How to Start SaaS E-Mail Marketing? 10 Steps

If you’ve ever streamed your favorite music online on Spotify or obtained a premium subscription to Office 365, then you’ve experienced SaaS marketing in action. These platforms fall under the umbrella of SaaS or software as a service, a business model where end users pay over the internet to access a customer’s cloud-based software. This lets you enjoy services anytime and anywhere – no installations required.

Email marketing is old but it still is a big deal, thanks to the flexibility and convenience that modern email automation provides. In 2023, 50% of marketers reported a 100% boost in ROI in 2023, showing us why it remains a household name in the industry.

SaaS digital marketing might be an intimidating idea to dip your toes into, but it doesn’t have to be. Let this guide walk you through the essentials with ease – one clear and actionable step at a time.

Is Email Marketing Important to SaaS Websites? 

Picture a small SaaS company selling a promising product, but only a handful of users stick around after the free trial. It’s not an uncommon sight for customers to dip after some time, especially when they don’t see immediate value. 

This is where SaaS email marketing comes in. By introducing targeted offers and a steady reinforcement of the product’s features, all the while tending to customer inquiries, free trials are more likely to get converted to paid subscriptions – preventing customer churn.

Email marketing for small businesses is beneficial, and can be utilized for all users at every stage – whether they’re new and just testing the waters, or a long-term customer that might benefit from an upgraded subscription plan. 

Certain challenges may arise at one point; for instance, a large following does not translate to loyal subscribers. When a French travel blog called Les Frenchies Travel faced a similar problem, they were able to bring their blog back to life by offering free travel tips that helped them build an email list and by syncing both WordPress and Shopify platforms with GetResponsefor customer segmentation.

In essence, when a lasting relationship with customers brings long-term revenue, it’s a sign that your SaaS marketing strategy is working.

How to Start Email Marketing for SaaS? 

Email marketing for SaaS is one of the most profitable ways to connect with a potential audience without draining resources. This gives almost anyone the chance to increase conversions and drive up user retention. However, SaaS marketing is a long game and with this, you need to have a game plan to achieve your desired results.

Step 1: Define Your Goals and Metrics 

Whereas onboarding may require a series of introductory emails to acquaint new users with the software’s key features through helpful tips and tutorials, driving upsells involves sending emails that focus on exclusive offers or switching to premium upgrades that existing customers might find appealing.

A good way to measure if you’re making progress is to keep an eye out for the following metrics:

• Open rates – Refers to how many people actually opened the email. A good percentage of people opening your emails is typically between 17-28%.
• Click-through rates – This shows how many people are engaging and scrolling through your content.
• Conversion rates – This can also be referred to as the “success rate’’ and shows the proportion of visitors who took the desired response, whether it’s signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase.
• Churn rate – The percentage of customers who leave or unsubscribe after some time – a great indicator of customer retention and loyalty.
• Bounce rates – High bounce rates mean that your email list could use cleanup to remove inactive, outdated, and invalid email addresses.

Step 2: Build a Quality Email List 

An important step in doing email marketing for small businesses is to stop sending out random emails to everyone and hope that something sticks. You need to have a goal that ultimately goes back to what outcomes you want to achieve for your business, and you can do that by targeting the right audience.

Your website might benefit from the following strategies in building your email list:

• Strategic website forms. Make sign-up forms less generic by offering value. Instead of saying “Sign up for our newsletter”, say “Get our 7-day productivity challenge!”.
• Gated content. Free services are attractive to customers. All you need is to offer a valuable resource in exchange for an email address.
• Free trial signups. Customers who receive onboarding emails are more likely to stay and become converts. Giving out tips and tutorials allows them to engage and create more connections with the product.
• High-yield webinars. Attendees are highly likely to be interested in the topic which is why doing webinars is a great way to find your people. For example, hosting a webinar titled “The Ultimate Guide to Buying Your First Home” will definitely entice young couples and families, but also to real estate agents who want to make the most out of their sales efforts.

Businesses are expected to comply with legal requirements or risk a digital timeout (and hefty fines). For European customers, GDPR is the golden rulebook, helping to ensure customer rights, privacy, and security. On the other hand, CAN-SPAM is for U.S.-based audiences. It focuses on email etiquette and discourages clickbait subject lines, and complicated unsubscription steps, among many others.

Step 3: Choose the Right Email Marketing Tool 

Not all SaaS email marketing tools are created equal. Understanding which features align with your business goals is key to long-term success. Make sure your tools are equipped with the following: 

• Automation.  Send emails with pre-built automation templates and activate trigger-based workflows designed for specific conditions.
• Segmentation. Tracking which demographic your consumers belong to, their internet behavior, purchase histories, and subscription tiers is key to creating more precise messaging.
• Analytics.  Make use of real-time insights and data-driven recommendations to improve your marketing strategy. 
• CRM Integration. Let customer information stay in one place by syncing your CRM with other tools, making sure your data is up-to-date in multiple different places.

For small teams that want a no-fuss tool, you might benefit from the drag-and-drop templates of Mailchimp. There’s also HubSpot for bigger businesses that have some budget to spare, a solid CRM platform that can do email automation, lead management, and many more. ActiveCampaign is also another sophisticated tool, perfect for deep dives into customer behavior, but can pose a bit of a challenge for inexperienced marketers.

