The Significance of Email Marketing for SaaS Companies
What is the importance of email in SaaS?
How SaaS companies can use email marketing to nurture leads, decrease churn, onboard customers, and increase lifetime value Email marketing is one of the best mediums to send timely, personalized, and automated communication throughout the customer lifecycle.
Email Marketing in SaaS: Now More Than Ever If you run a SaaS business, you may have heard that email is so “dead.”You know what? Just the opposite is true. Email is among the highest ROI channels for SaaS advertising in fact. Email marketing boasts an average ROI of $42 for every $1 spent, and it even outperforms social and ads, and SEO in some phases of the funnel.
Why? Because email is direct. It’s personal. And it’s permission-based. And that’s exactly what makes it so powerful in the subscription-based SaaS model, where customer relationships and churn are just as important (if not more so) than generating new leads.
1. Email Is the Top of the Funnel for Customer Onboarding
For SaaS companies one of the biggest challenges is getting users to value fast. That’s where email comes in.
Welcome emails, product walk-throughs, and trial activation reminders are a key part of your SaaS onboarding process. You can take your users from “sign-up” to “aha” without the need of your sales team using a basic email drip sequence.
Long-tail keyword examples:
best software as a service onboarding email sequence
how to onboard SaaS users with email
Pro Tip: Use behavior-based automation. If a user doesn’t log in after 2 days, send an email with 5 tips to get started.
2. Lead Nurturing & Trial Conversions
Not everyone that lands on your website, will become a customer on day 1. This is why email nurturing is pure gold.
Create value based emails that help your leads understand how your SaaS can help solve their issues. Things like educational content, case studies, and product comparison guides are powerful ways to take them down the funnel.
NLP terms to use:
user engagement
lifecycle marketing
intent-based messaging
conversion optimization
Long Tail Keywords:
SaaS email drip campaign examples
increase free trial conversions through email
3. Retention, Upsells, and Cross-sells
Your existing customers are your most valuable customers. Through email, you can:
Introduce new functionality
Suggest an upgrade
Provide an add-on, prompted by their usage
Whether you are a B2B SaaS with one or more paid tiers, or a freemium product with premium add-ons, email is the engine for your upsells.
Long Tail Keywords:
email marketing for customer retention for SaaS
how to upsell SaaS users with email
NLP Terms:
usage patterns
customer lifecycle
proactive communication
4. Reduce Churn Through Automated Check-Ins
Churn is the quiet killer in SaaS. Many times, users leave because they either did not understand a feature or because they did not see enough value.
Using email check-in and feedback loops, you can detect drop-offs and re-engage before they quit. You can set up automated sequences based on their log-in frequency, usage, or inactivity.
Example:
“Hi Jane, we noticed you have not taken advantage of [feature] in a while. Here is a 2-min tip video to help you realize the value of [feature].”
Long tail keywords:
reduce churn with SaaS email automation
win-back email campaign examples for SaaS
5. Gain Authority Through Newsletters
Newsletters help keep your audience engaged even when they’re not actively engaging with your software. Share product releases, industry news, and advice to keep your SaaS front-of-mind.
You can also use newsletters to drive traffic back to your blog, promote webinars, or provide limited-time discounts.
NLP terms:
brand recall
educational content
audience segmentation
6 How to Segment Your SaaS Email List (for Better Results)
Not all users are, however, at the same level. This is why you need to be aggressive about segmentation when it comes to SaaS email marketing. Here some typical methods of segmenting:
Stage in customer lifecycle: New lead vs Act user vs Inact customer
Level of use : Power / Casual Users
Plan type: Free vs Paid
Business unit or function: Marketing vs Development
Segmented campaigns
7. Top Email Marketing Tools For SaaS Teams
If elevating your email marketing is something your SaaS team wants to do, here is a list of tools most SaaS teams will trust:
– ActiveCampaign – good behavior-based logic and automation
– ConvertKit – more simple, aimed at creators and startups
– Customer.io – built for SaaS teams, allows for detailed event tracking
– Mailchimp – a popular email marketing tool, easy to integrate
– Sendinblue – affordable, plenty of automation tools
These tools allow you to create dynamic workflows, track user activity, and personalize communications at scale.
8. Metrics that Matter: Measure SaaS Email Success
Email communication is one thing, but optimizing those emails is another. You can measure the following numbers to help optimize:
– Open Rate – Are your subject lines compelling?
– Click Through Rate (CTR) – Are people engaging with your content?
– Activation Rate – How many users actually take action after getting emailed?
Churn Rate – Are your Emails Reduce your retention Rate?
Revenue per Email – Which email campaign created upgrades?
You want to A/B test Subject lines, CTAs, and timing to improve Results.
9. The things SaaS Companies do wrong with Email
Sending the same email to every user
Packing emails with features not value
Not accounting for onboarding and win-backs
Not cleaning your email list ( hurts deliverability )
Formatting for mobile poorly
If you avoid these mistakes you are already half way to developing a great email strategy.
Conclusion: Email is NOT DEAD – it is your SaaS growth lever
At MIS Services Inc we not only understand how important a carefully executed email strategy is for SaaS companies, but we also understand how email is instrumental to every interaction a user has with your company, whether it is converting leads, activating users, or creating upgrades.
Are You Ready to turn your SaaS email strategy into a revenue machine?
Let’s build it together
