EP #38 Distinctive features of transactional emails and marketing emails

Intro (00:09): You’re listening to the “For The Love Of Emails” podcast, powered by Netcore, a weekly show dedicated to helping email marketers, marketing enthusiasts, and professionals of all walks engage, grow, and retain customers through reliable, innovative, and effective email communication and engagement. Discover actionable ways to increase ROI and deliver value through email innovations, personalization, optimization, email deliverability, and email campaigns.No fluff tune in to hear best practices and tactical solutions from the best thought leaders and practitioners master your email communication now.

Glory Onuoha (00:00):

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of, for the love of email podcast. I’ll be your host, I have a very special guest today. I’m going to let him introduce himself. So to you,

Chiwuzie Anabuike (00:15):

Thank you, Gloria. Hello everyone. My name is Chiwuzie Anabuike. I work in an access bank. Presently. I head the internal and external communications team. I also work on, a digital and traditional media marketing team. So basically, my job entails that relates to it, various retail teams and see how we can serve our customers better. Thank you.

Glory Onuoha (00:41):

Thank you so much. Okay. Can you give us a brief introduction about access bank?

Chiwuzie Anabuike (00:48):

Okay. Access bank is the largest bank in Nigeria right about now; all we want to do is serve customers and see how we can make our customers better in every one of their financial needs. Want to be like a one-stop shop for whatever they might be loans might be FX. It might be financing a project like, uh, agencies. We want to be the worst, most respected African bank. So we take pride in customer service and how to make our customers get to their desire. Expectations like to exceed customer needs. Let me just stop there, but that’s what we are about. Thank you

Glory Onuoha (01:37):

Very much. Okay. So just let’s just get, right inside Dean, we’re going to be talking about the distinctive features of transactional emails and marketing emails. Okay. So when you saw this topic, what came the mind at first,

Chiwuzie Anabuike (01:51):

When I was presented with the topic, uh, I found it very interesting because being on the communications desk and email marketing team for a while, like maybe four to five years now, it’s, I’ve, I’ve seen so many types of emails, and this particular topic struck something to me. It’s very interesting. I would like to maybe share a little bit of my experience and lights to people who think maybe emails generally are the same. I just, I was very, with lot answer at first place, but it’s, it’s interesting for me to be here, to talk about it. Thank you.

Glory Onuoha (02:31):

Thank you very much. Okay. So I’m going to start by giving a definition of what transaction and transactional emails are

Chiwuzie Anabuike (02:42):

Okay. As the name sounds, transactional image and transaction are like a bad game between one or two-person. So transactional email will be maybe if, if I have sent, let me use an example, then I’ll get back to destination. If I’ve sent like an offer or something to a customer, then maybe they’ve had like some few dealings with me. Then I go back and tell them, do you want to complete something? You’ve started with me? That’s like a transaction. So transaction, I email might be like, an email sent to my customer for them to complete something they’ve started with me. It might be a personalized email. Most times, it might be like an email or a trigger email for them to complete what they started. Maybe send a lead form, and someone just registers the, and there’s no complete. So when I send a reminder or when it triggers, when the reminder is triggered after a few hours, for them to complete that, it’s all transactional. So most time, we might be sent to a group first time, but when it comes to a particular person for them to complete whatever they started as a transactional email. Thank you. I hope I have been able to say more about that one.

Glory Onuoha (04:07):

Yes. Yeah. But I’d like you to give us more examples.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (04:11):

Okay. So, if I can do tell it down to access bank on some of the transactional emails we sent, it would be like we have so many offers and so many products. I’ll use some as an example, like we have the auto loan, we have the payday loan, we have access more, have diamond extra. So maybe I’ve sent someone to download and use the diamond extra, and they download it install it, but they’ve not registered another proper. I com that restaurant use, access S it might be, I can pay the loan. You have been profiled to get these amounts and pay the loan click here to receive. It might be like I’m organizing a webinar for a business clinic. For my imagined business customers, you might click this link to access your seats to the business. It’s basically telling you to complete a sale, which we have started with me. So you might want, you might want a bank statement. And I, I proper consult that tells you,

