Are you ready to take your SaaS business to the next level through email marketing?
Maybe you’re not really sure where to start or how to improve your current email marketing strategy. Well, today we’re going to go through SaaS email marketing and help arm you with tips and tricks that you need to achieve your goals.
We’re all about helping you scale organic lead acquisition and today we’re focusing on a powerful tool in the marketing toolbox, SaaS email marketing.
Introduction to SaaS Email Marketing
The power of email in your marketing strategy cannot be understated. It has a potential to boost your engagement, improve customer retention, supercharge your lead generation if all done correctly. So whether you’re a SaaS founder, head of marketing or an SEO manager looking to add value to your business, this is the guide for you.
Four Main Email Categories for SaaS Companies
First up, I want to go over four key email categories that every SaaS company should consider incorporating into their strategy. Each of these categories serve a different purpose and together they cover the full customer journey from awareness all the way to retention. By understanding and effectively utilizing these four categories of emails, you can ensure that you’re covering all bases and provide a holistic email experience for your audience.
#1. Product Emails
So first off, let’s kick things off with the product emails. The purpose of these ones are really simple, is to keep your customers up to date about your product’s new features, updates and enhancements.
But it’s not just about informing them about what’s going on, it’s about showcasing the value that all of these updates bring to that user. By showing how your SaaS product evolves and improves, you’re not only keeping your users engaged, but you’re encouraging them to keep using the product. So how do you write these compelling product emails?
So here’s a few ideas that you can think of.
Make your message clear and concise
Highlight the benefits of the new feature and update how it makes your customer’s life easier or their work more effective.
Make sure you use strong call to actions
Don’t just let them know about that feature, invite them to try it out. Provide a link or a button or a CTA to try it.
Finally, make sure that you try and personalize it
Make sure that each new feature is relevant to the segment that you’re emailing in that group. Now remember, the goal of a product email is not just to inform, but it’s to engage and encourage the customer to explore your product further. And if you can do this right, you can increase customer engagement and potentially more conversions to paid accounts.
#2. Marketing Emails
These are perhaps what most people think of when they hear email marketing. Their role is to promote your SaaS product, drive traffic to your website and of course, generate leads. Marketing emails come in many shapes and sizes. They could be promotional campaigns announcing a sale or a special offer, or a newsletter, sharing news and updates about your company, or content driven emails providing valuable insights and information to your audience. Okay, so again, how do we make these marketing emails really hit that mark?
So I want to share a few tips on how that can happen.
First, focus on value
Whether you’re promoting a product or sharing a blog post, make sure your audience can clearly see the value of what you’re doing and offering.
Be concise and direct
Don’t make your audience sift through paragraphs of text to find out what you’re actually trying to say. Get to your point quickly and clearly.
Finally, include a clear call to action
Same as before, whether you want them to read a blog post, check out a bit of the product, or sign up to a webinar, make sure that the call to action and the next steps are very, very clear to the reader.
These marketing emails can be super powerful in your SaaS marketing strategies. Use them wisely and you can increase your website traffic, generate more leads and strengthen the relationship between your business and your audience.
#3. Sales Emails
These are the heavy lifters of your email marketing campaign, responsible for nurturing leads, converting prospects into customers and driving revenue for your business. Sales emails are where you make your pitch, but it’s crucial to remember that it isn’t all about hard, hard selling. It’s about addressing prospects pain points and showing how your solution and your SaaS product can help them overcome their challenges.
So how do we make our sales emails more effective?
Personal and outreach
First off, it’s always about personalization and that’s going to be a common theme through most of the stuff. Use your prospect’s name, referencing their special needs or challenges and make that stand out in their inbox. It’s not just about first name terms, it’s about other detailed information.
Consider utilising lead nurturing sequences.
This means sending a series of emails over time, one building on the last, moving that prospect closer to a conversion. And of course, don’t forget about those follow ups in those nurtures.
A prospect doesn’t respond to your first email. Don’t be discouraged. A well timed, well crafted follow up can often be that nudge for them to take the action that you would want them to take.
