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Email Marketing 101: 5 Email Marketing Tips for SaaS Businesses

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The following is a guest post from Hammad Akbar, a tech entrepreneur with a passion for technology and online marketing. He’s currently focusing on a new startup TruConversion , a SaaS application in web/mobile analytics space. Check out his blog HammadAkbar.com.

By now, you know that email marketing is widely used for engaging users, creating a personalized connection, upgrading leads, increasing conversions and basically keeping your customers happy and connected.

Along with this, email marketing offers the widest reach. Studies show that 90% of emails get to the inbox while other platforms do not offer this kind of authenticity and reach at all.

Most Software as a Service (or SaaS) companies are already using email as their primary marketing tactic. But if you are still struggling and you’re not reaching your desired metrics, I have practical tips on how to make email marketing work for SaaS businesses.

5 email campaign tips for SaaS businesses

1. Keep it focused

Research your customers. Develop user personas so you can target the right customers for your brand. This will save you valuable time and ensure you’re only marketing to the people who are interested in your businesses’s offerings.

To get to know your customers better, conduct firsthand research. First, use your sign-up form to collect your customer’s contact information. This will allow you to send permission-based emails (as opposed to non-permission-based, or spam emails). To take a deeper dive into your customer’s interests, you can also gather data on your customers by sending them a live poll or a survey.

This also develops a sense of trust between your company and your customers. People don’t trust spam or unsolicited messages because those messages aren’t relevant to them. That’s why getting to know your customers and prospects through detailed research is an important first step for any campaign.

The second most important thing is to segment your customers properly. You will only send appropriate emails to them once you have done the segmentation. The picture below shows a few examples of how you can segment your customers to send the perfect emails.

2. Write copy that converts

Email content is one of the most important parts of your email campaign, especially for SaaS businesses with complex products.

Persuasive, relevant copy that speaks your customers’ language will go a long way in creating a successful campaign. It’s important to understand your customer’s biggest challenges and how your products help solve those unique challenges before developing your email copy.

Keep these factors in mind while preparing your email copy:

● Keep it relevant:

You should be specifying your product features that people will gain by using your product or miss out on not using it. Relevant content will always help build trust and loyalty. This is where understanding your user personas comes in to play.

● Keep it easy:

Don’t be in a rush to sell your product. If you’re writing email content for a prospect, your content should be more educational and less sales-y.

● Keep it short:

Don’t make your email copy longer than it needs to be or provide unnecessary details about your product. Keep it short, compelling and actionable.

3. Deliver effective design

Consider these areas when designing your emails:

● Layouts:

Keep your layout simple and limit the number of links you use in your emails. Use mobile-optimized design to ensure that your emails will be easily opened on both desktop and mobile devices. A simple, easy-to-use layout will help your customer click-through to make a purchase!

● Images:

Images can drive engagement, especially for your abandoned cart emails. Use high-resolution images whenever possible.

4. Time your emails perfectly

Have you heard the phrase, “Time is Money”? It really is. If your email arrives at a time that doesn’t make sense for your customer, it will go unnoticed and the time and money you spent deploying your campaign will go to waste.

While there is no “perfect time” for delivering an email campaign, you can always test your emails to discover the best send times for your customers. Test different send times on your customer segments to find out which time works best. If you have customers nationwide or worldwide, you’ll want to take their local timezones and holidays into account before you hit send.

To learn more, check this post on Setting the Time for Running Your Email Campaign.

5. Measure everything

Testing and measuring every one of your emails is incredibly important for your campaign’s success – but unfortunately, it’s a step that not all SaaS companies embrace.

Everything in your email is measurable; from your email copy to your subject line to your design. By using A/B testing (and ensuring that you always test just one element per email), you’ll be able to compare your emails and always know what is performing and what isn’t.

If you’re not sure where to begin, you can start by running a subject line split test. It’s one of the simplest and most impactful ways to discover what kind of language resonates best with your customers.

To learn more, check out the Complete Guide to Measuring Email Marketing Success.

Conclusion

Email marketing for SaaS companies can prove challenging, but not without proper research and campaign development. Combine the email tips listed here with your user research to deliver best-in-class email campaigns.

Want to learn more about using contextual email tactics to test and optimize your emails for mobile? Download Everything You Need to Know About Contextual Marketing.

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