Glory Onuoha (05:14):

Ask that if bank statements are, yeah,

Chiwuzie Anabuike (05:19):

Exactly bank statements are involved in might want to have your bank statement, the proper calls out and says, confirm your BVN, those kinds of emails, those kinds of triggers, or put your password, or what

Glory Onuoha (05:32):

Allow your credits are allowed.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (05:35):

Yeah. It is all, all our transactional emails. So those notifications like to confirm if you are really the one cause in the banking sector, you know how it is, you have to be very, very, if I use the word uptight about security. So those trigger emails are all transactional emails that tend to maybe personalized people using their personalized details. Yeah.

Glory Onuoha (06:03):

Let’s dive now into the marketing emails we have now on the, we now know what transactional emails are, the emails that, for example, your banks did things as you have said, your debit, your credit transactions that maybe has been ongoing, your bank, your bank is giving you like, an update or is prompting you to do something to complete the transactional.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (06:30):

Exactly.

Glory Onuoha (06:32):

Right. So let’s go now into marketing. What is marketing?

Chiwuzie Anabuike (06:37):

Okay. Marketing emails, on the other hand, is it’s not very different from transactional emails, but it is like I said, we have so many offers in the bank. It’s just like a push to let you know, various offers or offerings or proposals we have as a bank. Or, and I put that in our product. We have. So basically, it’s like telling you, let me use an example. Now, like the diamond extra, you can see save 5,000 errors to qualify for the draw, but in the transactional emails to tell you to click to download the app. So basically, marketing emails tell you of the offer or the new offerings we are putting out. So, under various products, it tells you what is new, what you can get from it if you would like to get involved with the particular product. So those kinds of emails are all those kinds of emails are co-marketing emails. And it forms the bulk of the emails we send to the bank. Cause, in the end, we are here to make money. So we show your offers, and we hope our, or if you’re a customer, you get into it. If you prospect you become a customer, that’s basically it for marketing emails,

Glory Onuoha (08:07):

All your products, products that are available, promoting products that are available years to your emails,

Chiwuzie Anabuike (08:15):

Like an advertisements. Yeah.

Glory Onuoha (08:17):

Retaining already. So let’s just get right into marketing emails. What are marketing emails?

Chiwuzie Anabuike (08:25):

So marketing emails and this in the other, on the other hand, it’s there are emails where, we tell customers about our offers about, just advertising, what we, what we have for them. Do you need the new, interesting things I can get from a particular product or a, a, a particular campaign, so to speak? So it sends most time in a bulk email to some set of customers, most times to some prospects also. So when they see it, they can eventually take off the offer. So basically, that’s what marketing emails are like. The name sounds marketing. You are trying to sell something. They’re trying to tell someone or a customer about your offering about your product. So that’s what marketing emails entail.

Glory Onuoha (09:15):

So give us some very basic examples.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (09:18):

Yeah. So

Glory Onuoha (09:19):

I can say, okay, if you have, okay, let’s say, you have a USS code, for example, cause you know, your industry is banking. So I’m going to give banking, banking-related examples. So on the top of my head, I can say, okay, USS codes, for example, I open it accounts and I get an, I get an email from my client telling me, oh, Gina, you can make a transfer that 1, 2, 3 hash. So are those marketing emails?

Chiwuzie Anabuike (09:43):

Yeah. Those are marketing emails. Because example, I send you an email, or after I open an account, you get an email cause of opening one account, you might get various other branches, or you can get from accounts. Cause everybody wants different things. You might profile yourself for SD banking. Do you know? You can dial standard 9 0 1 to make transfers. That’s a marketing email. Cause I’m telling you an offer. Do you know, you can get your ATM card and maybe shop with it online on any international site. That’s a marketing email. Do you know? You can, you can get your checkbook, or you can transfer more than $5,000 because you have opened this account. Those kinds of emails are marketing emails. Cause it’s telling you what more,

Glory Onuoha (10:33):

More you can get.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (10:35):

Yes. Just I can kind of on a particular product, so to speak.

