Social media marketing has taken the world by a storm and email marketing doesn’t work in 2021. One of these statements is a lie and we’ll let you guess which one it is.
According to Radicati, the total number of email accounts worldwide was estimated at around 3.8 billion in the year 2019. That's half of the entire population of the world!
Twitter, Facebook, and other social media might boast big numbers but email is the currency of the web. It is also the most cost-effective weapon for your marketing effort with ROI as high as 4400%.
What Is Email Marketing?
Its often said that emails are nothing more than a communication channel and should be treated as such. But when it comes to B2B SaaS, things often aren’t that simple.
Email marketing is more of relationship marketing. It is vital for building and nurturing customer relationships. When done well, it can improve retention, create a loyal customer base and even boost your MMR.
Some common examples of email marketing mails:
- Welcome emails
- Onboarding tutorials
- Newsletters
- Product Promotions
- Sending Resources like Blogs, Case Studies, Ebooks, whitepapers, etc.
- Exclusive discount codes & Sale Alerts
- Customer feedback surveys
It could also include product or company updates to keep your customers well informed and maintain awareness.
How to Plan Your Email Marketing Content?
- Understanding your persona
Your customers are more than a first name and their business email address. Understanding their persona means knowing what they need. It’s important that you know the reason they are part of your mailing list.
-What are their pain points?
-What is your role in helping them?
-How can you help them?
-What is their background (demographics, location, job title). Having the answers to these questions help you provide relevant information to your customers through email campaigns.
- Having a strong ‘Why’.
Just like any other marketing activity, having a strong “Why” is crucial to run an effective email campaign. Each of the example emails mentioned above has a purpose behind it. The “Why” ranges from—increasing brand awareness, getting more qualified leads to—driving sales.
- Do not forget email copywriting
After having the answer to the 2 points above, you can start writing:.
- Nailing the subject line: Your subject line is the first thing your customer sees. Make sure it's short, crisp, and to the point. Keeping the subject line clean yet interesting is half the game. Remember, nobody wants to open an email with a boring subject line. Don't write vague ideas, write facts.
- Language: Keeping the language simple and conversational is the key. A conversational tone is a great way to warm up to your customers and get cookie points for making a connection. Using confusing jargon is a strict no-no. A confused customer will never follow your CTA.
Most marketers get blindsided when talking about their product and its revolutionary features. Your subscriber on the other hand doesn't care about your product as you do. And as a marketer, your narrative should make sure they do. Talk about the benefits of the product. Talk about what problem it’s solving. Explain why they need your product. Put yourself in your subscribers’ shoes and think “What's in it for me?” If the answer to that question satisfies your problems. You’re good to go.
4. Have a Clear Opt-out/Unsubscribe button
Nobody wants subscribers to unsubscribe but it's always better to lose communication with a client who doesn’t want your emails, than to be reported as a spammy mail. Spam report hurts your open rates by giving signals to ESPs to mark future emails from your domain as spam. In many cases, these spam reports can even put a ban on your account.
On that note, let’s take a look at some examples of email marketing done by winning SaaS teams.
SaaS Email Marketing Ideas Worth Stealing!
1. Shopify's Perfect Welcome Mail
With an average open rate of over 50%, a welcome email can be considered critical for making a good first impression. Many commit the cardinal sin of creating bland welcome emails without any value or information. Welcome emails are your first step in a long relationship you and your prospect will share.
Quick Takeaways from Shopify
- -Personalize your Emails - Even simple personalization such as using your customer’s name in the email copy can make an impact on your engagement rates
- -Thanking them for using your service - A single line showing gratitude definitely counts as good email etiquette.
- -Setting clear expectations - Mention product benefits and give some context to your product
2. Monday.com's Amazing Onboarding Sequence
An Onboarding mail refers to a quick ‘How to’ for your product. Often welcome mails and onboarding are clubbed into a single mail. The Onboarding mail should always focus on showing new users how the product works and decrease any friction that happens in the first time usage.
