Email is perhaps the most effective communication channel to get in touch with customers. According to CampaignMonitor, well-drafted and interpreted emails generate $38 revenue for every dollar spent, making 3,800% ROI. 

This goes to show the importance of emails for SaaS companies. With the help of email, you can introduce a new product, send an event reminder, notify customers their order has been shipped, remind them to make payments before the due date, aid their work with your tool by utilizing new features, ask for feedback, etc.  

But still, only sending email per se is not enough to drive profit; you need to pay close attention to email design and content.  

We have discussed some SaaS email marketing examples to help you create visually stunning and powerful email campaigns in this write-up. 

SaaS business examples that excelled in email marketing 

1. Shopify’s welcome email 

Remember: First impression is the best impression… and a welcome email does just that for your business/brand. Your welcome email serves as an opportunity for building a strong base for developing a long-term relationship with your customer. Unfortunately, many businesses lose this brilliant opportunity by sending a bland welcome email. If you want to draft a killer email, take inspiration from Shopify. Shopify sets a great example of an excellent welcome email. The key elements that make Shopify’s welcome email different from the crowd include –

• Personalization – A personalized email builds a connection with customers. Even simple personalization like using the name of the receiver instead of terms like ‘guest,’ ‘user,’ or ‘subscriber’ goes a long way in building a trust bond.
• Gratitude – Thanking the customer for subscribing or using your product or service is considered a good email etiquette, and it also sets the tone for a good relationship.
• Detailing – Shopify’s welcome email mentions its product benefits and provides context to its product. Setting clear expectations by detailing at the beginning is good for building a lasting relationship.

Shopify has nailed its welcome email with all the right ingredients, and one should take inspiration from it.

2. Monday’s onboarding email 

An onboarding email is an email that describes the ‘how to’ of a product or service. This email shows the new user how to use a product and thus decreases any friction that the user may face in the first time usage. Often onboarding email is clubbed with the welcome email. One of the best examples of a great onboarding email is the onboarding email of Monday.com. The important aspects of the amazing onboarding email of Monday.com include –

• Crisp-copy – A lengthy ‘how to’ guide can overwhelm any person. Monday.com presents a great example of a crisp copy of an onboarding email. It sends a short and to-the-point onboarding email.
• Video explanation – Video tutorials are not only interesting but also easy to understand. Embedding a video tutorial in the onboarding email is a very good concept that  Monday.com uses.
• Hyperlinks – Including hyperlinks to the mobile or web apps in the onboarding email is an important element that can increase the conversion rate.  

Monday’s email is very impressive, and an important takeaway is never to leave your customer or just assume that they would figure out a way. Help them figure it out, and even better, provide them with an instructional manual in the format they would like the most.

3. Weblium’s promotional email 

Promotional emails are not a rare thing. Our inboxes are bombarded with promotional emails every single day. Every SaaS company invests a significant amount of its marketing budget in email marketing. But, most of them commit the mistake of creating and sending ‘irrelevant’ promotional emails that ruin the whole idea of a promotional email.  Weblium’s promotional emails are one of the best examples of promotional emails in email marketing. The main features of Weblium’s promotional email that we can point out includes –

• Relevance – The promotional emails must always be relevant and specific. If your promotional email is not relevant to the receiver, it won’t serve any purpose.
• Freebies – Promotional emails that provide something for ‘free’ are considered the best. This can be something that adds to the knowledge of your audience or an offer to provide something for free.
• Balanced ratio – Promotional emails need variety so that the receiver does not get bored. Weblium sets a great example by maintaining a balanced ratio of knowledge-based and promotional emails. For every promotional email, it sends three emails that impart some knowledge to the customers.
• Focused – Instead of sending emails to just about anyone, businesses need to be focused on high intent leads. Weblium does exactly that.

Now, there are a few things that you need to keep in mind when sending out promotional emails. Give them a touch of personalization and also make sure that you don’t overdo it.