Glory Onuoha (10:41):

So even when you are an already existing plan, unless there’s something new comes up on that plan, for example, I think there’s something called the, them extra. So those are for people that already have like their bank account. Exactly. And so, just if you are already on an existing plan, unless a new promo comes up on the plan that you are on, you get an email for that’s marketing email.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (11:06):

Yes. So like, 

Glory Onuoha (11:09):

Sorry, go ahead. I missed.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (11:10):

So like, on a, you might have an account, but not an extra diamond account. You might have a savings account, so you can get an email that says, do you want to upgrade to an extra account? This is what you start to get if you open an extra account. So something interesting, juicy that I’m offering that kind of a particular or like something you can, something more you can get out of it. That kind of, so yeah.

Glory Onuoha (11:39):

So let’s say now, as a new customer, I come in, and I open an account. I now get onboarded on. Cause I know, there’s this customer journey onboarding journey that we go through. You get your welcome email. You can sign that email that your account has been open. This is your account number. You get sign that email to come and get your ATM card. You get an email for. So those series of emails you get during your onboarding project, have they classified all market emails or

Chiwuzie Anabuike (12:07):

So if you look at them very well, they caught across boards, types of emails. It might be a transactional email. It might be a marketing email. So when you get stuff like you, you have been profiled to get an ATM card. Click here to confirm most people don’t want an ATM card for their accounts, maybe for their ward or their kid, because they really don’t want the ATM card. It will make them spend more or the access more app; click it to download the access more app on these accounts. You don’t want that. So, but that’s the, that’s the transactional email because it’s telling you to complete a purchase on that particular item

Glory Onuoha (12:48):

App that can be marketing because I’m telling you to get this product or this thing, stuff that we have.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (12:57):

Yeah. I’m coming to the marketing side because it’s still transactional emails. Because if you, if you do complete a transaction by, by opting for an offering, that’s, that’s a transactional email. What if I tell you, do, you know, you can get, this is, is a marketing email. Do you know? You can get a checkbook and transform more than 5,000 us dollars. I’ve not told you to click for it. I just told you this is an offering.

Glory Onuoha (13:23):

The difference is basically.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (13:26):

Yes. Thank you. So it’s, it’s got across might be transactional. It might even be a promotional email, but that’s through.

Glory Onuoha (13:38):

Okay. So I want us now to pick the distinctive, put transactional email and banking email as, as related to the banking industry because, let’s say, okay, let’s say one very basic feature can be that the marketing emails are there to add revenue to the brand while the promotional emails are there to give customer, give the customer information on what is already ongoing for the, let’s say for what you subscribed is that to give you a piece of additional information on what you can do to secure your accounts or what you can do to get them, to get more information on based on what your transactions that have card outs in the past. Yeah. So those are very distinct. It can give us more distinctive features more. You have talked. Okay. You cannot be a mix of both in one email.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (14:39):

Yeah.

Glory Onuoha (14:40):

So can you give us like these things, pictures?

Chiwuzie Anabuike (14:43):

So like I’ve said, it’s more like, how do I put it now? I’m looking for the right word. It’s more like telling you this is; this is what you need to do on this particular offer. Okay. So it, it, it just tells you, you need to be aware of this particular product or this particular offering a feature. Like if I can use one of our products, the access more app, if you download the access more app today and you don’t do anything after a while, you get another trigger to tell you to install and register. So that’s a very strong feature of a transactional email in this access more app product. So he, he, it doesn’t stop there by telling you to try to, to, just download. So my own campaign app is in the stock campaign, but the app in the stock campaign, I have very, very many, very many parts from the download to the installing, to the registration, and to transactions.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (15:51):

So if even if you have registered, we’ll send you another trigger. You can perform transactions and get 1000 errors for your first five transactions. So those distinct features about an email telling you to perform a particular action. Those are transactional emails in using one of my products. Like I’ve said, access more. So, like we run webinars and seminars on our, for emerging business customers, so we can, we can see these seats are limited; click here to save a seat first for tomorrow’s webinar. So I have sent a mail for you before to tell you that there’s going to be a webinar. So now I’m telling you to click here to save yourself a seat because there’s limited space. So those dovetail into details about a particular product you campaign or an event; that’s a very distinct picture of the transactional email.