Interestingly, many companies have started using videos describing how the product works in the onboarding sequence which functions as an easy-to-follow tutorial for the customer.
Quick Takeaways from Monday.com
- -Crisp Copy: Having a short and to-the-point email copy
- -Leverage Videos: Using Video of tutorials for demonstrating the product
- -Hyperlink Emails: Additionally, brief mentions of the link to the mobile or web app
- Weblium's Relevant Promotional Emails
This is probably the part most SaaS companies mess up. It’s a common understanding nowadays that people don’t want to see ads. Except, it’s a misguided opinion. The truth is: people don’t want to see “irrelevant” ads. Your promotional emails should reach people who might be interested in the product. If not, these are the emails that reach the spam folder and tank your overall open rates.
Setting up behavioral segments can help you understand your leads with high intent. You can then focus your promotional efforts towards this high intent cohort to avoid being just another irrelevant mail in the spam folder. Your copy needs to be strong and appealing enough to attract customers and make them accept your offer. Promotional emails need to be specific and not be all over the place. A clear messaging which doesn’t sound salesy— is the key.
Quick Takeaways from Weblium:
- -Point it out- Relevant and specific
- -Be knowledgeable- Giving value by giving out knowledge/ freebies
- -Ratio-driven- Keep the education: promotion ratio at 3:1
- -Focused- Focused towards high intent leads
- Chanty's Emails that Activate Inactive Users
Previously, we mentioned creating segments and identifying high intent leads. Similarly, there will be contacts who don’t engage with your product as much. Instead of giving up on these contacts, you can run a targeted campaign for this group encouraging them to come back to your product.
Quick Takeaways from Chanty
- -Stop User Abandonment- Don’t abandon users who have stopped using your product
- -Use Cohorts- Create segments for ‘low engagement’ users
- -Focus on Nurturing- Nurture them with targeted content and encourage them to come back to your product
- Userpilot's and Zoho's Emails that Demand Feedbacks to improve CX
Getting quality feedback on your SaaS product helps you improve upon your product and customer experience. Another added benefit of this is identifying product sentiment and segmenting your users according to NPS scores
You get passives, detractors, and most importantly promoters. Promoters are your loyal customers and having an identified set allows you to run referral campaigns on them and bank on upselling opportunities. Also, if you nurture them well you can also get testimonials from them. In case of detractors and passives, you get an opportunity to learn the blind spots in your product and fix them. The aim here should be to turn your detractors and passives and promoters
Quick Takeaways from Zoho:
-Establish Value Proposition- Reaffirm the value you bring in for the business.
-Nudge them with Rewards- Incentivize them with little rewards for positive action
6. Basecamp's Emails at the End of a Free Trial
Your product is great. A lot of people are signing up for free trials as well. And this is a great sign. What you need now is to start converting them into paid user. Basecamp has a clear email strategy and it involves them sending them a reminder email. The reminder mail is very carefully constructed to do 2 things:
- 1. Create trust
- 2. Clear confusion
Quick Takeaways from Basecamp:
- Nurture this group
- Explain the benefits of the paid subscription
- Give assurance that their data is safe
7. Paperflite's Newsletters Publication
Imagine writing content without worrying about keywords for SEO and an audience that reads it—that's newsletter in a nutshell!
As an expert or a thought leader in the industry you can create content catered to your target audience’s reading pleasure. And since it directly lands in the customers inbox there is no search engine optimization needed. All you need is to create share worthy content and it will create your normal subscribers to your loyal fans. Newsletters in the B2B SaaS are Really diverse. Ranging from product and updates to thoughts on different mental models or simply just relevant News shared in a comprehensive way.
Here’s an interesting read - a newsletter about newsletter, something we sent out exclusively to our early subscribers.
Parting Thoughts
Lastly, it's important to note that email marketing isn't one size fits all. It takes a lot of iterations to find the right one for you. Meanwhile, if you keep the idea behind each tip shared, you would find your much quickly.
Keep testing your email messages and subject lines. And make sure your efforts not only increase your overall engagement and sales but also create a solid brand value for your SaaS.