Step 4: Segment Your Audience

Think about audience segmentation as walking into the supermarket with piles of products carefully organized in the aisles. The last thing you want is to find butter sitting next to the shampoo, right? It’s no different from a good SaaS digital marketing strategy. Audience segmentation allows marketers to categorize target customers based on user behavior.

Free trial users might receive onboarding emails or testimonials to carefully build their way into being premium subscribers. Active customers can be retained with constant feature updates while exclusive “win-back” discounts can be offered to churned users.

Say an online grocery store app was released by the supermarket. By knowing what products people buy often, which demographic uses all features, and what kind of coupons or promos attract shoppers the most, you get to send personalized emails with deals carefully curated for a particular audience. For example, recipes focusing on organic ingredients may be recommended to healthy eaters. 

Step 5: Develop a Compelling Value Proposition

Nothing attracts potential customers more than seeing solutions to their problems. Forget coming up with jargon-loaded marketing spiels – value propositions with visible and measurable benefits should speak for themselves. 

Put yourself in the shoes of the customer. Ask yourself: Why should I care? This helps you frame your product better. Position your tool in a way that addresses their “pain point”. What is your intended audience struggling with? And how can you solve that issue?

To assess and visualize your value proposition better, you can try following this formula:

[Pain Point]? [Solution], so [Outcome]

For example: [Sick of watching your favorite tickets sell out in seconds?]? [SeatScout will notify you the moment tickets drop], so [you never miss a seat at the hottest events!]

Step 6: Create an Email Content Strategy

Pushy, unsolicited promotional emails are the quickest way to drive your target audience away. Structured content keeps things in order, preventing you from sending welcome messages to long-time customers. 

Typical email content strategy includes the following email types:

• Welcome emails. The icebreaker – introduce your brand and let them know what to expect.
• Onboarding emails. A walkthrough to guide newcomers with the ins and outs of the service provided.
• Product updates. Updates and announcements let customers know that you value their experience.
• Promotional campaigns. Offer irresistible deals by highlighting customer benefits.

Data analytics help you personalize your emails. Make your messages feel like a one-on-one conversation and feature real-life testimonials for credibility (tip: use images and make them pop with a white background). This lessens the mass-marketing appeal and shows that you genuinely care about your subscribers. 

Step 7: Optimize for Mobile and Design

Users are quick to dismiss emails when they look bad, and if your emails aren’t necessarily made with the mobile experience in mind, then you’re running the risk of losing a significant chunk of your audience.

Good design practices involve the following: flexible email design, straightforward content, and a CTA button that’s hard to ignore. Aside from these, optimizing your images for quicker load times, and maintaining a legible font that’s neither too tiny nor too large are just as important for maximum engagement.

You might want to check these email templates out for some inspiration.  

Step 8: Automate Your Campaigns

Automation is the backbone of successful SaaS email marketing. Nobody would want to lose their marbles crafting personalized emails for every single individual who signed up for the product. The time-saving capability of automation is an answered prayer for businesses looking to get big returns minus the unnecessary grind. 

For starters, Zapier is a reliable option for testing before the actual launch. Its trigger mechanism approach allows for a smoother workflow without the added stress of programming. The premise is simple: Let Zapier connect your submission form directly to your email platform and watch as it activates an invisible cascade of steps, instantly sending a “Welcome Email’ once a new user is detected.

Step 9: Test and Optimize Your Emails

Testing with different email versions helps you see which type of design, subject line, or CTA hits the right spot. 

A/B testing is key in providing insights to develop a stronger SaaS marketing strategy. What are you trying to achieve? Is it higher click-through rates? Or converting new users into paid subscribers? Whatever it is, there are tools to help you navigate through them. 

Here’s a breakdown to walk you through it:

1. Choose a tool. MailChimp and ActiveCampaign are popular ones.
2. Start by creating two versions of your email, with one element purposely different from the other (e.g. subject line, CTA). 
3. Send these versions to your test audience – with a sample size large enough for accurate results.
4. Run your tests systematically to avoid errors caused by outside factors (e.g. holiday periods, time of day).
5. Time to check the winner. Whichever CTA got more numbers is your answer.

After deciding on which CTA to use, make it your go-to for future emails. However, keep testing and tweaking results to stay ahead. Customer behavior shifts rapidly – what’s working today might not be working tomorrow.

Step 10: Analyze Results and Refine Your Strategy

Metrics imply continuous refinement and can be incredibly rewarding when used to your advantage.

Tools like Google Analytics help you measure that success. It doesn’t just let you see how many people are clicking on your links, it also identifies what types of action your audience did after it. It gives you the big picture by tracking how your email traffic interacts with your site. Did they end up purchasing? Or leaving?

With proper tagging, you can see which email campaigns lead to the most traffic. Just set up your email links and tag them with UTM parameters. Check out this guide to get you started.

Conclusion 

SaaS email marketing is the quiet force that helps enterprises stay on top of their game and it isn’t slowing down. From establishing clear goals to automating campaigns, and tracking metrics, this guide has the basics covered for you.

As long as people crave solutions, emails are here to stay.

Why wait sooner? When it comes to email marketing for SaaS, slow and steady wins the game.

Need a head start?  Here are some successful email campaign stories to jumpstart your next move.