Glory Onuoha (17:00):

You so now for the marketing emails,

Chiwuzie Anabuike (17:05):

Okay. The marketing email is, is if I can put the word simpler, it’s just the normal push you get, you know, my emails you get every day from your bank, your, your, your church, your community, your security community in your house. I tell you

Glory Onuoha (17:26):

Emails, three parts of it.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (17:28):

Hm. They emails.

Glory Onuoha (17:29):

Emails. Yes.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (17:31):

Well, if I don’t send anything to you on a better email, it’s just an email. It’s not a marketing email, but if it keeps you to, to have like, to be aware that I’m the one sending it to you, it makes like the top of mind awareness. It makes you know that, Hey, I’m here for you. And I see you below the line. So, in the end, it is a marketing email, but on the top, it’s just a congratulatory email. Okay. So, marketing email might be, might have various features, but as long as I’m keeping you interested in my product or letting you know that this is, this is me, I’m still here. Even if I’m not telling you to buy something, shop for something in my, I will be a happy birthday; you might be happy Christmas or happy Valentine’s day. Yeah. I’ve not told you to open an account, but then the marketing email gets to those are very many, features of, it might be a promotional email that tells you, Hey, opt for this, you might be lucky to be among 10 winners of 1 million. Yeah. I’ve no sense of personalized mail, but you’ve just seen it. Hello customer. So those marketing emails are very good features of marketing emails.

Glory Onuoha (19:04):

Okay. So let’s now get into the quiet practices. We’re sending out the transactional email on the market because, I mean, most of the time here, you can see a subject line like, ah, we have missed you. And when you see that subject line, it kind of gives it prompt to you. Okay? Maybe this man is not, is not official. It might be that it’s a new product. Something that they want me to know about: but you see things like statements of accounts. This is really to me. So what are the best practices for sending out transitional emails and marketing emails? Because for example, I see an email comes in now, and I see the subject line says your statement of account. I know that, okay, this is a this is like a former, an official email. This is serious. And I can send another one that says, don’t miss out on this. This is a student to a product that may be the brand wants to show me. So what are the best practices? What would you advise? So are the best ones to send transactional emails and market email so that at least your clients can support, you know, the difference. I know. Okay. When they are trying to tell me to act, I’m trying to tell me about a new product.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (20:18):

Okay? So for traditional email, I would say, since it’s a transactional email, that means I’ve had dealings with you before. And I want you to continue dealing with me to perform a, a, an action to continue our business. So the emails investing, the emails must match your brand. It gets you don’t want to get something from no [email protected]. Then the next time, he gets the same email from [email protected] on the same topic. There’s a disconnect. It might be the same product. It might not be a scam, but there’s a disconnect. Someone like me won’t click on the email, and I, and then the bank, has lost a customer. So they’ll miss it must match your brand. Email must be another. Another important one is the email must, your customers know, must know that it’s coming from you is still connecting to the first one.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (21:17):

Like I said, if it’s an access bank, how do I get my access bank email? It’s no reply access bank.com be send, send our name, access bank. It has to be clear. It has to be simple. Your emails have to be clear and simple. Once you get this, these two, these two, these two parts of the transactional email, then you are in declare. The others will just join in and make it look nice and make it look colorful. Make you look interesting, make you look inviting for the person who wants to take action. But the first two are pretty much your brand. And to be clear, let it be simple and recognizable by a customer that’s for transactional email. So, for marketing emails, since you’re marketing, you want to be, you want to be clear about what you’re selling. You can’t say. I have an extra diamond account. I don’t know if you want it. That’s not that’s I don’t; I don’t know if anyone will want to get involved. That that seems

Glory Onuoha (22:26):

Like that a brand.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (22:29):

Yes. Now we, we, we are very competitors. So you have to be clear and direct and say, what is quickly the first line people and people’s people’s interests interest and people’s interest online or on digital. There, there, this storm map is very low. So you have to capture the first two lines. You have to be direct and clear. Open a demo extra account today. You just might be lucky. But the first thing is I’ve already sent a clear message about what I want to offer you. Open an extra account today. The access more app is the best app. If I send you that mail, you want to know what this guy is talking about? Let me even see it. But if I say, do you want to try the access more app today? You might be like, I’m using my bank down the road app. But if I see the access, more app is the best app in Nigeria. So you have to be clear in, have to talk about your benefits. You have to be straight to the point. You have to use the quick and recognizable court to action. And you also have to match your brand too. You have to match your brand.

