How many times do you check your Inbox, see a newsletter you've subscribed to and delete it before you ever take a peek? Right. So, you know exactly what you don't want email subscribers to do when they see your software marketing emails in their inbox.
The question quickly becomes, "How to create SaaS marketing emails that clients want to read?" Even better, you can ask, "How do we create reliable marketing emails that our marketing personas look forward to reading?" If you accomplish the latter, you're well on your way to success.
Differentiating Saas Marketing Emails Increases Open Rates
If you search "improve email marketing open rates," your SERP will populate with pages and pages of (mainly) blog titles, sharing stats about the 5, 7, or 10 things that will help you do just that. The bulk of these lists have several things in common: thoroughly segmenting contact lists, timing/consistency, and high-quality content.
The segmenting part is up to you, and how to segment your lists is another planning-intensive activity that is best attempted after a little education about personalized content to guide you. As for the rest, understanding the different, reliable marketing email options available to you will help the other stats fall into place.
- THE NEWSLETTER. This oldie-but-goodie is the most well-known and the most commonly used. Online platforms like Constant Contact and MailChimp are formatted to assist you with sending them and tracking metrics. Newsletters are a smart tool for building brand recognition and consistency, and can be sent as frequently and consistently as makes sense for your company, target markets and information dissemination.
- THE DIGEST. Remember good ol' Reader's Digest? It's still around, curating popular content from a myriad of sources. Your Saas company would benefit by emulating this example, but the source of curated email digest content would consist mainly of brief blurbs and links to relevant content from online sources you feel your segmented contact lists would find interesting or valuable.
- THE STAND-ALONE EMAIL. Also called "dedicated emails," these are the One Hit Wonders of the marketing email world. You have a new product! You're adding a new service to your roster! There's a special offer you've just created, just for them! All CTAs lead to the same destination. Another unique aspect of the stand-alone email: it's sent to all of your subscribers rather than segmented niches.
- THE LEAD NURTURER. Your recent email subscriber list is a powerful resource, and statistics show us that the right lead nurturing emails will generate up to 10 times the response of a stand-alone email blast (SilverPop/DemandGen Report). Let's hear another cheer for targeting and segmenting contact lists and leads. Lead nurturing emails can be set up using CRM software, delivering the right message at the right time, acting as a guide to facilitate a qualified lead's journey through the sales funnel.
- THE SPONSORED SPOT. Think you might be able to piggy-back on another another vendor's contact lists or segments? Try a sponsored add/offer/article in a piece of their email marketing. You pay for it, but that investment is worth it if you reach out to the right new marketing persona or niche.
- TRANSACTIONAL. These "seal-the-deal," so to speak. Your lead already took action; now you're confirming that and (often) raising them one. Maybe they signed up for something and you're sending a thank you. It might be a confirmation of a purchase and/or a link that gets them what they wanted. Transactional emails have some of the highest click-thru rates for obvious reasons. You're likely to have a higher proportion of opportunities for this type of email just by virtue of the nature of your product and service offering.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how SaaS marketing efforts can benefit from email to increase online presence, lead generation and sales.
