Vital Product Emails for SaaS Businesses to Increase Engagement and Retention
The idea of recurring revenue seems enticing to commence on a SaaS business journey. However, it isn’t a smooth road; you have churns as an obstacle on your path to success. The only way to overcome this hurdle is by winning your customers’ heart and soul. Selling in SaaS requires a lot of efforts. It isn’t a one-time task that you do and forget. Consistency and persistence are of paramount importance in SaaS. So, you need to stay determined and continuously explore new tactics to engage your users. One of the best to stay in touch with your users is through product emails.
The importance of product emails
Despite the rising popularity of social media, emails remain the safest channel for commercial outreach. As per a research, emails are 40 times better at converting people than Facebook and Twitter. Most of the SaaS companies rely on emails along with live chat to communicate with the users. If used wisely, it is the most powerful medium to engage with the customers. By drafting and sending the right product emails at the apt time, you can give your users more reasons to stay with you.
“Just having satisfied customers isn’t good enough anymore. If you really want a booming business, you have to create raving fans.” -Ken Blanchard
Engage and retain more users
User engagement is vital for the growth of SaaS companies. Once you successfully acquire a new user, you need to focus on providing a best-in-class customer experience. Concentrate on your outreach through emails. With help of the email content, keep explaining the value of your product and try to boost user satisfaction.
The users are currently experiencing your product and trying to understand its benefits. This is the best time to develop an email strategy that not just engages the new customers but also improves customer retention. Don’t give your users a chance to log into your competitor’s platform; keep changing and improving on a regular basis.
Innovation needs to be a part of your culture. Customers are transforming faster that we are, and if we don’t catch up, we’re in trouble — Ian Schafer
Use cases for product emails
Product emails are the main route to reach and engage the users, so ensure it is not generic. They must reflect the USP of your product and should be personalized to appeal the users. Use these product emails as an opportunity to address your users’ need and earn their trust. You have put too much efforts in getting your subscribers, so don’t lose them because of generic content quality. 70% companies say it’s cheaper to retain a customer than acquiring a new one. Expand your boundaries and do everything you can to retain them.
“Revolve your world around the customers, and more customers will revolve around you”- Heather Williams
Here are few SaaS product emails that you should be sending to your users:
1. Welcome emails
Welcome emails are the first step you take towards building a relationship with the users, so it needs to be impactful. It isn’t just a formality but an opportunity to engage them with your product. Therefore, make the welcome email interactive; it should speak to the recipient.
- The message in the welcome email should be short and clear
- It should provide a brief intro about the product
- It should include helpful resources and links to the company’s privacy policy
Few statistics that you need to know about welcome emails:
- The open rate for welcome emails is an astounding 60%.
- 65% of welcome emails range from 50–150 words in length.
- Subscribers who receive a welcome email show 33% more engagement with the brand.
Example of a welcome email:
2. Activation emails
An activation email is used for two purposes:
- One, when a user signs up for your product and you verify their email address to ensure it is correct.
- Second, when they disappear after thinking of using your product.
As a SaaS business, you invest a lot of time and efforts on a user which you cannot afford to waste. So, it is logical to verify the email address for ensuring that your users are receiving all the important information. With a simple email verification, users can log in to their account and start using the products in seconds.
Here is how ShipStation activate their users
Most of the users enter the inactive zone after using your product for some time. Either they don’t need your product, or maybe you failed to maintain the interest of your users after capturing it. Whatever the reason is, you need to nudge these users to re-engage them with your product. There are chances that the users who got distracted in the process might come back.
- Automate activation emails and set a workflows to send them in few days of inactivity.
- Your activation emails should have a call to action.
- Keep testing your activation emails to find out the most effective ones.
Here is what Chanty does to get action from the inactive users
3. Education emails
Help the users to understand your product and provide a seamless experience with educational emails. Educate the users with a how-to tutorial or by providing usage tips. Your users shouldn’t get stuck at any point while using your product; guide them clearly with each step. For example, you have a first-time user who has created a new deal inside your CRM system but has not assigned the same to a sales rep. You can send an email which can include tips on ‘how to assign a deal to sales reps’. Knowing what to do next will make their work faster and easier.
