What Is A SaaS Email Marketing Strategy?

A SaaS email marketing plan is a technique to use email marketing to meet your company’s objectives in the SaaS industry. An email marketing strategy can be utilized broadly to focus on a particular lifecycle step (such as lead nurturing or user onboarding) or to achieve a specific business goal (e.g., adoption or retention).

Email marketing is an effective technique for acquiring, engaging, and retaining consumers. Your small business might gain a lot by launching a profitable email marketing strategy. To accomplish your small business goals, use the appropriate email marketing approach.

The 4 Types Of Email Marketing

Email Newsletters

Among the most popular and common email marketing strategies are email newsletters. A small firm may use an email newsletter to provide its customers with helpful information and tools. To make the information your subscribers get in their inboxes more intriguing, incorporate thought leadership, how-tos, and news about new services and products.

Your newsletter’s content is successful if it builds relationships with readers, increases reader retention and engagement, and cultivates a sense of loyalty among readers.

Acquisition Emails

Acquisition emails can help your small business gain consumers who have chosen to receive your emails, but haven’t yet become clients. Generating compelling offers and educational content may demonstrate the benefits of becoming an active customer to individuals on your email list.

A great way to reach clients who have expressed interest in your company’s products or services is to use acquisition emails. They are also useful in helping grow your company, generate additional revenue, and move leads through the conversion funnel more rapidly.

Retention Emails

If you are experienced with email marketing campaigns, use retention emails for your small business. Sending them a letter asking for feedback or providing an offer will help your business stay in contact with subscribers who haven’t engaged with your brand or email campaigns recently. Utilizing the successful email marketing strategy known as retention emails, will help keep your hard-won customers.

Promotional Emails

Promotional emails are an excellent way for your business to promote sales, signups, and new product offers. Discounts and other incentives are used in promotional emails to entice your target market to buy a new product or service. Use marketing emails to inform subscribers about new goods or services, reward loyal subscribers, and upsell products to existing customers.

Top Email Marketing Strategies For Boosting SaaS ROI

1. Set Clear Goals

Setting clear goals is essential to get the most out of your email marketing campaigns. How will you be able to determine whether your efforts are successful? Consider the action you want the user to take when choosing the objectives you wish to achieve.

Some points to consider when setting your goals:

Email Content

Your copy represents your objectives. For example, if you want subscribers to join for a free trial, you should send them materials outlining the advantages they will enjoy without paying any money. You should provide them justifications for upgrading to premium if you want to turn the free trial user into a paying one.

Email Recipient

Not every subscriber is a suitable match for every email. Sending promotional emails to solely non-paying users is one way to turn leads into consumers. However, you should advise paying clients to get the most out of your product.

Call-to-Action or CTA

A Call-to-Action is a button added to prompt subscribers to click it for a particular action. Your objectives will determine the button you use. For example, if you use a “try for free” CTA, it might work well if you want subscribers to join for a free trial. A “learn how it works” CTA might be more effective if you want to tell the consumer about a recently announced feature.

Key Performance Indicators or KPI

Key Performance Indicators cover the metrics you monitor to see if your efforts yield the expected outcomes. Always monitor the email conversion rate if you want to boost revenue. You should also concentrate on the retention rate to lower the churn rate.

2. Spend Time Understanding Your Subscribers

You’ll serve your subscribers’ interests better if you know more about them other than their names and email addresses. Some other details to know are:

• Why people signed up for your emails
• The most pressing issue that you could help them resolve
• Their basic demographics (age, location, job title, company details, etc.)

Some ways to find out more information:

Assess Where They Came From

Did a blog article lead them to sign up for your emails? It may be a lead magnet. This aids in your awareness of their issues. To monitor email and link clicks, use Google Analytics.

Send Surveys

Surveys are a great method to get to know your readers better. They can help you build personas with potential customers and exiting ones, and give you custom insights on your content. 

Observe Which Emails They Reply To And Open

Their interest and problem areas are shown by the emails they open and interact with. Observe which links people click on to better understand areas you can help them with.

