Transactional Emails: A Key Element of Seamless User Onboarding
User onboarding is crucial for modern businesses, including traditional brick-and-mortar stores, ecCommerce sites, and digital services. It’s the process of introducing new users and/or customers to your website or app to provide relevant information regarding your products and services. Moreover, it helps prospects understand your value offerings and ensures a smooth transition from visitors to returning customers or users.
According to Userpilot, 63% of customers believe onboarding is key to deciding whether or not to purchase a product or subscribe to a service.
Today, you can employ various strategies and channels to facilitate or enhance user onboarding. However, transactional emails could be the key to unlocking a seamless, personalized, and engaging onboarding experience.
In this post, we’ll share five ways onboarding transactional emails improve user onboarding and five best practices to help optimize engagement and other performance metrics.
Understanding Onboarding Transactional Emails
Did you know that 55% of modern customers and users opt out from purchasing a product or subscribing to a service due to limited information? Onboarding transactional emails allow businesses to welcome new customers and guide them through their purchase journeys, clearing any confusion that might stop them from proceeding.
They provide a welcoming vibe by catering to initial queries proactively by describing products and services or sharing helpful resources or tips. This information can get prospects out of their comfort zone and accelerate their transition to paid customers.
Types of Transactional Emails in User Onboarding
Below are the most common types of transactional emails businesses send to onboard users:
1. Welcome Message
A welcome email is like a gracious host extending a warm invitation to customers visiting your stores. It’s the first interaction users make after creating an account. Hence, you can use it to introduce your brand and provide essential information about your services and how to get started.
2. Account Confirmation
Modern customers or users are accustomed to receiving a confirmation email when they sign up for a service. Hence, onboarding emails set the stage for future interactions and a seamless onboarding experience.
3. Order Processing
Many Ecommerce stores require customers to create an account after adding products to a cart and fill in their payment and personal details to proceed to check-out. The data collection typically follows transactional emails confirming or verifying their details before finalizing the order.
5 Ways Transactional Emails Improve User Onboarding
Now that you have a better understanding of transactional emails, here are the different ways they improve user onboarding:
1. Prompt Account Verification
Transactional emails, such as account verification messages, can quickly confirm a user’s details following signup. By confirming the accuracy of user information, businesses ensure data integrity and foster a sense of trust. This, in turn, encourages users to engage more fully with the platform, leading to a more successful onboarding experience.
2. Personalized Welcome Messages
Welcome emails, especially those that include the user’s name and other shared details, make recipients feel valued. More importantly, it opens them to further communication and improves lead conversion.
3. Call-to-Action
Most transactional emails contain a clear and compelling call to action, depending on the business or product/service provided. For example, a streaming service can send a welcome email with a CTA to explore different content categories. Similarly, an Ecommerce store can link the CTA to more products matching the customer’s requirements.
4. Timely Notifications
Transactional emails are a reliable means of keeping users informed. Whether it’s notifying them about abandoned carts or subscription guidelines, these messages ensure users are in the loop and stay engaged with your platform.
5. Promotional Content
Many marketers add promotional content to transactional emails to entice new users to convert into paid customers or subscribers. Some highlight how their service has positively impacted people’s lives or businesses through testimonials, ratings, or case studies. Meanwhile, others send a sequence of onboarding emails, each designed to build a connection gradually.
5 Best Practices for Using Transactional Emails in User Onboarding
If you’re looking to improve user onboarding using transactional emails, here are some effective tips that can help you boost engagement, conversion, and retention:
1. Ensure Timely Delivery
Onboarding transactional emails must be sent instantly following the user’s action. Delayed emails can disrupt onboarding by frustrating users or prompting them to think your service is unreliable. To prevent this from happening, you should opt for a reputable transactional email service like Maileroo, which offers high-speed email delivery through secure ports like 587 and 465.
2. Mobile Optimization
Most modern consumers are accustomed to accessing emails on their smartphones. Therefore, you must ensure your onboarding emails are mobile-friendly, with clickable CTAs and responsive or adaptable content.
3. Compliance with Regulatory Bodies
Another best practice to adopt when sending onboarding emails is complying with regulatory bodies like the Federal Trade Commission (CAN_SPAM Act). While it’s not mandatory to include opt-out information in transactional emails, your email should contain accurate sender information and clear CTAs with authentic links.
4. Personalization
As mentioned earlier, personalization is one of the best ways to improve email engagement. Therefore, you should include as much information as possible about the recipient, including their name, city, contact, etc., and send relevant content based on their needs, actions, and personas.
5. A/B Testing
By opting for a powerful transactional email service, you can regularly test and refine your onboarding emails through A/B testing. Experiment with different subject lines, email content, and CTAs to determine which elements resonate best with your target audience. Analyzing open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates can continually optimize your emails to enhance their effectiveness in user onboarding.
The Final Word
Transactional emails are more than just notifications or alerts. They can serve as powerful guides to help streamline and accelerate user onboarding. However, for these messages to work like a charm, you need a reliable transactional email service.
This is where Maileroo comes in. With its quick email delivery and cutting-edge features like automation and analytics, you can make get the most out of transactional emails and use this powerful communication channel to its full potential to entice new users or prospects to become loyal customers or subscribers.