- Send educational emails in response to user’s behavior
- Include tips or use cases of your product
- Ask them to get in touch with your product specialist for a demo
- Add resources like link of videos, articles and webinars
Educational email example:
4. Newsletter emails
Have you added a new feature or updated the old one? Inform the users through newsletters. Email newsletters are a great way to stay in touch with your users. Increase awareness and build brand loyalty by distributing share-worthy content. Your newsletters need to be a conglomeration of style, quality, and substance. Plan your newsletters wisely. Be clear why are you sending the newsletter and what do you want to achieve.
- Ensure your newsletters aren’t full of advertisements that bore the readers.
- Add a personal touch to the content you share.
- Maintain a standard format with a compelling design.
- There should be a regular injection of relevant and fresh content (avoid repetition).
- Include clear social sharing buttons.
Newsletter example:
5. Security and account change notifications
People like to work with businesses whom they can trust. To succeed and earn your customers’ trust, you need to take all the safety measures. Besides, good security is the key requirement in SaaS as there are chances that your users might lose their device, or their accounts can get hacked. So, make your users feel secured by instantly notifying them when their login details are changed.
Be quick in updating the users about an unusual activity like login through a different device or location. Help your customers in protecting their account from fraudulent users.
View how Google sends security emails to its user:
6. Plans and special offer
Reduce churn and motivate your customers to continue using your product by offering special offers and plans. Engage your users by providing them an add-on to what they have paid for; send promotional gifts and discount codes. Instead of sending special offers to everyone in your contact database, consider segmenting your list and targeting specific users who have high chances of staying with you.
Example of special offers:
7. Expiry warning to remind the user
No one has time in this busy business world; reminders in the form of expiry warning email is a must in SaaS. Expiry warning emails have twofold goals to it:
- First, reminding current users to renew their subscription for avoiding service interruptions.
- Second, informing new users that their free trial is going to end, and they need to subscribe for leveraging to the benefits of the product.
Consider including images as well as bullet points about the benefit of your product to engage the users. Even add a strong call to action in the email for guiding your recipients to the desired actions.
Expiry warning email example:
8. Password reset
Emails concerning password reset are the most common yet crucial emails. The users should be able to regain access to their accounts securely in seconds without any trouble. Notify them on password reset as there are chances that someone else might be trying to gain access to their accounts. You need to be very careful while creating the email content for resetting password.
- Avoid leaking username in the password reset emails
- Instead of sending password, send URL that is secure for the user
- It should be perfectly formatted without appearing sloppy
- Ensure you include an expiry date in the email
- Mention ways to reach the support team for addressing any problem they face while resetting the password.
Password reset example:
9. The feedback emails
Are your users satisfied using your product? Are they facing any problems? Asking these questions through feedback emails is necessary to learn about your user expectations and problems. The only way to keep your customers coming back and avoiding churn is by giving them what they want. Failure in addressing their needs or overcoming their problems can lead to bad word of mouth that spreads like wildfire. Feedback email shows that you care about your users and are interested in their concerns.
Wrapping up
If you don’t engage your users, someone else will use this opportunity and lure away your customers. Stay connected with your users and engage them by sending them various product emails. Every email you send should have a clear purpose; don’t take it for granted. Ensure your emails are impactful enough or they will end up in your user’s junk folder. Focus on the content, format and designing to motivate them to read and react to the emails. Use a smart sales tool like Salesmate to track those emails to understand if your users are reading or ignoring your emails. Beside tracking, you can even schedule the emails to reach the prospects at the right time. Salesmate also allows you to set up a sequence of emails to nurture a prospect over time.
That doesn’t only helps you in managing your emails but your entire sales process. With this high-end tool, you can streamline contact information in one place, create insightful sales reports, automate most of the sales processes, integrate with various other application and manage your sales deals successfully. Try Salesmate for free to see how it will be helpful for your organization. You can even get in touch with Salesmate team for any guidance.