Remember, the goals of sales emails is to convert prospects into leads and or customers. It’s all about demonstrating the value of your SaaS solution and showing your prospects why they should choose you over your competition.
#4. Transactional emails
Okay, last but definitely not least, we have transactional emails.
This category includes emails like order confirmations, receipts, account notifications, password resets, all this kind of stuff. Like while when they seem like purely functional, they actually present a wealth of opportunities. Transactional emails are an opportunity to enhance the user experience, reinforce your brand identity and even encourage upsells, cross sells or upgrades within your product. Every interaction with your customers, even the seemingly mundane ones, can contribute to a building a strong, lasting relationship.
So how can we make the most out of these types of emails?
Be relevant
First up, it’s about keeping it super relevant and timely. Transactional emails are expected and often anticipated, so make sure they deliver the information your customer is waiting for.
Stay on brand
Even though these are transactional emails, they should still reflect your brand’s voice. The design and everything about that reinforces your brand identity with every action that a user takes.
Enhance email engagement
Lastly, using these emails to drive further engagement, a sub tool, product recommendation or a discount on the next purchase can send a simple email receipt into a marketing opportunity. Transactional emails might seem like routine, but with a bit of strategy they can serve as a really powerful tool in your email marketing toolbox.
How to Build a Successful SaaS Email Marketing Strategy?
This process can really be broken down into several key steps, each crucial for an effective email marketing campaign.
#1. Set clear goals
Okay, first up, very, very obvious. Setting clear, specific and measurable goals for your campaigns.
This might sound basic, but it’s really crucial. You need to know what you’re trying to achieve before you figure out how to get there. Your SaaS email marketing goals might be to increase conversions, improve customer retention, drive product adoption, boost some revenue or any of the number of objectives that you might be thinking of. But remember, the key here is to be specific and make it measurable.
For example, instead of just increase conversions, your goal might be increased conversions by 20% over the next three months. Equally important is ensuring that your goals align with your overall business objectives. If your business is focused on expanding into a new market, for example, one of your email marketing goals might be to grow an email list in a specific region.
Setting clear goals and aligning them with your overall business objectives gives you a roadmap to follow and a way to measure your success. Remember, successful journeys start with a destination in mind.
#2. Select email software
Once you’ve set your goals, the next step is to choose the right tool for the job, and that means selecting an email marketing software that suits your business needs. There’s a ton of options out there from Mailchimp, ConvertKit ****and a ton more. But remember, it’s not about choosing the most popular or most expensive tool or cheapest tool. It’s about finding the one that fits the needs for you. When comparing different options, there’s a few key factors to consider. Look at the automation capabilities of that software.
Does it allow you to set up automated sequences for lead nurturing onboards conversions? Check out the segmentation options. Can you divide your email list into different segments based on demographics, behavior, or maybe some custom objects that you can see set on those customer lists? Have to think about the reporting analytics features. Does the software provide useful insights to your email performance? Don’t forget about ease of use. A software that’s hard to navigate will slow you and your team down. And what we want to try and do is make your job easier, not harder. And of course, think about scalability.
As the business grows, will that software be able to keep up and be affordable as you scale? Remember, choosing the right email marketing software is really crucial in this step. But at the same time, just get started. It’s not too hard to migrate later on.
#3. Growth the email list
Now that you’ve got some clear goals and the right software, maybe not the right side of it, a piece of software, it’s time to focus on growing that email list. After all, the success of your email marketing strategy depends on the size and quality of your subscriber base. There are several effective strategies to expand your email subscribers.
One popular method is offering incentives in exchange for email signups. So the obvious is sign up to our newsletter. But there’s other things like content upgrades which can look like an exclusive ebook, a detailed guide, access to a webinar, exclusive resources, or maybe even some discounts in your SaaS product. But don’t stop there. Leverage your social media platforms to promote your incentives and encourage your followers to join your email list. Add opt in forms on your website where they’re easily visible.
