Have you ever wondered if your important event or product launch might have gone unnoticed? Or maybe it has been way too long since you first announced it and you fear that your customer base has all but forgotten about it.
That’s why a reminder email is an important part of your business. Keeping users updated shows that you are on top of things and they can rely on your company.
In this article, we’ll be exploring – what they are and how to create this type of email on different occasions. As usual, we will be providing you with a few templates that you can adapt for your own use.
Another app that takes design to a whole new level, is Doo. Its crisp design uses relaxing shades, such as deep purple and grey, and is modern while being inviting at the same time. Doo makes all of your reminders and to-do’s into cards that show up in a neat stack, rather than a. Did you scroll all this way to get facts about reminder cards? Well you're in luck, because here they come. There are 9713 reminder cards for sale on Etsy, and they cost $8.22 on average. The most common reminder cards material is paper. The most popular color? You guessed it: rainbow.
What is a Reminder Email?
Much more effective than social shares and search results, email communication should remain a top priority when deploying your marketing strategies.
Through email, you confirm events and purchases, bookings and RSVPs, assuring your customers that when they interacted with you, everything went through successfully.
Sometimes when people purchase services from you, they do not take immediate effect. For example, an event or a booking might take place weeks or months after the initial confirmation you sent. Or in other cases, perhaps something came up and your customers simply forgot about your proposal.
All these situations call for this kind of email. A gentle reminder can be a great tool for increasing the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns. It will show your customers that you care about them and the business they bring you. Furthermore, it will open different opportunities to get more feedback and engagement from your email campaigns.
Here are a few examples of situations that you might benefit from :
An important event is about to take place
Remember that event confirmation you sent to your clients a couple of months ago? Well of course YOU do, but it might not be the case for your customers. A simple “coming in X days” email reminder will make sure that you keep them interested in order to help the attendance of your event meet expectations.
Inaction from the recipient
When someone misses out on a follow-up or fails to act in a timely fashion, you want to encourage them to do something. For example, if someone fails to go through with their double opt-in to confirm their subscription, you might want to send them a kind reminder in case there was an oversight on their part.
Expiration / Automatic renewal
If you are offering a service that has an expiration date like a yearly subscription, it might be a good idea to keep your customers informed about their impending expiration or automatic renewal date.
Countdown reminder
Let’s say that your advantageous offer is ending really soon. With a reminder for such an occasion, you will be able to create a bit of “Fear Of Missing Out” (FOMO) and seize the opportunity to end your promotion with a bang.
Delivery reminder
When reminding your customers about a delivery of a product they purchased, you can inform them about offers on similar products that might interest them. This way you are creating upsell opportunity while keeping them updated about the status of their purchase.
After exploring those examples we can conclude that the main purposes of sending a reminder email are to:
Remind about Imminent Milestones
Ask for action or feedback
Keep customers informed
Ensure your events and offers don’t go unnoticed
Open upsell opportunities
Let’s see what general guidelines you should be following in order to write effectively that will work across all industries.
Reminder Emails – Best Practices
When you send an email for reminding of something, you are usually communicating with your recipient kindly to let them know about something they might have forgotten. In today’s fast-paced society, it’s easy to lose track of things. That’s why these emails are a great solution to keep your users up to date and interested in your recent developments.
Additionally, when you are sending these emails, you are aiming to get an action from your contact. Therefore, you wouldn’t like it to be skipped or unnoticed.
We’ve compiled a list of best practices you should be following when writing a reminder:
Choose a clear subject line
The subject line should clarify the purpose of your email. This will increase the chances of your email getting opened. Furthermore, you can incorporate power words like “important” or “response needed” to catch the reader’s attention.
Be friendly, yet direct
As we stated before, you are implying that your customer may have forgotten something. This is a good reason to be friendly and kind when addressing them. Yet again, you don’t want to go overboard into the “too sweet” spectrum where your reader might suspect you are overdoing it.
Be brief
This should be something that you practice throughout all of your email marketing campaigns, but even more so when writing reminders. Nearly no one will read through a reminder if they are met with a wall of text. Your contact won’t care how important the information is if it takes more than a couple of minutes of their precious time to read through it.
Include a CTA
Even though your main purpose is to remind people of something, there’s always room for additional feedback or engagement. Adding a CTA button within your email will help the reader to get to the bottom of the issue easily.
Find the right sending time
The timing might be the most important element in the success of emails. The amount of time before taking action will mostly depend on the agreement, explicit or not, you have with your recipient.
For example, when it’s about a late payment, a day after the due date is usually well accepted.
