How to Turn Order Confirmation Emails into a Sales Machine

Did you know that there is a type of email that has an average open rate of around 70%, while the rate for other emails is around 20%?

Did you know that people, on average, spend 14 seconds reading this type of email while they usually lose focus in no more than eight seconds? On top of that, marketers underestimate these emails.

We’re talking about order acknowledgment emails. These emails are sent to buyers to confirm their purchases. At this stage, buyers are very receptive, so you have to adapt your strategy to foster a relationship with these clients.

Here are some tips to apply when crafting your order confirmation emails to turn them into a sales machine. Apply these tactics, and let us know the ROI of your improved order confirmation emails.

1. Make Them Mobile-Friendly

Fifty-four percent of email opens happen on mobile devices, and only 16% occur on desktops. Sixty-one percent of people who own a mobile device check their phones immediately after waking up, and most of them probably check their email. Emphasizing responsive emails is a no-brainer.

Email marketers agree that responsiveness is the solution to creating mobile-friendly emails. However, some email campaigns fall short due to poor implementation of responsive design best practices.

The good news is that there are tons of free email templates on the internet that are suitable for your order confirmation emails. You have no excuse not to send a responsive email to your customers.

2. Make Them Helpful

Sending a fully responsive confirmation email is nowhere near enough to turn this process into a sales machine. A proper confirmation email must be helpful to the recipients.

First, the effectiveness of your email is about perfect timing. Send the confirmation email immediately after the client makes a purchase. It doesn’t make sense to send it after a while, and the receiver will dislike it if you wait.

Second, the purpose of an order confirmation email is to inform the buyers about their purchases. An order confirmation email must at least inform the buyers of the following:

• Quantity and name of the products ordered
• Estimated time of arrival
• Shipping address

Check out these two order confirmation emails. Do you think they are helpful enough? Leave a comment and share your opinion.

3. Make Them Sexy

Most confirmation emails are dull and boring. In essence, you are often sending unpolished emails to your customers when they are the most open to hearing from you.

Instead of focusing all your energy on newsletters that only 20% of your customers will open, wouldn’t it be more efficient to concentrate on confirmation emails?

A sexy email—an email that is unique and attractive—will convince buyers that they made the right decision.

What’s more, you can foster these relationships by providing the necessary data in a clean and original format. Don’t be afraid of being different. It’s the only way to considerably grow your margins.

4. Make Them Efficient

A responsive, good-looking, and helpful confirmation email is still not sufficient. Your confirmation email must be efficient, and improving it is relatively simple.

People want to have full control of their purchases. Improve your order confirmation emails by adding a tracking system for customer purchases. Many brands have implemented such systems, and the outcome has been positive.

Something else to consider is that certain buyers might need your help. Wouldn’t it be efficient to add a phone number and an email address for contacting your support department? You will save your customers’ time, and they will appreciate your efforts.

5. Make Them Personal

Adding a personal touch is a best practice for all types of emails. However, most order confirmation emails aren’t personal at all. Yours should be different.

The way you go about customizing your emails depends heavily on your industry. Sometimes, you can use a super-friendly tone, while other cases require a slightly formal approach.

This email went viral, and it’s a good example of how adding a human touch to your emails can work miracles.

6. Make Them Sell More

This is the cardinal feature of your order confirmation emails. It’s a waste of time to create a beautiful, mobile-friendly email if you fail to make it sell more. Here are a couple of ideas for you to implement and test.

Cross-Selling and Upselling

Cross-selling refers to enticing users to buy products or services in categories different from the ones in which they originally purchased. For instance, you can cross-sell products such shirts, ties, or bow ties to someone who bought a suit.

Upselling refers to the seller action of enticing buyers to acquire higher-end products than the ones they purchased. You can upsell a discounted high-end razor to someone who has already bought a less expensive razor.

This rule is not carved in stone, but try to limit the number of products you cross-sell and upsell within your confirmation email.

A rule of thumb says that five products are enough. Check out these confirmation emails to see how you could add products in order to sell more.

Offer Discounts

Retaining an existing customer is cheaper than acquiring a new one. Incentivize your buyers to come back and purchase from you by offering them a discount. You are rewarding their loyalty so they will be tempted to buy from you again.

Make your discount time-sensitive, but don’t rush the customers to buy from you in the next few hours after the initial purchase.

Implement a Referral Program

If you add a line such as, “Learn more about our referral program,” within an order confirmation email, you won’t have any positive results.

But if you create a friendly system of rewarding people who share your products, the confirmation email will really turn into a sales machine.

Dollar Shave Club’s confirmation email is a well-known example of using a referral program to sell more.

Make the Most Out of Each Order Confirmation Email

Boosting your sales through order confirmation emails isn’t rocket science. It’s mostly about focusing on customer behavior and not on email marketing practices.

You won’t craft the perfect order confirmation email overnight, so test and fine-tune your emails until you transform them into a sales machine.

Did I miss something? Please leave a comment and share your opinion about crafting a winning order confirmation email.

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Roland Pokornyik

Co-Founder and CEO at EDMdesigner

Roland Pokornyik is the CEO & Co-founder of Chamaileon.io — email content management platform for teams and EDMdesigner.com — responsive email editor API.

Latest posts by Roland Pokornyik (see all)

• How to Turn Order Confirmation Emails into a Sales Machine - December 7, 2017