For this reason, many companies use email marketing at various stages of their marketing strategies, to send content ranging from promotions and offers to customer relations.
If you think that all emails are the same, you are very wrong! We can divide the types of email marketing into 3 main formats:
- Transactional emails
- Relational emails
- And promotional emails
It is necessary to keep these three formats in mind when writing the emails for your marketing strategy. In the end, each one fulfills different functions within companies.
If you want to understand more about the differences between the three most important email marketing formats and see the templates you can use to send at different times in your marketing strategy, keep reading!
Understand the 3 types of
As we mentioned earlier, email marketing is very flexible. If you take a quick look at your inbox right now, you can see that you are receiving emails from companies that communicate different messages in different formats.
An email promoting airline tickets, for example, is not done in the same way as an online purchase confirmation. And both are considered email marketing!
In order for email marketing professionals to understand the basics of each type of email, as well as learn about best practices for each and break down related marketing strategies, we’ve divided email marketing campaigns into 3 main categories:
Transactional, relational and promotional.
Transactional emails
As the name suggests, transactional emails are those that involve transaction processes between two parties.
When you make a purchase online, for example, you receive a series of transactional emails: one after confirming the transaction when making the purchase, another when your product has been shipped, and so on.
Examples of transactional emails are:
- Confirmation of transactions;
- Receipts;
- Delivery notification;
- Return confirmation;
- Support ticket;
- Password recovery;
- Email address confirmation.
Relational emails
The main objective of this type of email campaign is to engage or connect your contact base.
Relational emails focus on building relationships with your customers and potential customers by sending them content that will educate and generate value.
Your relational emails can contain:
- Welcome a new subscriber;
- Newsletter;
- Blog articles;
- Confirmation of a webinar;
- Opinion survey;
- News;
- Courses.
Promotional emails
Promotions and offers are one of the most common types of emails sent by companies to their consumers.
For this reason, this is generally the format most closely associated with email marketing. But as you can see, there are many different types of emails that can be sent by a brand!
In addition to promotions and offers, a promotional email can also be one that contains:
- Launching new products or services;
- Launch of rich materials;
- Dissemination of a webinar;
- Free trial period;
- Upgrade offer.
Email marketing templates for each type of campaign
Now that you understand the difference between promotional, relational, and transactional emails, you may be wondering how to execute each of these campaign types.
To make your life easier, we created a template for each email format that you can adapt to your company for the next time you launch a new product, send a newsletter or confirm a transaction.
Transactional email templates: purchase confirmation
Before you start implementing your email marketing, it is worth paying attention to some good practices specific to each format. In the case of transactional email, the rule is to keep it simple.
This type of email should be clear, objective, and contain all the information about the transaction that just occurred, so that your contact can verify it whenever they want.
In addition to that, there is no need to include images or many graphic elements in the email template, since the focus is on the content of the message.
Use the following template when writing your transactional email:
Subject: Confirmation of order no. 123456
“Hi [Name], how are you?
Thank you for shopping at our store! This email is to confirm that your order was successfully received.
[Order number]
After being processed, your order will be ready for shipping and will be dispatched within X business days.
More information about your order:
[Order number]
[Order date and time]
[Items]
[Paid value]
If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected] , or by phone [Company phone number]
A hug,
[Your company]”
Relational email template: Newsletter
Did you know that newsletters are the most common type of email sent by companies? According to a Pardot survey , 66% of emails sent in email marketing campaigns are newsletters.
This format is very popular among brands that want to engage with their database, as it allows for easy distribution of content while helping to build brand identity.
If you start a newsletter strategy for your company, don’t forget to define three important points:
- The periodicity (weekly, biweekly or monthly)
- The type of content to be included (blog posts, rich materials, third-party articles, news, updates);
- And the tone of the newsletter (formal or informal).
We have selected a real example from the lithuania mobile database blog Escriba para Web to serve as inspiration when writing your newsletter.
Subject: Rocking News #8 – I know what you did in the last newscast…
“Hello [Name],
This is the eighth edition of Rocking News, Escriba para Web’s newsletter. Today it’s full of zombies, ghosts and scary creatures. Take a look and see if you can survive this email…
Articles that stood out this week:
- What The Walking Dead taught me about writing for the web. [Link]
- How to write “the perfect text” with: Horror movies. [Link]
- The greatest secrets of ghost writing. [Link]
“See you next time and happy Halloween!”
And remember to attach the links to the respective title.
Promotional email template: launching rich material
If you work with an Inbound Marketing strategy, you know that producing rich materials such as ebooks or webinars is essential to educate your market, attract visitors to your site and generate leads.
But launching it is just as important as producing rich material, and email is one of the best channels to do so.
For this reason, we chose the launch of a rich material from Rock Content as an example of a promotional email for you.
Regardless of the objective of your promotional email, it should always be focused on the offer you are making, for example:
- To download a material;
- Get a discount coupon;
- Buy a product, etc.
Therefore, avoid distractions with unnecessary information or calls for other offers.
The template below is a real example of a promotional email we use at Rock Content to launch rich materials.
Subject: [Free Ebook] Content Trends 2016
“Hello [Name],
Today we launched the second edition of the countless opportunities for business development largest survey on content marketing in Brazil [Link], which is packed with incredible data about the future of the Brazilian digital marketing market.
2,725 marketing professionals participated and contributed with revealing data, such as the fact that 79% of agencies in Brazil have already adopted this strategy.
Want to know more?
I want to be part of the content marketing trends in 2016. [Link]
A hug,
Vitor Pecanha ”
As you can see, each type of email requires aqb directory a different format and writing style.
Therefore, it is necessary to identify the email marketing campaigns that your company sends and adjust your strategy to the objective of each campaign.
As an addition, I would like to share with you an article that will help you plan your email marketing strategies: Email marketing tools .