3. Specific Content To The Subscriber’s Stage In The Customer Journey

Knowing where each lead is in their customer journey can help you better tailor the email content to move them forward. If a subscriber is still considering your offer, you may send them emails outlining how your product will help them without breaking the bank.

Effective email sequence is vital in gaining more customers.

4. Automate Email Marketing To Scale Quickly

Establishing a personal connection with your email list subscribers might be challenging, particularly if you have thousands of members. Automation can be helpful here.

Email marketing automation may set up drip programs, track performance indicators, and trigger emails depending on website visitor activity.

The two best programs for automating email marketing are Sendinblue and MailChimp. Make sure to establish guidelines so that relevant emails are sent at an appropriate time, and to the right recipients. For instance, you may send a welcome email once a person registers. To remind the them to upgrade to a premium version, you can set a “trial ending” email 3–4 days beforehand, and so it only sends to the new subscribers.

5. Every Stage Of The SaaS Buyer Journey Should Involve Branding

Prospects interact with various employees of your business (i.e. sales, engineering team, support team) through email, along with the SaaS consumer experience. To establish authority and trust, use sound SaaS branding principles.

To do this, your SaaS brand must have a consistent voice. If you utilize a formal tone in your communications, ensure the rest of the company does too. By doing this, the tone or voice of the emails is the same regardless of who sends them.

6. Send An Assortment Of Promotional And Informative Emails

Building a strong relationship with your audience is the main goal of email marketing. To do so, it’s critical to send a variety of informational and marketing emails.

Remember that you may see a drop in numbers in your subscribers if you are sending only promotional emails. The same goes for sending only educational or informative emails, which may not translate to sales.

7. Make Your Subscribers Intrigued About Your Product Or Services

Unless it helps them, your subscribers are uninterested in your product or future events. Therefore, clearly highlight what’s in it for them in your email text.

You might not obtain many registrations, for instance, if you send emails stating this:

“We’re hosting a webinar on improving your website’s performance.”

However, if you put it this way, you may encourage more people to sign up:

“We’re holding a webinar where you will learn how to enhance the performance of your website, improve its search engine ranks, and increase sales.”

Read your email as if you were a subscriber after you’ve written it. Would it matter to you if you got the email? Would you instantly execute the requested action? Rewrite the copy if necessary.

8. Allow Customers To Select The Services They Want To Get

Allowing subscribers to customize their preferences increases engagement since they will only get emails that are relevant to them. You also better understand their problems, allowing you to better target your content and boost conversion rates.

9. Make A Selection Of The Best Content In Your Industry

You may show that you care more about delivering value to your subscribers than pushing your product by compiling a list of the most significant articles in your sector, even ones your brand doesn’t author. In the long run, this improves conversion possibilities by helping to develop recipients’ trust.

Another advantage of compiling a list of the greatest content is that you can send out highly beneficial emails regularly without spending a lot of time generating them.

10. Include Power Words And Videos In Your Email

Even the most complicated subject may be understood with the help of videos. You can grab your readers’ attention, boost engagement, and establish a long-lasting relationship by including a video in your email.

The most effective method for including a video is to post it to YouTube and then embed the URL in emails.

11. Don’t Ignore Inactive Subscribers

Do not ditch inactive subscribers too quickly! They have previously expressed interest in it even if they don’t immediately require your goods. So, put some effort into re-establishing a relationship with them, so they may buy from you in the future.

Here are a few options for reactivating inactive subscribers:

• Your email’s subject line may contain an inquiry, such as “Are we still friends? ” or “Hey [name], are you breaking up with me? Just say no!” Effective copywriting techniques may be used to boost response rates.
• Offer time-limited promotions to persuade people to renew their subscriptions to your service.
• Remind users of their original motivation for subscribing to your newsletter. Give them a reason to read your emails.
• Send a poll or questionnaire to find out why they aren’t reading your emails anymore.
• To determine the subscribers’ interests and provide material that suits them, look at their previous behavior and purchases.