Additionally, we’ve observed that extra waiting before sending your reminder doesn’t help. It could even hinder your chances of getting a response.
The more time passes, the less your customers will remember that they had something to do.
A great solution to finding the perfect timing is to A/B test on the delivery date and time. When using Mailigen to A/B Split test your campaigns, one of the testing elements you can use is the sending day and time of your emails. Reports will help you to quickly narrow down on what days and hours your recipients are more inclined to open and click-through your emails.
All in all, the perfect time to send an effective email will vary case by case. So, it is a good idea to A/B test the results to find out what works best on a particular occasion.
Follow up more than once if needed
It doesn’t matter if your reminder is about a missing payment or a product launch, don’t be afraid to follow up if you think your message isn’t going through. Combined with good timing, a second email might get your customers to follow through.
Use it as a marketing opportunity
When able and in context, add images or links of featured products, promote upcoming offers or give the incentive to join your social media channels.
But enough of the theory, let’s check out some fine examples.
Great examples of Reminder Emails
1. Black Friday Offer Ending email reminder
First of all, the intention is very clear at first glance. Just a couple of words are sufficient to convey the message that the offer is ending in order to create incentive and FOMO – Fear of Missing Out.
The main text in the email conveys a message about their products, clearly explaining the company’s philosophy in just a couple of lines. With this, they manage to avoid lengthy introductions and get the reader accustomed to their vision.
The Call To Action is clearly present under the text, inviting the customer to take advantage of the offer right away.
Some featured products are present, showing what they are actually selling. This way, they are by presenting additional offers and discounts on potentially interesting products.
Finally, an invitation to download their app and join their social networks in order to retain loyalty from their recipient is present at the bottom of the email.
We can conclude that this email didn’t need a complicated graphic design to convey a simple but effective message. Attention is drawn right from the start and with clear delimitations, the reader can scan it quickly for the relevant info they are looking for. Bloom 1 0 181 download free.
2. Event Invitation RSVP email reminder
Here, in addition to great eye-catching design, we get a good example of how to make an event reminder effective.
First of all, you are welcomed by a “You Are Invited” message, giving you the incentive to discover what it’s all about. The category “design + finance” is clearly stated at the beginning, so interested parties know what to expect from the event.
Next comes a CTA that allows people that are too busy reading the rest of the email to book their seats right away. It’s a time-saving technique that works for both the reader and the sender.
Side by side, there’s a short and concise explanation about the event and its content, making an irresistible offer with complementary food.
Again, the FOMO is emphasized with the “limited seats” statement.
What follows is an eye-catching list of the panelists to underline the event’s exclusivity. Finally, for those that went through the entire email, a repeat CTA is featured at the end. This serves as another time-saver for the reader to avoid them from scrolling back up to confirm their presence.
These two CTA buttons show that the sender understands how precious their reader’s time is, conveying a very professional stance.
3. Simple “Action Needed” email reminder
Tookapic is a 365 photo challenge, meaning one photo a day needs to be uploaded to keep up with it.
With so many people on the go, this is a great short reminder about what the platform is really about.
A clear title and a short explanation gets right to the point. The body text is very short, but cleverly leads into the CTA asking the user to upload their photo right away, so they don’t forget to do it later.
Finally, they give the option to the recipient to change the time when they receive this message, making it flexible and convenient.
4. Account deactivation email reminder
This reminder from Hubspot shows that they really master their marketing messages.
The title is blunt and maybe even a bit aggressive, trying to play with the reader’s emotions that something is about to go wrong.
But what follows is a clear explanation of the situation and a solution is presented promptly to avoid your account from being suspended.
At the same time, they underline how precious their users are to them and that they would like them to “stick around” with this simple action they need to take.
Finally, a link to a guide that will help you if you are experiencing issues is provided, highlighting the care they provide for their customers.
Now that we’ve discussed some of the occasions that ask for a reminder email and ran through some excellent examples, it’s time to learn how to write a really good one by using best practices.
How to write a reminder email that works
Once you’ve decided what your message is all about and the audience you will send it to, it’s time to create some great copy. We’ve already discussed one of the best practices – now the focus will be set on how to incorporate those techniques into a high performing reminder messages.
Choosing a great subject line
The importance of a subject line that captivates attention cannot be stressed enough. This is the first thing that your recipient will see, so you have to make it count!
You can use an array of different power phrases that will catch their eye, depending on the action that needs to be taken. For example, you can start out with “Response Required” or “Action Needed” instead of “Kind Reminder” as those are more likely to get your reader to open your email.