4. Chanty’s emails that activate inactive users 

Every business will have subscribers that mostly remain inactive. Many businesses make the mistake of abandoning such inactive users. Instead of abandoning such contacts, Chanty runs targeted campaigns to encourage such users to be active and come back to the product. Chanty’s targeted emails to activate inactive users are an excellent example of email marketing. Takeaways from Chanty’s email marketing strategies for other SaaS businesses include –

• Do not abandon users – Chanty’s email marketing campaigns clearly  indicates that businesses should never abandon inactive users. Instead, they should try their best to encourage such users to come back to their product.
• Categorize users – Not all users are the same. Different categories of users require different approaches or treatments. Businesses should not only know their ‘high engagement users’ but also categorize the ‘low engagement’ users and plan things accordingly.
• Nurture your audience – Chanty sets a great example of nurturing the audience of the business and encouraging them to be more active with the business’s product. 

Remember, they may be inactive users/subscribers now, but you have their emails, and this means that they were interested in you at some point. It would help if you nurtured them in the right way to become active again.

5. Userpilot’s and Zoho’s emails that demand feedbacks to improve CX 

The best way to improve customer experience (CX) is to get feedback from customers. When you get quality feedback on your SaaS product, you can use it to improve your product and thus the customer experience. Asking for feedback also helps businesses to categorize their users, such as passives, detractors, and promoters. All these categories of users are important. While promoters are your loyal customers who can help you upsell your products in various ways detractors and passives help you find blind spots in your product.  Businesses like Userpilot and Zoho set a good example by sending emails that demand feedbacks to improve their customer experience. The feedback demanding email marketing campaigns provide benefits like –

• Establishing value proposition – These emails reaffirms the value that the business brings to the customers.
• Encourage customers totake action – Feedback demanding emails of Userpilot and Zoho encourage the audience to take a positive step by rewarding them for taking action as required by the company.  

Want to improve your offering? Talk to your customers and ask them what they want better. This would be a great way to interact and stay in touch with them.

6. Basecamp’s emails sent at the end of a free trial 

People who take a free trial of any SaaS product are the prospective buyers of that product. They only need to be encouraged to take the paid subscription so that they feel that they are getting value for their money. Businesses that do not communicate at the end of the free trial of their SaaS product lose their prospective buyers. Basecamp sets a very good example of email marketing through its email sent at the end of the free trial. This email basically focuses on – creating trust for the customer and clearing doubts of the customers. When these two aspects are taken care of prospective customers are most likely to convert into paying customers.  Key takeaways from Basecamp’s strategy includes –

• Nurturing prospective customers – People using free trials are prospective customers that need to be nurtured. And, basecamp’s email sent at the end of free trials does exactly that.
• Explaining the benefits of paid subscription – Emails sent at the end of free trials must explain what extra benefits customers can expect from the paid subscription.
• Giving assurance for data safety – In today’s time, data privacy is a big concern. So, the email asking people to take a subscription must assure them of the safety of their data. 

7. Paperflite’s newsletters publication 

One of the important but often ignored email marketing strategies by SaaS companies includes newsletter publication. One of the most interesting things about email marketing is that you do not need to worry about keywords and SEO. You are only required to create quality content for your business niche, and you can establish yourself as the thought leader of your industry. Businesses like Paperflite have earned loyal fans instead of normal subscribers due to their email marketing strategy based on newsletter publication. If you can create quality content for your target audience regularly, your business can also leverage the benefit of email marketing through newsletter publications.

8. Zapier’s updates/digest email 

Digest or updated emails are intended to inform any relevant updates or news about the company. Many companies use this strategy to stay connected with their audience by sharing updates. These emails can also be used to keep in touch with investors and to share news and achievements of the company with employees. Zapier uses the updates and digests emails to keep its customers as well as employees updated. It gives the recipient the option to read the updates in detail with a clickable button in the email. They also personalize their emails for the subscribers.  

Updating customers from time to time and letting them know that you wanted them to know about the new changes is a great way to let them know that you care.

Conclusion 

Please keep this in mind: Email marketing is not one size fits all. It takes lots of iterations to find the right fit. Keep testing your email messages and subject lines to check the overall engagement level and sales. This will help you create a solid brand value for your SaaS. 

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