SaaS businesses are among the most complex, marketing-wise. Marketers and salespeople are there to face challenges like multiple decision-makers or leads that move down the funnel slower than one would've liked. These components make the digital aspect of a SaaS marketing plan move a little differently than eCommerce.
Of course, this doesn't mean that the tactics used are inherently different or that email marketing doesn't make the cut. On the contrary:
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As evident by the numbers above, SaaS businesses communicate through emails. So, what better way to promote your SaaS business than email marketing? Email marketing, after all, is not just a promotional tool. On the contrary, it's a way to achieve the goals of your digital marketing plan through an open dialogue that connects brands and decision-makers.
Why Email Marketing for SaaS?
There are multiple benefits when using email marketing for a SaaS business. For one, the Click-Through Rate (CTR) can boost your website traffic, leading to more leads and sales.
Use actionable verbs, a straightforward email design, and personalize as much as possible. After that, ensure that the CTA button leads to the page your users want to visit. Nailing this is non-optional, seeing as a "See the Offer" button that leads to the brand's home page could cost you a lot of conversion. Clicking through an email and landing on a seemingly irrelevant page will confuse users and drive them away.
Not to mention that hitting the back button early is never a good look, especially in the SEO game.
But nailing email marketing for SaaS can lead here:
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This is possible with lead nurturing and leading users further down the sales funnel. And to do so, you will need to create email campaigns that make sense.
A timely, personalized, and relevant email marketing campaign that stems from a real user action can make a real difference when nurturing your leads. You are taking advantage of the user's curiosity and opening a dialogue based on something very specific. That way, your email's content will seem tailor-made and get the user's attention.
Creating timely, personalized, and relevant email marketing campaigns will help users move further down the sales funnel. Therefore, it's imperative to make sure you're using email template builders and marketing automation tools to help you create triggered content with an incentive or two and a story that attracts attention.
That story will get you some much-needed attention and educate your audience on what your niche is, how you can contribute to their work, and how your business can help their SaaS organization.
Being authoritative always helps, and your email marketing campaigns should reflect that type of authority. After all, all decision-makers prefer doing business with someone who looks like they know exactly how their product can benefit a B2B deal.
SaaS Email Marketing: The Core Parameters
SaaS marketing - and, by extension, SaaS email marketing - concentrates on the "Four P's":
- Product
- Price
- Place
- Promotion
These four parameters can determine how, where, and why a brand will promote its product to the general public.
The product is what one would call the "main event". All email marketing efforts can and will revolve around the SaaS product in some way. In that case, the company creates content that promotes a core feature of the product that recipients might find useful. Email copy can do this directly or indirectly.
Some of the ways include a unique value proposition or an incentive that can lead to better pricing than the one offered on the website. Just start your emails with a catchy subject line that provides value to its full extent. You need users to understand that the price margin is worth it, and you need to do this by tying it to the product and its unique features.
Now, as humans, we understand the price margin of a thing - an object or a service - only in direct correlation to its surroundings. This means that enterprise and budget tools cannot coexist in the same place.
Being focused on the "where" is pretty important. Here's what I mean:
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Moosend's enterprise plan is different from the other two because its quote is custom-made, and it's a made-to-order plan. It would be best if you differentiated the places of each price margin in your emails. Users need to understand how each email points to a different "place" for the product.
Of course, your SaaS emails serve another purpose as well, and this is the one of educating and creating a safe environment for the users to purchase your product. And this is where the "Promotion" component begins.
Use actionable verbs and beautiful email design. Place your product front and center. That way, B2B marketers and decision-makers can understand why they should choose you instead of one of your competitors.
A/B Test and Analyze Your Performance
Not all decision-makers will love your email marketing campaigns. This is why you need to A/B test before creating and sending anything related to your product.
To ensure your SaaS email marketing efforts can make a difference to your brand and are not a waste of time and resources, follow these steps:
- Create your email campaigns
- Decide on the content
- Change one key component
- Study the results
Your data will give you more insight than you'd think. A/B testing will help you understand your audience and how to optimize your emails, from the initial offer one to the follow-up's subject line, if needed.
After you optimize your content, start tracking the key metrics that can make all the difference:
- Open rate
- Click-through rate
- Bounce rate
- Unsubscribe rate
These elements will help you understand how your ROI is generated and how to optimize it. They will also allow you to make any necessary changes, especially with the help of a dedicated platform that can give you all of the analytics and reports you need.
The Takeaway
SaaS email marketing is a complex procedure and requires more than just a "Set it and forget it" mindset. But, while it may be trickier than email marketing for the publishing sector or eCommerce and dropshipping, it can be just as fruitful.
The right tools, attention to detail, and constantly checking data will surely steer you to the right direction and help you build your authority, promote your product, and boost conversion in no time.