9 Strategies For Successful SaaS Email Marketing Campaigns

9 Strategies For Successful SaaS Email Marketing Campaigns

Email marketing is the lifeblood of a successful SaaS business. 

Why?

Because you, the marketer or owner behind said SaaS business, are the owner and operator of your email list — that’s not the case with most other platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, or Tik Tok, where algorithmic gatekeepers can limit your reach on a whim.

You can contact your email list when you want, how you want, with whatever offer you want. They represent traffic that you can drive wherever you like. 

But how do you market to them effectively? 

Here’s our complete guide to growing, managing, and marketing your email list as a SaaS business. 

What is a SaaS Email Marketing Strategy?

A SaaS email marketing strategy is an organized plan for effectively growing, managing, and marketing your SaaS business’s email list. It should include tactics like: 

  • Growing your list through content upgrades, gated content offers, lead magnets, etc.
  • Automating part of the onboarding process with automated emails
  • Segmenting your list into groups to send targeted messages
  • Crafting compelling subject lines and writing engaging content 
  • Testing different strategies and optimizing campaigns for better results 
  • Analyzing email performance using data from platforms like ClickFunnels
  • Integrating with other marketing channels, such as social media, for maximum reach

These are just a few of the tactics you can employ in your SaaS email marketing strategy (and we’ll dive into a lot of these in more detail soon). When implemented correctly, these tactics can help you build an engaged and loyal audience that will drive growth for your SaaS business. 

Why is Email Marketing Important for SaaS Businesses?

As I mentioned earlier, an email list represents an audience that you own and can market to directly (without gatekeepers). This makes email marketing one of the most powerful tools in your SaaS business’s arsenal.

In fact, Russell Brunson and many other SaaS entrepreneurs claim that you can expect to make your business about $1 per month per subscriber. 

The bigger your list, the more money you make. 

Not only can you send offers and content to your email list whenever you want, but you can also track their engagement with it to see what works (and what doesn’t). 

Email is a great way to stay top-of-mind with your customers and keep them engaged. Plus, it’s a major driver of conversions (especially for SaaS businesses).

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to grow your SaaS business; if you want to see real results with your campaigns, then investing in an email marketing strategy is crucial. 

Proven Ways to Grow Your SaaS Email Marketing List

Before we talk about marketing to your list, we’re going to share some proven strategies you can use to build (if you’re just starting out) or grow (if you’ve already got a list) your email list. 

Content Upgrades 

Content upgrades are one of the most effective ways to grow your SaaS email list. They’re like lead magnets, but better — instead of offering a generic freebie, you offer something specialized related to a blog post or web page that someone is already reading. 

Content Upgrades

Lead Magnets

Lead magnets are freebies that you offer in exchange for an email address. These can be anything from a free ebook to a video course or webinar. 

Lead Magnets

Referral Programs

Referral programs work by incentivizing existing customers to refer new customers (and collect their contact information) in exchange for rewards like discounts or bonus content.

Referral Programs

Social Media Campaigns

Social media campaigns are a great way to reach new audiences and collect their contact information. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter allow you to create posts that link back to landing pages where people can enter their email addresses. You can run ads or build a following organically that funnels to your email list. 

Social Media Campaigns

Giveaways

Giveaways are another great way to grow your email list. All you need to do is offer a prize (usually something related to your business) and ask people to enter their contact information in order to be eligible for the drawing. 

Giveaways

Influencers

Influencers are social media users with large followings who can help you reach more people. You can either pay them to promote your business/giveaway or offer them a commission for each sale they refer. 

Influencers

Webinars

Webinars are a great way to connect with your audience and build relationships. During the webinar, you can engage people and collect their contact information. 

Webinars

These are just a few of the tactics you can use to grow your SaaS email list. Implementing one or more of these strategies will give you an engaged audience of people that you can market to directly. 

If you want to learn more about growing your email list, check out our full guide over here.

9 Strategies For Successful SaaS Email Marketing Campaigns

Now let’s dive into some of the best ways you can market your email list as a SaaS business.

1. Create a Soap Opera Sequence

What do you send someone when they first sign up for your email list?

