Every thought of your order confirmation emails as a way to increase future sales and repeat customer rates? No? Well if you haven't then you definitely should have.

In itself, email marketing is already one of the best and most cost effective types of marketing that you can do, but your order confirmation emails to your customers are one of the most amazing opportunities you have to upsell and increase the likelihood of your customer buying from you again.

Why use it

A recent study found that order confirmation emails are opened by customers 70.90% of the time. Compared with just 17.19% for normal emails, you can see that most of the time the customer does open an order confirmation email.

That's why they are such a potential gold mine for your business.

Here's what you can do:

• Upsell to your new customer and recommend they buy something else
• Offer a discount code to be used if they return to your website
• Promote your social media accounts
• Tell customers to share their purchase on Facebook, Twitter or other channels
• Encourage customers to leave a review of your company when they get their order

Let's examine some of these in more detail...

Upselling

We all should know how important upselling is to any business, particular an ecommerce one.

Amazon, one of the world's most successful retailers, ever(!), has made millions out of upselling and cross selling. Way back in 2006, Amazon reported that they were earning at least one third of their revenue from cross selling and upselling.

So your email receipts can present a great opportunity to promote a particular product or set of products.

Discount codes

Even if just for a small amount, the inclusion of a discount code for a customer to use on their next visit to your website can be a great incentive. So if its just for £1 or 5% off their next purchase, savings are savings, and they can help promote brand loyalty and tell your customers that their initial purchase from you was valued.

Voucher codes are also useful because you can track them through your ShopWired account. So if you create a voucher code and only use it on your email marketing campaigns then you'll soon know whether its working or not.

Promoting your social media channels

Every time a customer connects with you on one of your social media channels you have opened a direct line of communication with them. That's why getting more likes, followers or friends is so important - it allows you to communicate with customers in a way that you currently can't.

It can also help grow your business exponentially as your customers share your marketing messages to them with their own friends and followers.

Sharing purchases on social media

We have all felt the 'high' you can get after making a purchase (either online or instore).

Asking customers to share that high with their friends is a no-brainer. Giving your customers an easy way to say 'hey look at what I just bought' not only makes them feel good about their purchase but can also lead to more sales for you as their friends say 'I want one too'.

In this case, because the customer is sharing their purchase with their friends through social media the friend doesn't have to ask your customer where they bought it or how they can get one too, they just need to click the link on their news feed and they've landed right on your website.