You’ve probably heard the myth that email marketing is dead. With the increasing popularity of social media marketing, SEO, mobile analytics, sales enablement, video marketing and chatbots, it appears like email has become obsolete.
However, metrics show that email marketing is still a very effective strategy for boosting engagement rates and generating more sales. In 2019, it was said that there were 3.9 billion email users, with this number expected to rise to 4.48 billion users in 2024. In 2018, about 281 billion emails were sent daily globally, with the figure projected to rise to more than 347 billion in 2023.
In terms of engagement, a study showed that the average email open rate in the software industry is 21.29 %. Another study revealed that email marketing generates a return on investment (ROI) of 4400%. This means that for every $1 spent, you can get $44 in return. All these statistics show that email marketing is far from dead.
‘In 2019, there were 3.9 billion email users, with this number expected to rise to 4.48 billion users in 2024’ Click To TweetIn this article, I will cover several SaaS email marketing tips that will help maximize your return on investment. I will also look at some real-life examples of excellent SaaS email marketing strategies.
Email marketing refers to the process of sending commercial email messages to customers or prospects. This marketing strategy is used to inform, build a community around your brand and drive sales.
To keep your audience engaged, you need to use different types of emails in your SaaS email marketing strategy. Some of the messages should sell or generate interest in your product, while others should offer an exceptional user experience.
Here are different types of marketing emails to use based on the buyer’s journey of your subscribers:
Here is a warm and informative welcome email from Wistia:
Keep your subscription confirmation emails as short and concise as possible. Individuals can confirm their subscription by entering a code from the email on your site, or simply clicking on a button or link.
Here is a subscription confirmation email from Stripo:
To create an effective announcement email, be sure to state clearly what it is about at the top of the email and in the subject line. Describe the benefits of whatever you are announcing, and end your message with a clear call to action. Finally, be sure to select recipients that would be interested in your message. Otherwise you will end up with numerous unsubscribe requests instead of new clients.
An email from Zapier announcing new integrations to their software:
CHECK THIS TOO: 15 Tips For Crafting An Engaging Email Newsletter
Like newspapers, newsletters create a sense of expectation in your readers. The main aim of a monthly, bi-weekly, weekly or daily newsletter is to maintain regular connection with your audience, as well as boost blog or website traffic. To achieve these objectives, make sure your newsletter is well-structured, interesting, personalized and visually appealing.
Monthly newsletter from Zapier featuring blog articles:
To succeed with this kind of email, be sure to consider the recipients’ pains, needs and interests first. This way, you can offer valuable content and enjoy a high ROI from your campaign. The content of your emails should be tailored based on where the recipient is in the buyer’s journey. Start by acknowledging their needs, and then explain how your product or service can solve their problem.
‘To succeed with lead nurturing emails, consider the recipients’ pains, needs and interests’ Click To TweetA lead nurturing email from Square:
To encourage readers to take action, place a time limitation on your offer. Keep your copy short and powerful. Segment your audience and personalize the emails.
Here is a brief and simple special offer email from Uber:
Find out why your audience has not been reading your emails. Provide the option to adjust the frequency of emails they receive in case they are not happy with the current frequency. Remember to add social media buttons for individuals who would like to communicate via this channel. Use visual or text elements to demonstrate the importance of your relationships with customers.
CHECK THIS TOO: 10 Effective Email Marketing Tips Small Businesses Can Use
Here is an email sent by Dropbox to remind the user that the service is still available and why it would be helpful.
The abandoned cart email should include the goods in the user’s cart, show the price of each item and the total price. To encourage readers to take action, throw in a discount.
Here is a unique type of brand storytelling where customers talk about their success with the product:
Here is an email by QuickBooks seeking to convert prospects from a free trial to a paid plan.
Here is a good example of an unsubscribe email from BetaList:
Here are some of the benefits of including email marketing in your SaaS marketing plan to reach out to your prospects and customers:
‘SaaS email marketing establishes you as an expert in your industry’ Click To TweetREAD THIS TOO: SaaS Digital Marketing: Get All The Customers You Need To Grow
Now that we know what email marketing is and its benefits, let us look at some strategies that will help maximize the ROI for your SaaS email marketing campaigns.
Popular email tools in the market include Constant Contact, Mailchimp, Sendinblue, Mailjet, HubSpot and Get Response. With all the options available, finding the right one for your business can be confusing. Here are some questions that will help you make a decision:
When choosing an email service provider, you should also think about your future needs. Be sure to choose a software that can provide the necessary features as your business grows. Our recommendation for user-friendly and scalable email marketing software would be HubSpot.
Successful email marketing requires setting clear goals from the onset. Here are some examples of common goals:
RELATED READ: Why Is Goal Setting Important to Inbound Marketing?
Your goals will determine what kind of content would work best for your audience. For instance, if you want to get people to opt in for a free trial, send copy explaining the benefits they will enjoy at no cost.
Your call to action button will also be determined by the goals you want to achieve. For example, if you want to inform subscribers about a new product feature, ‘learn how it works’ would be an appropriate CTA.
Finally, your goals will dictate what metrics you need to track to see if your efforts are yielding the desired results. If you want to lower the churn rate, monitor the retention rate. But if you want to boost sales, keep track of the email conversion rate.
RELATED READ: 15 Email Marketing Checklists: Grow Your Sales By 114%
To meet the needs of your subscribers, take time to know them beyond their names and email addresses. Here are some questions to help better understand the buyer persona of your subscribers:
The best way to get these details about your subscribers is by sending surveys.
The buyer’s journey is the process customers go through before they decide to purchase a service or product. It is made up of three main stages:
When you know where each of your subscribers is in the buyer’s journey, you will be able to customize your emails to suit them. Here are the types of emails you should send to subscribers at various stages in the buyer’s journey:
Awareness stage
Consideration stage
Decision stage
Want to make your customers feel understood and valued? Then be sure to add a personal touch in your email marketing. Personalizing emails is a very effective strategy for building trusting relationships with customers and prospects.
‘Personalizing emails makes customers feel understood and valued’ Click To TweetHere are some personalization tips that will have a positive impact on your clicks, opens and conversion rate:
A recent study revealed that 41.9% of emails are opened on a mobile device. To engage your subscribers and boost your sales, you must ensure that your emails are mobile friendly.
‘41.9% of emails are opened on a mobile device’
Here are some tips that you can use to optimize your emails for mobile:
Including power words in your email will elicit an emotional response from your audience and encourage them to take action. Here are some of the words you could use to improve your email marketing campaigns:
Embedding videos in your emails is another great strategy for grabbing your subscribers’ attention and boosting engagement. These could be brand videos, animated videos, demo videos, educational videos, industry updates, tutorials or product updates.
Research has shown that video can increase click rates by 65% and open rates by 19%.
Email deliverability is simply the ability to deliver an email to a recipient’s inbox. When deliverability is compromised for any reason, your email will end up in the spam folder. In the worst case scenario, you might find yourself blocked by the internet service provider.
Here are some strategies you can use to enhance email deliverability:
When done properly, SaaS email marketing can help your business retain existing customers, find new ones and build a loyal following. Applying the strategies listed above will enhance your chances of success with email marketing.
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