Subject lines like “Don’t miss out on…” or “Offer ends in” also can do the trick if you are trying to tap into the reader’s emotions.
Next, be sure that you include enough relevant information for your contact to know what you are reminding them about. Keep the subject line short and concise and get right to the point.
Greeting your contact
Depending on your brand’s voice, and especially your audience, you will want to adapt your message using an appropriate tone.
If your audience is mainly composed of younger people, you shouldn’t hesitate to address them more casually, as using highly formal language might alienate them.
The same goes for the opposite. If your contacts are CEOs and executives, more polite and restrained language usually works best.
This greeting is important as it sets the tone for the rest of the email.
The content or body
Once you have created a proper greeting, it’s time to move on to the main purpose of your email. You can divide the body of your reminder messages into two distinct parts:
Reminder Explanation
After the greeting, be sure to be precise and brief. After all, this is why your contact opened the email in the first place. Whatever issue or event you are reminding them of should be clearly explained in a couple of short and easily perceivable sentences.
Call to Action
Once you have stated the main reason for your email, add a call to action button or a link to make it easy for your readers. Perfect horizon 1 0 17. The last thing you want is to frustrate your readers by having them search for that next step.
Need a payment to be made? Add a link directly to their account where they can go through with it.
Remember, one type of call to action is enough. You want your customers’ undivided attention for them to proceed with the action.
Closing up
Once you have conveyed your message, thank your readers for going through all that information. Your message should remain positive and encouraging throughout as you usually want them to respond in some way to your reminder.
Signing off with a name and surname of someone from the team can be beneficial as well. It renders the message more human and relatable for the reader.
Finishing touches and Extras
You might have noticed within the provided examples above some extra features that reminders have.
For example, when reminding them of an offer ending soon, you can upsell by showcasing a few of your flagship products.
Offering related content or helpful resources is a good way to show your user base that you care about them. Although this is a great way to promote your business, try staying in context. For example, don’t send discount coupons when sending payment reminders.
Finally, inviting your customers to join your social networks is a great way of building brand presence.
Now that we went through all of that knowledge, it should be easier to apply it in a couple of templates for different occasions. Feel free to adapt them for your personal use.
Subject Line: Invoice Reminder [Month] for [Company Name]
Dear [Name] As a valuable longtime customer, we would like you to inform you that your invoice # [Invoice Number] from [Month/Year] is overdue by a [Number of days] days. We are fairly certain that this is just an oversight on your part, so please let us know as soon as the payment has gone through. You can access your account right away and take care of this if you haven’t already. [Add CTA button] [GO TO MY ACCOUNT] If you are experiencing any issues with your payment, please contact our support team. [Link to support line] Thank you in advance, Kind regards, [Employee name] from [Company name] accounting department. [Hotel manager name]
2. Countdown Reminder – Upcoming hotel stay
Subject Line: Only 3 days left to pack!
Hello [Name], This is a kind reminder to let you know that we are expecting your arrival in 3 days at our [hotel name] in [City]. – Add room details To make reservations at our hotel restaurant, you can go to our booking page [Add CTA][BOOK A TABLE] Thank you for choosing [Hotel Name], We are eagerly awaiting your visit. We wish you a nice trip, [Manager name] Hotel Manager [Hotel Name] [Add a travel section here] Check out these great venues in the proximity of our hotel, right in the center of [City] [Add 2-3 image links of things to do in your city. Museums, bars, night life] Join our social media [FB – Instagram links] to keep up to date with our latest offers and promotions. [Hotel manager name]
3. Q&A session
Subject Line: Reminder: Q&A session with devs starts soon
Hello [Name], We wanted to remind you that the A session with our developers will start in an hour. Now is your chance to ask questions about our upcoming updates, new features and upgrades that will benefit you. Hope to see you there, [Name] Project Manager [Add CTA][Join the A session and start chatting with our devs] [Hotel manager name]
4. Event Reminder + Offer ends soon
Subject Line: Last couple of days to save on tickets
Hey [Name], [Name of Event] date is two weeks away. Hurry up since this might be your last chance to save on your tickets. Our promo code [promocode] will stay active until Friday and you can get [x]% off by using it on our website. [Add CTA][Get Tickets now] Remember that both event days will be covered by our sponsors with complementary foods and goodies to take home with you! [Add speakers section] Some of our speakers : [Image links with the speakers and short bios] [Add schedule section] Event schedule : [Image of event schedule] [Event Landing Page Link] [Repeat CTA][Get Tickets now]
5. Delivery Reminder – Upsell Tactics
Subject line: Your [item type] is/are almost at your door!
