Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing strategies for your software as a service (SaaS) company. It’s cost-effective, drives sales, and provides a higher return on investment than other digital marketing channels.
However, let’s be honest: email marketing for SaaS companies isn’t as simple as sending out a promotional email now and then. The SaaS customer lifecycle requires complex customer data to create highly personalized, automated campaigns that drive engagement and retention.
If you’re wondering how to do email marketing for SaaS companies effectively, you’ve come to the right place. In this guide, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know to create SaaS email campaigns that drive engagement, conversions, and customer loyalty.
What is Email Marketing for SaaS Companies?
Email marketing for SaaS companies involves the strategic use of email campaigns to promote software services. Email subscribers periodically so they can learn more about your offerings. You can also send updates on pricing or bug fixes, discounts, or customer surveys.
Unlike other businesses, SaaS companies operate on a subscription-based model, which makes customer retention and user engagement just as important as acquiring new leads.
Your SaaS email marketing campaigns may include a welcome email, a subscription renewal reminder, feature updates, onboarding sequences, and promotional emails.
Here are the 6 key reasons why your SaaS company should consider email marketing:
- Lead Nurturing: You can educate potential customers on the benefits of using your services, guiding them through your sales funnel.
- Onboarding: When new users sign up, a welcome email series can help them get started and see your service’s value quickly.
- Customer Engagement: Sending targeted emails and interactive content like customer surveys and polls can keep your customers active, reduce churn, and increase their lifetime value (LTV).
- New Feature Announcements: You can inform users about updates, new features, and integrations even before implementing them to create awareness and encourage pre-sales.
- Upselling and Cross-selling: Emails allow you to suggest additional services to customers or encourage them to upgrade to a premium plan.
- Re-engagement and Retention: Your SaaS business relies on customer retention and recurring revenue. With targeted emails, you can reconnect with inactive users by offering personalized incentives or feature highlights to encourage them to re-engage with your platform.
At Growth Hackers, we helped a B2B SaaS client in the CRM space redesign its email onboarding strategy with behavior-based sequences, product education emails, and targeted user nudges, resulting in a 35% increase in activation rates and a 28% improvement in trial-to-paid conversions.
How to Do Email Marketing for SaaS Companies | 6 Steps to Follow
Now that we’ve established why your SaaS business needs email marketing, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of how to do email marketing for SaaS companies.
1. Define Your Goals
The first step in how to do email marketing for SaaS companies begins with clearly defined goals. These goals are a part of your sales strategy and will dictate the type of campaign you should run, audience segmentation, content creation, and key performance metrics.
Before you craft a single email, ask yourself: What do I want to achieve? Is it to increase trial signups, boost feature adoption, reduce churn, or drive upsells? Each goal follows a specific approach.
For example, if your goal is to show prospects the value of your product and encourage adoption, a free trial campaign would be a suitable strategy. This involves emails that highlight key product features, demonstrate use cases, and provide clear calls to action for starting a trial.
For example, the email example below from SEMrush effectively showcases the benefits of using the platform:
Additionally, if your goal is customer retention, your emails should offer support, highlight new updates, and provide personalized tips. Clear goals provide a roadmap, ensuring your email efforts are focused and measurable.
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2. Build Your Email List
The next step in learning how to do email marketing for SaaS companies is to collect the email addresses of your prospects. You can do this using different means, such as:
- Lead Magnets: Offer valuable resources like e-books, free templates, or industry reports in exchange for email signups
- Popups: Show targeted popups when visitors try to leave your website, offering them something valuable in return for their email
- Free Trials and Demos: Capture emails when users sign up for a free trial or request a product demo
After gathering email addresses, ensure you use an email validation tool to verify your list. Delete all inactive email addresses, as they’ll bounce back and affect your email deliverability rate in the long run.
At Growth Hackers, we helped a B2C SaaS company treat its email list like a high-performance database, not just a collection of contacts. By building targeted lead magnets and cleaning inactive subscribers, we helped them double their engaged subscriber base and create a healthier foundation for future campaigns.
3. Segment Your List
Another important thing to note is that not all customers are in the same lifecycle segment. Some might be onboarding, while others are upgrading to a paid subscription.
So, it’s logical to create messaging that resonates with each group. That’s where audience segmentation comes in as a critical part of how to do email marketing for SaaS companies.
Here are 4 useful lifecycle segments for SaaS email marketing:
- New Leads: People who have signed up but haven’t tried the product yet
- Active Trial Users: Customers currently in a free trial period
- Paying Customers: Those on a paid plan who might be ready for an upgrade
- Churned Customers: Users who canceled their subscription and may be open to reactivation
You can utilize an email marketing service for audience segmentation and have a list of services you can use, such as HubSpot and Constant Contact. These platforms also help with email personalization and email performance monitoring.
Although you can segment your list based on job title or industry (e.g., marketers, developers, CEOs), you should prioritize user behavior. Divide customers based on their actions, such as feature usage or website visits.
At Growth Hackers, we worked with a SaaS company in the supply chain industry that was sending the same emails to new leads, active users, and paying customers. After analyzing user behavior and creating lifecycle-based segments, we launched targeted campaigns that helped increase click-through rates by over 40% and convert more trial users into subscribers.