Obviously, you need to welcome them and deliver what was promised (lead magnet, masterclass, etc.)… but then you need to take them on a journey. 

Specifically, a journey to learn about your brand, your software, and the problems you’re able to solve for them.

How do you do that? 

By using a soap opera sequence

Create a Soap Opera Sequence

This is a series of 5-7 daily emails that follow the traditional storytelling arc. Each email should build on the one before it and deliver compelling content and free gifts that keep people engaged.

What story are you telling? 

You’re telling the story of your ideal client — it might be your own story or a client’s story — either way, the new subscriber should be able to relate and start to see how your software can solve their problems.

You finish the email sequence with urgency or scarcity to encourage them to sign-up now rather than later. 

This process is extremely effective for converting a portion of new subscribers into customers within the first week. 

Check out the video below to see how this works in more detail…

2. Email Often

Another important factor in successful SaaS email marketing campaigns is frequency. 

Think about it…

When it comes to email marketing, you want to send emails often enough that people don’t forget who you are.

Now we’re going to say something controversial here… 

And this comes after years of email marketing ourselves…

But there’s really no such thing as too many emails when it comes to email marketing for your SaaS business.

In fact, here at ClickFunnels, we’ve always found that the more we email… the more money we make. 

You’re probably thinking, But won’t lots of people get annoyed and unsubscribe?

Yes, but that’s a good thing.

Why? Because it allows you to focus your attention on the people who actually want to hear from you and need what you’re offering. 

Plus, it’s better for your bottom line in the long run. 

If someone isn’t interested in what you have to say and is going to unsubscribe anyway, why would you want to waste your energy marketing to them? 

It’s better to just let them go and send more emails to the people who are actually engaged. 

At ClickFunnels, we email our audience every single day and have seen great results from it (sometimes multiple times per day). 

Email Often

If you want to learn how to quickly and easily write emails, check out the video below. 

3. Use Versatile Email Marketing Software

Email marketing is important, but if you don’t use powerful and versatile software from the get-go, things can quickly end up getting cluttered. 

You might have to integrate, for instance, landing page builders with email autoresponders, and other software such as webinar and podcasting options. 

Also, you might need to use different software for different segments of your list, such as buyers vs. non-buyers. 

Using the right email marketing software can make all the difference in how well your campaigns perform and how easy they are to set up. 

So… 

Meet ClickFunnels!

ClickFunnels email marketing software is just as versatile and sophisticated as other email service providers, but it ALSO gives you the ability to build websites, landing pages, and sales funnels. You can even create and sell online courses, build an eCommerce vein of your site, or craft a membership site and funnel. 

Use Versatile Email Marketing Software

That’s not all. 

ClickFunnels doubles as an affiliate manager, CRM, project manager, and data analyzer. When we created ClickFunnels 2.0, we set the goal of giving businesses everything they need to manage, grow, and sustain their online presence. 

Use Versatile Email Marketing Software

You can try us out for free by clicking here!

4. Automate User Onboarding

For SaaS businesses, the name of the game is customer retention. 

To stay afloat — and to increase MRR — you don’t just need to get new customers, you need to keep paying customers onboard for weeks, months, and years to come. 

That’s why onboarding is so important. 

However, onboarding can be time-consuming and costly. That’s why automation is key. 

Whether it’s through an autoresponder series or a carefully curated email sequence, automating your user onboarding process will save you hours of manual labor every single month. Plus, it’ll also ensure that new customers get the help that they need and don’t drop off the wagon before they even get a chance to make your software work for them (especially if you offer a free trial).

Automate User Onboarding

During the onboarding sequence,  you’ll want to include emails with helpful information, such as: 

  • Tips on how to get the most out of your software 
  • Product tutorials and demos 
  • Support resources 
  • FAQs and troubleshooting advice 

By automating your onboarding process, you’ll give your business a better chance of retaining new customers for longer and ensuring that they stick around for the long haul. 

As an added bonus, it’ll also free up your time so you can focus on other important tasks. 