Hi [Name], We wanted to tell you that your [item] you purchased on [date of purchase] is going to be delivered to you tomorrow. [Add CTA][TRACK DELIVERY] Not home for delivery? No problem! Just get in touch with our delivery service to pick a time when you want to receive your items. [link to delivery service or phone number]. Thank you again for your purchase, [Name] from Sales [Add related offers section] Grab these offers while they are still available [Add image links and offers of similar or related products of the recipient’s purchase] [Hotel manager name]
Conclusion
The guidelines and best practices discussed above should help you with writing a reminder message that brings results.
Along with the templates and examples, we are sure that you will get some good ideas on how to create and send a reminder message to your customers. Follow the best practices that we included and be sure to test out different email elements with our A/B Split Campaign tool.
Whether you want to use different Subject lines or Delivery dates, our powerful reporting tools will allow you to quickly compare the results and determine what works best for you.
Remember to remain friendly and positive when writing these as they will be a key point in maintaining a good relationship with your users.
Related Posts
Reminder Email Samples (And How To Create an Email Reminder That Gets Attention)
Keep reminders visible and change them over time to keep you focused on your goals
The first step in following through with any goal is remembering it in the first place. It can be easy to forget a new behavioral goal once you get busy with your regular daily routine.
You might have a goal of drinking eight glasses of water per day, but before you know it, it’s late-afternoon and you’ve only had two glasses.
Follow the steps below to create powerful reminders and stay focused on your goals:
1 Keep reminders of your goal in every environment
Keep reminders wherever you spend time:
At home
At work
In your car, etc.
Your environment affects your behavior, so it’s important that your environment reminds you of your new behavioral goal.
2 Make reminders visible and obvious
Reminders will only work if you notice them. Reminders need to be visible and obvious to grab your attention and snap you out of autopilot mode. Keep reminders in, on, and near things you see throughout the day:
On or in your phone
In your purse, wallet or money clip
In a desk drawer you open frequently
By your keys or on your key ring
Example
Doo 2 2 1 – Turn Your Reminders Into Cards For All Occasions
If your goal is to do something in the morning, keep reminders near things you’ll see just before you go to bed at night, and first thing in the morning.
For example, if your goal is to take your lunch and gym bag to work:
Place a note by your alarm clock and on your bathroom mirror.
Set your lunch cooler by your car keys.
Keep your lunch on the top shelf of your fridge so it’s the first thing you see when you open it.
Put your packed gym bag by the front door.
3 Experiment with different reminders
Anything (people, places, things) can be used as a reminder of your goals. Experiment with different ideas and find out what works for you.
Keep goal-related objects visible
Set alarms
Schedule appointments
Hang up signs or motivational phrases
Send yourself text, email, or voicemail messages
4 Keep reminders where your old behavior takes place
Let’s say your goal is to take a 15-minute walk in your neighborhood after work. This 15-minute walk will replace your old after-work routine of grabbing a snack from the refrigerator and eating it in front of the TV.
You might do the following:
Tape a picture of someone walking on the refrigerator door.
Hide your remote.
Put a sticky note on your TV screen.
5 Use what you know already works
Think about how you remind yourself about other important things in your life:
Friends’ or family members’ birthdays and anniversaries
Personal appointments
Parties or events
Use the same ideas to remind yourself to exercise, drink more water, or follow through with any other goal. Use what you know already works, and then experiment with new ideas.
6 Remove objects related to your old behavior
Reminders don’t just have to be things you add to your environment. They can also be things you remove from your environment.
If your goal is to drink less coffee, remove the coffee mugs from your office and take the travel mug out of your car.
If your goal is to eat less ice cream, get rid of your favorite ice cream dish. The next time you look for it and can’t find it, you’ll remember your goal.
If your goal is to stop eating in bed, remove the bag of candy from your bedside table. The next time you mindlessly reach for it and it’s not there, you’ll remember your goal.
Doo 2 2 1 – Turn Your Reminders Into Cards Messages
Remove things from your environment to force yourself out of the mindlessness of your long-time habits.
“A habit is something you can do without thinking—which is why most of us have so many of them.” ~ Frank A. Clark
7 Change reminders over time
Reminders will lose their power over time. Change your reminders before they start blending into your environment like so many other things.
Start using different color post-it note reminders.
Change the ring tone on your phone alarm reminder.
Move your photo reminder to a different location.
Use a different reminder entirely.
Are You Ready for Our Next Challenge?
Doo 2 2 1 – Turn Your Reminders Into Cards Without
Turn your health goals into games and start winning!