportunity is there.

Use your transactional emails for subtle sales by cross-selling and up selling similar products or relevant products or services. Here are some possibilities:

• Promote products or services that complement what the customer just bought.
• Drive traffic back to your website for more shopping.
• Encourage recipients to sign up for email communications.

Ask yourself: Is there targeted selling information that could be included in your transactional emails that’s relevant and useful without distracting from the business nature of the message?

And there’s more. When I say workhorse, I mean workhorse. Selling isn’t the only extra task these emails can tackle. They can be brand builders too. By ensuring the look, feel and voice of the transactional email fits with all your other messaging everywhere else, every message sent is one more brick in the brand you’re building in the customer’s mind.

Review your transactional emails: Do they share the same look and feel as your branded emails? Is the email copywriting written in a voice that matches your brand? Or are they just dry and straightforward business communications? Your transactional emails need not be splashy HTML to reinforce your brand. You can be plenty creative with text only emails. Just make sure the messaging is spot on inline with your brand.

Don’t let your transactional emails munch hay all day when they could be making hay instead. Put them to work promoting product and building brand!

About the Author: Marco Marini is the CEO of ClickMail Marketing and an acknowledged expert in email marketing with over a decade of experience in the field. Follow ClickMail on Twitter: @ClickMail