In 2020, the open rates for the software and internet industry were around 20%. However, that does not mean you will automatically get these rates for your SaaS company. You have to create professional email templates and regularly connect with your subscribers to increase your chances of outperforming your competitors. Here are email marketing tips to help boost the engagement rate of your SaaS company.
SaaS email marketing tips
-
Onboarding and welcome emails
A detailed and efficient onboarding process is essential for the success of your product. Most SaaS companies do the onboarding process on their apps using smart nudges, highlights, and walkthrough videos. In addition to that, they also use email marketing to expand the impact of their walkthroughs and ensure the customer regularly interacts with the company. Similarly, a good welcome email, or a series of emails, can help with the first impression and increase the retention rate of the customers. By acing your onboarding and welcome emails, you can decrease the churn rate and increase customer retention.
The welcome email by Paramount is simple and to the point. They used bold text with a contrasting color to confirm the new member's subscriptions. The following email copy introduces the features of the company and lists the most trending shows and movies on their platforms. The blue CTA buttons redirect the subscribers to the Paramount app and increase the traffic there. Lastly, they have included the billing details of the user and information on their current subscription plan.
-
Automation and behavioral triggers
It becomes easier to convert the prospects when you are using personalized email campaigns along with behavioral triggers. However, it can seem daunting and downright terrifying if you have a long email list. Automation of email campaigns can help make things easier for you and help you target the customers more efficiently in the sales funnel. Email marketing automation can send highly targeted emails to subscribers based on behavioral triggers and track performance metrics. You can also use automation to create drip email campaigns. Experienced email marketers can even further enhance automation by identifying the different types of behavior in all the different stages of the sales funnel. By doing this, they can identify the action that might send the customer to the next level and send them an email accordingly.
Printful has set up an automated campaign that sends summarized reports of your last month’s sale. They have used a minimalistic illustration. Moreover, the colors used in the illustrations are also used throughout the template to maintain uniformity and brand aesthetics. Printful’s report shows the number of orders, products sold, total revenue, and profit margin. They also highlight the total percentage increase in sales compared to the previous month. The CTA button opens the homepage of the website.
-
Leverage your brand image
For SaaS email marketing, it is one of the best practices to use your branding generously. Not only do subscribers and customers interact with multiple teams using emails, but they also use other social media platforms to reach out to your company. This means you have to ensure the brand voice, aesthetics, and image are the same for all communication channels, especially email marketing. The customer can enjoy a consistent brand tone irrespective of the channel they choose.
Slack maintains consistent brand aesthetics across all its emails. They predominantly use purple-colored CTA buttons because they use the same color in their brand logo. Similarly, if they have to use any other colors in their emails, they always choose the colors of their logo. Coming to the brand tone, they have a formal voice with glimpses of informality. But, all the emails are well-structured and directly address the point without beating around the bush.
-
Informative and promotional emails
Regardless of personalization and automation strategies, your email campaigns will not be impactful if the content does not resonate with the readers. Furthermore, the content you are delivering to the subscribers should be relevant to their situation. Otherwise, it can affect the engagement metrics of your email. One way to make your emails more engaging is to include real-life stories of people that have already used your products. You can even include their reviews and testimonials to let the new subscribers know what they should be expecting from your product.
Since the main objective of email marketing is to build a lasting relationship with subscribers, you need to balance the informative and the promotional emails. If you are only sending out promotional emails, the company will sound preachy and can decrease the open rates. Worst case scenario, people will start unsubscribing from your email list. In the same way, if you are only sending informative emails, you are unlikely to convert the readers into repeat customers. By maintaining a healthy ratio between the two, you can increase the impact of your email campaigns.
Conclusion
You can even further enhance your email marketing metrics by adding the manage subscription button to your emails. It reduces the unsubscribe rate and lets the user handle the frequency of their emails. As you can see, for your SaaS email marketing to be successful, it needs to be customer-centric. By following the above-mentioned tips and sending them professional email templates, you can nurture the relationship that you have with your subscribers and evolve them into loyal customers.
Author: Kevin George is the head of marketing at Email Uplers, that specializes in crafting Professional Email Templates, PSD to Email conversion, and Mailchimp Templates. Kevin loves gadgets, bikes & jazz, and he breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on email marketing blog.