What is transactional direct mail?
It describes mail sent out to complete a transaction or exchange with an individual customer; basically, any mail not for marketing purposes.
Transactional mail covers a wide range of applications, and we have produced a detailed description of ten of these below:
- Saying thank you to a customer
This is a simple yet very useful way of using transactional direct mail. Thanking a customer simply for their loyalty or a recent order adds a big personal touch to your overall marketing strategy. Doing this builds emotional rapport with the customer, leaving them wanting to shop with you again.
- Recent receipt of an order
When a customer completes a new purchase, they are sent a transactional mail to confirm the order itself, showing a list of what the customer has ordered and the total cost of the order. This should cause the customer to hand you up-to-date address information, which can be used as valuable data further down the line.
- Changes to an account
If your customer or you decide to make a change to an account, you typically have to send out transactional direct mail to confirm this and notify the customer in case they did not make the changes. Doing this helps reassure customers that any changes they have made recently have been confirmed and have come into effect, as they will have been provided with physical evidence.
- Account updates
You can also receive other account updates through transactional mail, like receiving a new follower on social media or a general notification. This is a very adaptable piece of transactional mail, as people can adjust it to set how often they want to receive notifications like this, which is a good way of getting a full round-up of the latest activity on their account.
- Invoices
Invoices are a more formal example of transactional mail that have to be sent out with no marketing purpose yet are still crucial to your business. By invoicing using this method, you can keep a paper record of recent transactions and display what is owed and why to the recipient.
- Statements
These are very similar to invoices; they also give a total breakdown and summary of the figures. They are an immensely helpful type of transactional mail and offer snippets of figures every month and are used to deliver an annual overview of an account.
- Collection letters
Collection letters are also similar to invoices; however, they are written in a more urgent tone. Invoices are a recent receipt of the order with the intent to explain to you what is owed, whereas collection letters demand more of immediate action. For instance, these would be used by a company looking to collect on unpaid debts or loans.
- Renewals
Renewals can be automatic or require action from the customer; either way, you can justify using transactional mail in both situations to continue to establish contact with the customer. For example, suppose a customer’s membership is due to run out. In that case, a transactional mail is sent to inform them of this, either telling them it will renew automatically and another charge will be issued or if they want to renew it before it gets cancelled.
- Changing agreements or T’s & C’s
It is very often that companies make changes to their agreements and T’s and C’s. This benefits both themselves and their customers, and using transactional main is the best way of emphasising this. It makes the receiver aware of the changes that have occurred and allow them to read through it themselves and re-sign any outstanding agreements that include the new changes.
- Welcoming new registrations
This is one of the most important pieces of transactional mail and is sent immediately after a customer has signed up with a company. This gives the customer instant confirmation that they have been successfully registered with the business and can sometimes ask for verification. However, this still gives the customer a personalised and warm feel when receiving it, helping to build a relationship between business and consumer.
Transactional mail with The Direct Mail Company
There is a massive range of transactional direct mail available to you, and it’s crucial that you make use of each of the applications. This is so that you can deliver the most secure and successful strategy from start to finish. Despite these types of mail not requiring as much marketing as Direct Mail, they still need to be well constructed to keep a customer happy and wanting to return repeatedly.
Do you need our help making use of the many varied applications for transactional direct mail? Whether you need help managing your data or a mailing house to take care of the physical printing and mailing of the transactional mail, we are here to help you.