12. What’s The Right Time To Send Emails For Better Engagement

When you provide new features or publish a blog entry, it could be tempting to inform readers by email. Holding off on sending emails until the appropriate moment is essential to improve engagement.

Analyzing previous interaction information is the greatest technique for choosing when to send emails. Check your statistics to determine which day of the week and the time most emails were viewed and clicked. Run tests to determine the email’s ideal hour, day, and frequency.

Furthermore, you must choose the appropriate email frequency. If you send too many, your subscribers can become irritated. If you send too few, people could stop thinking about you. Asking your subscribers is the most excellent way to determine how frequently you should send emails.

Email Automation Strategies

We’ll look at email automation tactics that let you manage more leads with your existing resources. This is essential for automating growth, maximizing efficiency, and avoiding bottlenecking caused by resources (such as the size of your workforce).

Email Autoresponders

The essential component of email automation is autoresponders, which instantly send emails to users once they perform an activity. As a result, recipients of support tickets or new users who sign up for free trials receive an immediate answer in their email.

This is important for interactions in which users gain from immediate replies, and as we’ve previously stated, research demonstrates that leads deteriorate within hours, making speedy responses essential.

Customer support is a critical function that autoresponders do for SaaS businesses. Customers can be directed to appropriate support materials and other resources before your staff is prepared to contact them by automating the initial interaction once users open a ticket.

Drip Campaigns (Basic Automation)

Drip campaigns, in which emails are sent out in a series at predetermined intervals over time, are the next stage in email automation. Imagine you are offering a free 30-day trial of your software to create leads. Although users begin using your application when they sign up and go through the onboarding process, your objective is to turn them into paying clients.

Therefore, you don’t just let them utilize your product for 30 days and hope they find it valuable enough to upgrade to a premium plan once their trial period has ended. Instead, you may design a drip campaign that distributes guidelines on using your product effectively every few days. In the last week of their trial, start highlighting the advantages of upgrading to a paying plan.

Moreover, you should inform them before their trial expires and provide them with a reason to upgrade should they wish the continued usage of your product.

Lead Nurturing Strategies

We concentrate on converting prospects into paying clients by nurturing leads across your sales funnel. To maximize return on investment, you must convert as many high-quality leads as possible into paying clients.

Onboarding Sequences

For new clients to successfully sign up and begin using your program without problems, onboarding procedures are essential. When a new customer decides to purchase your SaaS product, the last thing you want is for onboarding difficulties to lose the deal.

The onboarding procedure might differ significantly based on the nature and design of your software products, and you should eliminate any extra complications that can lead to lost business.

Funnel Campaigns

Before and beyond the first purchase, funnel campaigns are designed to shift prospects from one step of the buying process to the next.

Users enter the top of your sales funnel, also known as the awareness stage, when they first learn about your product and click on your website. Your campaigns in this step of the funnel are meant to move prospects from awareness to consideration or conversion.

You must first utilize a lead generation approach to collect user email addresses before you can do this through email marketing campaigns. When purchase intent is low at the top of the funnel, it could be challenging to persuade clients to fill out a form and submit their personal information.

Some of the finest SaaS lead generation techniques involve using free tools to gather qualified leads. After this, you can send them email campaigns pleading with them to subscribe to a premium service.

Free-to-Paid Upselling

One of the biggest challenges for SaaS organizations is converting free users into paying customers, whether using free trials, demonstrations, or a full-blown freemium model to acquire leads.

Free users could benefit your growth plan, depending on the nature of your product. They may help you market your product, draw in investors, and gather additional user data for product optimization. Therefore, striving to convert every free user into a paying client is not always necessary.

Customer Retention

Most of your email advertisements directed at clients try to keep them using your product and renewing their subscriptions once they have joined as paid users.

Since this stage of the customer cycle is the one that matters most to SaaS organizations, the majority of the email methods we’ll be discussing in the remaining sections of this article will help you do this.

