Cool Email Idea: Fun Transactional Messaging

What: Fun transactional messaging

Who: CD Baby

Why we love it: Who says transactional messages have to be boring? CD baby's order confirmation email does a superb job of celebrating the purchase. By using their unique voice and incorporating a bit of humor, they are effectively building their brand and encouraging future purchases. While it deviates from the norm, buyers will actually get a kick out of reading it and probably forward it to a friend adding to its inherent viral nature.

What would make it better: Transactional messages - no matter what the tone and tenor - are great opportunities to ask consumers to sign up for more email. CD Baby already has a captive audience since these readers just made a purchase. Plus, they did a great job of showing their buyers just how cool they are with fun and engaging content. With this winning combination, they now have a unique opportunity to build their email file by running an equally cool promotion where they can ask consumers to sign up for more email.

Bonus points: Text email does have its benefits. The text only format means they don't have to deal with image suppression issues caused by HTML. Nonetheless, a little HTML wouldn't hurt. A fun graphic that captured the spirit of the email and that followed best practices around rendering would give this email a little lift and possibly make more of an impact.

Check it out: Make a purchase at CD Baby and you'll get one of these great notes, too! See a screenshot of one here.

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