Glory Onuoha (23:43):

Very visible to action.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (23:44):

You have very, very visible court to action. So, very direct, straight to the point when the person opens the mail, they can go to the body and continue whatever it is. But your subject.

Glory Onuoha (23:57):

Yeah. Yes.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (23:58):

You have to draw them in. You have to draw them for them to continue with you. So that’s it about us.

Glory Onuoha (24:07):

Thank you so much. I think I have gotten, you know, best practices for transac meals. Speak to your, speak to what your brand is known for. Switch up. Things can cost a bit of sketch your customers, where marketing goes straight to the point 20 your call to action, very visible for them. Make sure that you are passing your message in the first two lines, you know, so that you cause a lot of people don’t have the patience to sit down and go through. Make sure you’re personal. So if I’m interested, like, go ahead. I he thinks, think if I’m not interested, I, yeah, I’m not interested. Why do you think its

Chiwuzie Anabuike (24:45):

As I said, people’s interests are low, so you have to keep them interested. Yeah. Is to say again.

Glory Onuoha (24:52):

So I was asking, why do you think this is very important?

Chiwuzie Anabuike (24:56):

Like we said in the beginning, we’re all about the customer. You don’t want to lose your customers.

Glory Onuoha (25:02):

Put separate, and yeah. It’s from what is important to them are not. I was saying. I was asking why you, why this is important. Why is it important to practice both transactional emails and marketing emails? Why is it important to put that in a different,

Chiwuzie Anabuike (25:20):

Okay. It’ll be important because of the customers. You, you want to keep customers, you don’t want to have the customer for 10 years, and you lose them cause of one email, or you make them more interested. Again, you make them not want to take up more offers cause of one or cause of your own interest emails. So, it helps you build trust with your customers when you do right. When you send those kinds of emails, when you keep it short, keep it clean, keep it direct, keep it with your brand. A good call to action. It helps you build trust. It helps you. It helps your customer loyalty. It helps you get more credibility. It helps your customer for you. Yeah. It helps you with customer retention. It helps your customer know more about it helps your customer for you. Cause word of mouth marketing is to best.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (26:11):

Hey, I received this mail from these people, and I clicked it, and he went, took me straight to that place. So when the customer is able to sell you to another customer, a prospect, then you, you are finished work. If I can use that line, you will use it finished work. So yeah, I, and then if you do it right, importantly, if you do it right, importantly, it helps your click through it. If your customers are interested in your meals, whenever you drop them, they will want to open them. Then if they open it, list more opportunities lead to more sales. It leads to more prospects converting to customers in the long run,

Glory Onuoha (26:51):

Click tweet. H

Chiwuzie Anabuike (26:53):

Yes. Yeah. Then for reporting, reporting to guys call as we do, you will tell them this amount of people open this email, you click, it would be high. Yeah. It’s very important.

Glory Onuoha (27:04):

Thank you very much. Actually, this was very, very, very insightful. Now I can, this, I can say, I know the difference between transactional emails and marketing emails. Why is marketing email important, and why is email important then if you have any final comments before round up.

Chiwuzie Anabuike (27:24):

Okay. I would just, I would just say email marketing is still very important in the world or in the market or it people think digitally, just do Facebook, Twitter and Instagram court seats, email marketing CEOs, CEOs, the higher ground customer post-conversion, and customer retention to central, no one to send market knowing what and know how to, how to, how to operate and be ahead of your competitors.

Glory Onuoha (27:52):

Yes. Thank you very much for that. Thank you for giving us this, about marketing and transactional market. Lovely to have you here. And I have time, you know, when we have more interesting things to talk about or the love of email, thank you.

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