Engagement Strategies

Customer Experience (CX) Content

Engaged users are more inclined to renew and continue using your program when their current subscription expires. Similar to how less active users of your product are more likely to quit their subscriptions or decide not to renew them.

Helping clients achieve the most significant benefits from your software product is the best approach to keep them interested and enthusiastic about using it. Therefore, whatever problem your product resolves, you need to assist clients in solving it to the point that they feel they can’t live without it.

Your email marketing plan should include campaigns that strive to provide the most excellent customer experience possible for each user by offering material that assists them in getting the most out of your program.

Value Demonstration

Your consumers won’t doubt that the monthly software expenses are minimal compared to the continuing benefits they obtain if you demonstrate the value they get from your platform (in figures).

Also, you may utilize this information to highlight to clients the benefits of renewing their membership. An effective approach for keeping and attracting people is the fear of missing out (FOMO).

You might also wish to try out reports that demonstrate to current clients what they could do by upgrading to more powerful plans.

10 Email Automation Tools For Your Email Marketing Campaigns

1. Hubspot

HubSpot is frequently regarded as one of the best marketing automation solutions for many jobs. One of its most popular uses is automating operations to streamline email marketing services.

Regarding sales and marketing, HubSpot may be one of your finest resources.

2. MailChimp

With Mailchimp, you can send drip emails as a follow-up in response to website activity, abandoned shopping carts, activity or inactivity, and much more. Additionally, you can use Mailchimp Groups + OptinMonster to send drip emails based on the opt-in preferences of your subscribers or even the checkboxes they choose while filling out your opt-in form.

If you want an all-in-one solution for inbound campaigns, Mailchimp can be the right choice.

3. Active Campaign

ActiveCampaign is a platform for email marketing automation that merely lets you build drip emails that will increase subscriber involvement and consider their interests, demographics, history, and other factors.

Additionally, Active Campaign may be used as a CRM and marketing automation tool. This email marketing automation software will appeal to you regarding email deliverability, price, customer service, and integrations.

4. GetResponse

Calendar administration is made simple by the drag-and-drop capabilities of GetResponse’s autoresponder tool. Most people use set times to deliver their email newsletters. In addition, you may send subscribers highly targeted autoresponders based on how they signed up for your email list.

Give GetResponse a look if you want responsive templates and automation tools to build your landing pages.

5. Benchmark Email

Benchmark Email could be suitable if you’re searching for a straightforward email automation solution. Many people don’t want to cope with the complexities and problems that need knowledge in this area. It offers a user-friendly UI and excellent customer support. You may utilize the drag-and-drop method with no issues.

6. ConvertKit

ConvertKit can be used to send targeted autoresponders to subscribers based on their engagement with your emails with Automation Rules. Even better, you can swiftly utilize their blueprints to design autoresponder sequences for just about any circumstance.

7. Constant Contact

Constant Contact provides a quick and simple setup and is an email marketing solution suitable for beginners.

Furthermore, Constant Contact receives great marks for providing excellent customer service, thorough online training, and webinars to assist your success. This email automation solution will also come with a ton of extra help.

8. Drip

Drip is an app made to streamline the drip email process, as the name implies. It’s a surprisingly straightforward tool with a lot to offer. The program has drag-and-drop elements for easy construction, pre-made themes, and email collection technologies.

9. Mailjet

Mailjet is an email marketing automation tool for fast-paced teams. Their user-friendly email platform allows you to generate and send emails, integrate the Email API, and begin sending emails.

Users of Mailjet get a fantastic email marketing experience because of its drag-and-drop editor. Additionally, their solution increases email deliverability and send times at reasonable costs.

10. Omnisend

Omnisend claims to increase your open rates and boost revenue growth. It is made to help e-commerce firms with email marketing, SMS, and automation. Since e-commerce is their main area of expertise, Omnisend provides creative email templates to lower cart abandonment and increase recurring business. You may also develop push notification campaigns, scratch cards, shoppable emails, product suggestions, and more.