5. Leverage Abandoned Cart Emails

Although it’s a strategy that’s mostly popular with eCommerce brands, abandoned cart emails can also be used to great effect with SaaS businesses. 

Abandoned cart emails are a type of automated email sequence that’s sent when someone has added an item to their shopping cart but then left the website without making a purchase. 

When someone abandons their cart before they’ve made a purchase, it’s a great opportunity for you to win them back. 

Leverage Abandoned Cart Emails

You can send an email letting them know that if they don’t complete their purchase now, they’ll miss out on an exclusive offer or discount. You could also try offering them an extended free trial, a money-back guarantee, or a lower-tier plan. 

Regardless of which tactic you decide to use, abandoned cart emails can be a great way to convert leads into customers and increase your revenue. 

So don’t forget to leverage this powerful automated email sequence in your SaaS email marketing campaigns! 

6. Focus on Building the Relationship

A pessimist might define marketing as manipulation. 

But great marketers understand that the relationship always comes before the sale.  

That’s why it’s so important to focus on building relationships with your subscribers, not just pushing them toward a sale. 

When crafting your emails, instead of launching straight into a sales pitch, think about how you can provide value and start forming an ongoing relationship with each customer. You want them to open your emails simply because they’re from you… and they enjoy/find value in reading them. 

One of the best ways to do this is to provide helpful advice, offer educational content, and curate interesting resources. You can also create customer success stories or highlight a positive experience that someone has had with your product. 

Focus On Building The Relationship

By doing all of these things, you’re showing your customers that you care about them as people — not just their wallets. That’s how relationships are formed, and that’s the type of relationship you want your customers to have with your business. 

7. Nurture Your Affiliates

For many SaaS businesses (including ours!), affiliating marketing is one of the main ways they spread the word and get new customers.

And you can double down on your email marketing efforts to affiliates to nurture those relationships, giving them the assets and motivation they need to promote your software effectively.  

Nurture Your Affiliates

Create automated email sequences that thank them for signing up, provide helpful information about how to use the affiliate program, send promotional assets they can use in their campaigns, and let them know whenever you have special offers or discounts available. 

By nurturing your affiliates through email marketing, you’re showing that you truly value their help and loyalty, which is a great way to boost your sales and increase customer retention. 

8. Allow Subscribers to Segment Themselves

Although you can use automation to segment your email list, it’s also helpful to give subscribers the opportunity to choose what type of content they receive. 

For example, if someone is interested in certain topics or product updates, let them sign up for a specific email list. This will ensure that they only receive emails that are relevant and interesting to them, and it will prevent them from unsubscribing due to overwhelming inbox clutter. 

Allow Subscribers to Segment Themselves

You can also give subscribers the ability to update their email preferences right in the emails you send them. This makes it easy for people to stay up-to-date with your content, while still ensuring that they only receive emails that are relevant to them. 

By giving subscribers the ability to segment themselves, you’re building a more engaged list that will be much more likely to open and click through on your emails — leading to higher conversions and increased revenue. 

9. Send to Non-Openers

When you send your SaaS email marketing campaigns, only a portion of people will open your emails — that’s normal. 

But what about all the people who didn’t open? 

Is there a way to try and reengage them? 

Yes! By sending to non-openers, you can reach out to those subscribers who haven’t been engaging with your emails and give them one more chance to open it. 

You can do this by creating a new automated email sequence that goes out a few days after the original one. The content of these emails can be the same as the original (it doesn’t matter since these people didn’t open them), but the subject lines should be different.

By sending to non-openers, you can reengage those subscribers who may have missed your message the first time around — helping you increase conversions and boost revenue from email marketing. 

Final Thoughts

SaaS email marketing is essential for any software business that wants to increase the lifetime value of its customers. 

By leveraging different tactics such as abandoned cart emails, nurturing relationships with customers and affiliates, and providing subscribers with the option to segment themselves, you can ensure that your SaaS email marketing campaigns are successful.  

Ultimately, the key to success is understanding your customers and providing them with useful, interesting content — not just pushing sales pitches. With that approach in mind, you’ll be well on your way to achieving greater conversions and higher revenue.

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