The SaaS Email Marketing Go-To Guide

We’re just going to repeat ourselves, but it seems like too much of an argument to miss. Everyone else is doing email marketing, and this is not the kind of thing you want to be left behind. Your efforts need to be similar, if not more significant than the ones made by your competition. Email marketing in SaaS is a big thing, primarily because of the goals that can be achieved. Let’s check what these are.

Gain a greater reach.

We tend to believe that social media is the currency of the web, but in reality, it’s email. There are a lot more email accounts than social media. When applying the right SaaS email marketing strategies, your product will certainly gain a greater reach.

Engage with users in a targeted manner.

You are directly speaking to your clients through emails, offering a real solution to their problems, providing them with personalized offers, sharing discounts, free trial offers, premium features, and so on. Everything is more straightforward, more direct, and more effective. And it doesn’t matter that you are sending the same email to 1000 subscribers. In their inbox, they see you as the sender and themselves as premium users. And that’s worth more than you think.

Enjoy real ROI growth

Combined with other marketing campaigns, and of course, done correctly, you could witness real growth in your ROI thanks to your engaged users. All your marketing efforts have better results when you establish more personal relationships with your customers. Emails can get you there, closer to your customers.

Increase conversions.

Through effective drip campaigns, your sales funnel can significantly draw in new users and help increase your conversion rate. A well-adapted and applied SaaS email marketing strategy can convince your customer to subscribe, bringing more value to SaaS businesses. Customer engagement via email is considerably higher than through any other means.

It isn’t going anywhere.

Did you know that the first promotional email message was sent in 1978 to a database of only 400 customers? And look at it now. There is not one business, SaaS or not, that wishes to grow its profitability that hasn’t sent emails to either existing or new customers. Email marketing campaigns aren’t going anywhere. They will only grow in popularity. Investing resources of all kinds in email marketing ensures you are doing it right. You are going against a picky email consumer, so you must do your homework and impress. The stakes are high, but so are the potential earnings.

There is always room to optimize your email marketing strategy. And while adding one more step to the probably already long list of things you need to do to succeed might be necessary, it might also pay off. So, are you willing to optimize? If you’ve said yes, here are a few aspects you should consider.

Set a goal for your email marketing campaign

Email marketing can bring subscribers, buyers, new partners, and so on. The purpose of your email will dictate the steps that follow, as well as the content of your email. For instance, the cold reach strategy is all about obtaining new leads.

In B2B, cold reaches are famous for gaining new leads and potential partners. Having this target, your strategy will start to unravel. You might have scenario 1, in which your potential partner replies. In that case, your follow-up will look in a particular manner, or you could have scenario 2, in which no reply will come. The follow-up email will focus on reminding that partner that you are still waiting on him to decide on whether or not they are interested. The goal determines the approach, future steps, and measuring method, and it is the starting point of your email marketing strategy.

Measure your email marketing efforts

How you measure the success of your approach also depends on your goal, although some methods sometimes tend to be misleading. When running an email marketing strategy, all marketers need to consider the following metrics:

The open rate, as well as the unsubscribe rate, can, at times, be misleading. For instance, some readers might not bother to unsubscribe from your list, but they don’t necessarily read your emails and are not particularly interested in your offers. At the same time, with a rather descriptive subject line in which you are announcing an offer, they could just as well go on your website and still enjoy that offer without having to open your email. Therefore, try to look at all metrics or at least several of them, and don’t choose a single method to measure the success of your strategy.

A/B test your emails

It is essential to constantly look at what you can optimize. There is always room to do better, and the only way you can find how you can improve your efforts is by split-testing your email messages. Once your metrics are lined up, you can begin testing and tweaking elements to improve numbers. However, don’t make too many changes at once. Take your time. Take one element at a time to understand what works and doesn’t. Be patient and track the changes and how they perform.

One of the chapters of our SaaS email marketing handbook refers to your email copy. Learn how to write compelling copy to ensure results and become a true email marketing pro. Follow our email marketing tips to succeed.

Mind your target audience

Imagine talking to an actual persona as opposed to an imaginary audience. We know the B2B world is trying to be more personal in its approach. When writing emails, whatever the purpose, you need to address the recipient directly. You have their data. Use them. Start with a friendly Hello in your welcome email, followed by the recipient’s name. Use a less formal approach unless you send him the monthly invoice. Otherwise, be friendly.

Go promotional when the situation calls for it

When you are focused on sharing offers, you could use a promotional approach strengthened by visuals on your checkout pages. However, if you can, try to maintain that friendly tone.

Just spill it out already

Chunks of text, stay away! Your emails to your customers should not be a long, never-ending message that you would rather cut off one hand just to get it over with. Emails must be friendly, informative, concise, and well-structured, especially in B2B.

Of course, breaking that text into smaller paragraphs is one solution if you have a lot to say. However, we should remind you that your email will also contain visuals, perhaps a Call-to-Actions and links. So, organize your text well, but try not to sacrifice essential elements, which would be announcing the existing problem and your solution.

Play with needs and solutions

If there are aspects, ideas, or benefits you want your reader to remember in your text, try making them stick out. Make them noticeable to your readers. By mapping out different elements throughout your text, your readers will return with a clear message, the one you wanted them to remember.

Take care of your subject line

One of the reasons why readers don’t even bother to open an email is because it doesn’t have an exciting subject line or it doesn’t have a subject line period.

Treat your reader’s inbox as if it were your own. Avoid stuffing it with information that is not useful, and assume that many marketers are already sending messages of this kind. So, ensure you offer your message an identity through its subject line.