What is transactional direct mail?
It describes mail that is sent out to complete a transaction or exchange with an individual customer; basically, any mail that is 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. By thanking a customer, simply just for their loyalty or for a recent order, adds a big personal touch to your overall marketing strategy. Doing this builds emotional rapport with the customer which is guaranteed to leave them wanting to shop with you again.
- Recent receipt of an order
When a customer completes a new purchase, they are sent a form of transactional mail to confirm the order itself, show 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 in the future.
- 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, as well as to notify the customer in case the changes were not made by them. By doing this, it helps to 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 types of 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 nonetheless. By invoicing using this method, you can keep a paper record of recent transactions as well as clearly displaying what is owed and why to the recipient.
- Statements
These are very similar to invoices in the way that they also give a total breakdown and summary of the figures. They are an immensely helpful type of transactional mail and also offer snippets of figures, on a monthly basis, as well as being 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 basically a recent receipt of order with the intent to explain to you what is owed, whereas collection letters demand more of an immediate action, like 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, if a customer’s membership was due to run out, a piece of 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, as well as allowing 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 a personalised and warm feel to the customer 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 the 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 over and over again.
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 itself, we are here to help you.
