John

Do you know what the automated emails sent from your website, especially your ecommerce website, look like? Hopefully, you carefully crafted them before your website went live. If not, please do yourself a favor and review them now.

Here are some quick tips to make your emails look professional. Because of the seasonal timing, we are going to talk about ecommerce “transactional” emails, though many of these tips apply to other automated emails as well.

• Do not send them from a email account. Send from an email address that gets monitored daily (preferably multiple times per day). Respond quickly to any email received.
• Put the most important information right at the beginning of the subject, to make your emails more helpful, e.g., “Thanks for Order #12345 – My estore” (Be careful of the length so it does not get truncated.)
• Make sure your emails are consistently branded and well-designed.
• Make the words Thank You bold or bigger than the other text. While you are at it, tell them you appreciate their business.
• If you won’t be furnishing a tracking number, tell them why, and when and how they can expect delivery.
• Include links back to your shipping and returns page(s).
• Be sure to prominently display your Toll-Free phone number. If you don’t have a Toll-Free customer service number, you are not serious about wanting repeat customers.
• Include office hours (and time zone), so your customers have the opportunity to talk to a real person.
• Prominently display your customer service email address they can use if they want to contact you later instead of having to use your form again.
• Use Google’s URL Builder for Google Analytics (or something similar) to track your links. Remember marketing without measurement is not marketing.
• Test all of your email responses with multiple email clients for both PC and Apple computers.
• Don’t forget to test on mobile devices including iPhones & iPads, Android Phones & tablets, and others when possible.

Please don’t underestimate the power of automated email. They are often read at a critical point of your relationship with your customers. Use the opportunity wisely.