Use landing pages specifically designed to drive email signups in exchange for some good resources. And let’s not forget about partnerships. Collaborating with other companies or influencers in your industry can be a great way to reach a larger audience and attract some more subscribers to your list.
Remember, growing your email list is not just about quantity, it’s all about quality. You don’t want a huge list that doesn’t convert to anything. You want a list that is genuinely interested in the type of products that your SaaS business sells.
#4. Segment email
Once you’ve grown that email list, the next step is to segment it. And what does that mean? Well, it means about dividing your list into different groups or segmentations based on criteria such as demographics, behaviors, purchase history, or engagement level. The power of segmentation lies in its ability to help you deliver more personalized, relevant content to your subscribers.
Instead of sending the same emails to everybody on your list, you can create targeted messaging for different segments. And here’s where your email marketing software comes into play again. Most software has automation features that can dynamically update segments based on subscriber actions. So if a subscriber clicks on a link in an email about a particular feature for your SaaS product, they could automatically be added into a new segment that’s relating to that feature and get updates about that later down the line.
By creating effective email segments and delivering personalized content, you can significantly increase engagement, boost conversions, and create a better experience for your subscribers. Remember, in email marketing, one size fits all just does not cut it anymore.
#5. Create engaging content
Let’s now talk about the content of those emails. After all, even the best email marketing strategy won’t work. If your emails aren’t compelling and engaging, your email should resonate with your target audience. It needs to provide value, whether that’s in the form of useful information, industry insights, educational resources, product updates, or exclusive offers specifically for them. And let’s not forget about the packaging, right? Start with an attention grabbing subject line. This is your first, and sometimes only chance to catch your subscribers eye. Make it count. Next comes your email copy. Keep it concise and compelling. You want to engage your reader, but also respect their time. Get to the point and make that point clear and engaging. Don’t use big, fluffy emails.
And finally, include a clear call to action. Whether it’s a read more, buy now, learn more. Whatever it might be, make sure it’s easy for your subscribers to understand what the next, action for them is crafting compelling and engaging.
Email content is a bit of an art, but with practice and testing you can create emails that not only get opened and read, but also drive action.
#6. Automate sequences
Now, maybe you’re looking to maximize the efficiency and results. Then automated email sequences are going to be your best friend. These are series of emails that automatically go out based specific triggers or on time intervals. There are several types of sequences you might consider. For instance, lead nurturing sequences can help you educate prospects about your SaaS product, build trust and ultimately guide them towards a purchase or a sign up for a paid account.
Then there’s the user onboarding sequence, which is crucial for SaaS businesses. These emails guide new users through the process of getting started with your product, showing them how to get the most value from it. Finally, conversion sequences can be used to drive specific actions, like upgrading to a higher tier plan or purchasing an add on feature that they might find useful.
All these sequences are designed to deliver the right message at the right time, guiding your subscribers through the customer journey. And the best part about it is once you’ve set them up, they literally run on autopilot delivering consistent results.
#7. Improve analysis
Finally, but obviously not the least important on the list is that you must analyze your email performance. Remember, marketing isn’t a set and forget game. It’s about constant process of learning, improving and optimizing. There are several key metrics that you should be tracking. Obvious things like open rates will give you a great idea of how compelling your subject lines are.
Click through rates can tell you how engaging your content is and how good your call to actions are.
Conversion rates could maybe indicate whether your emails are effectively driving desired actions.
Unsubscribe rates can signal if there’s something off in your content, frequency or audience and targeting.
And of course you’d want to know about the revenue generated from your email campaigns. Remember, these metrics aren’t just numbers, they’re valuable insights that can help you identify what’s working and what’s not. So use this data to drive your decisions and continuously improve your email marketing strategy. Trust me, your bottom line will thank you for doing so.
Conclusion
Okay, so remember, the beauty of email marketing is its adaptability. It’s crucial to tailor your strategies to suit your unique business needs. So go ahead, take some of these ideas and strategies and make them your own.