Fake Transactional Emails

These are emails that arrive looking very much like transactional emails. They look like notifications or reports but are promotional at their core.

This might seem like a Trojan Horse, using a disguise to get in the inbox and then opened, but users would much rather receive something contextual and relevant than an email that’s blatantly promotional.

Dollar Shave Club

We’ve already covered this exact email in this guide but it’s worth looking at one more time.

It looks like Dollar Shave Club just wants to confirm my shipment (and they do) but most of the email is dedicated to upsetting their other products. Because it has value (customers want to know when their shipment is arriving and what’s in it), this email works beautifully.

Medium

Would you rather Medium email you posts they think you should read or posts that your friends think you should read?

This is the power of social networking in email marketing. If Joanna Wiebe recommends an article, I’m definitely going to read it. And because Medium has cleverly positioned this email as a personal referral and followed up with a strong call to action, they are rewarded with user engagement.

Receiptful

Check out the subject line in this email:

“Adii Pienaar from Receiptful has sent you a message”

It looks and feels purely transactional but the message has real marketing value.

TripAdvisor

Here is some context behind this email. One of my Facebook friends wrote a review on TripAdvisor and another user voted the review as “helpful”. TripAdvisor is notifying me of this in hopes that I will check out the same place. The restaurant is essentially “peer reviewed”, greatly increasing the chances that I’ll visit.