For instance, those who consistently utilize a specific feature might be prime candidates for an upsell campaign focusing on related premium functionalities. Linktree offers a free trial to its Pro plan, inviting existing users to get more value when they upgrade:
4. Craft Compelling Email Content
After segmenting your list, the next step in learning how to do email marketing for SaaS companies is creating email campaigns based on your defined goals.
Here’s how to write compelling email content:
- Write Attention-Grabbing Subject Lines: This is the first thing subscribers see, so you want to keep it short, clear, and compelling. Email subject line examples include:
- “Try [service name] on us!”
- “Your subscription ends soon. Don’t miss out!”
- “Unlock Top 3 premium [service] features”
- Personalize the Email: Address customers by their first name and tailor the email content to their needs. For example, if a user hasn’t logged in for a while, send them a re-engagement email with a personalized message like, “[Name], We Miss You! Here’s What’s New in [service].”
- Offer Value: Every email should provide value to your subscribers. Whether it’s a helpful tip, a product update, or an exclusive offer, make sure your content is relevant and useful.
- Add a CTA: What do you want your subscribers to do after reading your email? Whether it’s upgrading their plan, scheduling a demo, or exploring a new feature, make your CTA clear and compelling.
At Growth Hackers, we helped a DTC SaaS brand in the productivity niche move from generic emails that blended into crowded inboxes to personalized campaigns designed around customer goals. By refining subject lines, content structure, and CTAs, the company saw a massive increase in engagement and stronger conversion performance from email campaigns.
This is not it. At Growth Hackers we practice what we preach. What do I mean by that? If you sign up to our newsletter, you will see that our drip email sequence is unique and that each email stands out from traditional marketing emails you usually receive.
Check out how Bannersnack addresses its subscriber by name. It also incorporates other features like an exclusive offer and a clear CTA:
Add a disclaimer at the end of the email template. For instance, lawyers use professional legal language to write disclaimers and notices. Marketers can add a disclaimer at the end of the template to avoid penalties from authorities.
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5. Automate Your Email Campaign
Automated email sequences are indispensable when thinking of how to do email marketing and growth hacking for SaaS companies. They allow you to automatically deliver personalized messages when a customer completes certain actions.
For instance, when a new user signs up, your email automation software will trigger a welcome email. The message will guide them through the initial setup, introduce your product’s core features, and provide helpful tips and best practices.
Additionally, you can set up your automation tool to offer a tutorial or assistance if the user explores a specific feature but doesn’t complete a crucial step.
At Growth Hackers, we helped a B2B SaaS client in the GenAI industry build automated email sequences that guided users from signup to activation with onboarding flows, feature education, and behavioral triggers. By replacing manual follow-ups with personalized automation, we increased user activation and improved trial conversion rates by over 30%.
For example, a few days after signing up to SEMrush, the platform emailed me with the subject: “Need a hand with SEMrush? We’re here to help.” This company’s automation workflow noticed that I didn’t take further action, which triggered the email.
Similarly, when a trial period is almost over, you can send personalized reminders and incentives to encourage conversion. This also applies to inactive users, wherein you can highlight new updates or offer exclusive content to re-engage them.
These triggered messages are tailored to specific user behaviors. They also ensure timely and relevant communication. Also, consistent and helpful engagement can contribute to user satisfaction and long-term retention.
6. Test and Optimize Your Campaigns
When thinking of how to do email marketing for SaaS companies, bear in mind that it isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it strategy. For instance, you need to conduct A/B testing to know what works for each customer segment.
You can experiment with different elements of your emails, such as subject lines, CTAs, and content.
Also, track essential metrics, including:
- Open Rate: The percentage of subscribers who open your email
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of subscribers who click on a link in your email
- Conversion Rate: The percentage of subscribers who take a desired action, such as upgrading their plan
- Churn Rate: The percentage of customers who cancel their subscription
Use the insights from your testing and analysis to refine your campaigns. For example, if emails with video content have a higher CTR, consider that as a top strategy for subsequent campaigns.
At Growth Hackers, we treated a SaaS client’s email campaigns like a race car on a track, constantly tuning every component to improve performance. By analyzing user behavior and testing different messaging strategies, we helped increase engagement rates and create a more efficient customer journey.
Final Thoughts on How to Conduct Email Marketing for SaaS Companies
Email marketing is a powerful way to connect directly with your audience at each stage of their journey in your sales funnel. Considering the nature of the SaaS industry, you need to drive engagement after lead generation to grow and sustain your business.
However, the steps I outlined in this guide can help you master how to do email marketing for SaaS companies. Ensure you deliver value, personalize your messages, and continuously optimize your campaigns.
So, what are you waiting for? Start building your email marketing strategy today and watch your SaaS company grow.
Growth Hackers is a dynamic email marketing agency helping businesses from all over the world grow. There is no fluff with Growth Hackers. We help entrepreneurs and business owners harness the full potential of email marketing for SaaS companies, increase their productivity, generate qualified leads, optimize their conversion rate, gather and analyze data analytics, acquire and retain users and increase sales.
We go further than brand awareness and exposure. We make sure that the strategies we implement move the needle so your business grow, strive and succeed. If you too want your business to reach new heights, contact Growth Hackers today so we can discuss about your brand and create a custom growth plan for you. You’re just one click away to skyrocket your business.
