What is the secret of SaaS marketing emails that are opened regularly? Is it a catchy subject line? The well-crafted copy? The length, the design?
I would say all of the above. But as soon as we’re rapidly moving towards the visual domination era, I’d argue who is the King - Content or Design. The one thing that remains undoubtful - selling SaaS requires many efforts you would never want to be ruined by ugly, weird, and obtrusive emails. In this article, I put together SaaS email templates that may help you get creative inspiration and better understand how to make your email marketing campaigns more effective.
Wait, before we move forward, just a few more words about...
Should you try hard to polish emails?
According to analysts, more than 290 billion emails are sent daily and will reach 347 billion emails by the end of 2023. For SaaS businesses email marketing remains one of the most effective tools to acquire new leads and move them through the sales funnel. But how many of them do we eventually open? Not many, right?
Most of these emails go to our spam folders or we delete them ourselves. But, there's an exception. When you see an exciting subject line, an appealing offer, or an attractive image or video you will definitely be interested to open this letter.
The SaaS email marketing strategy’s top priority is to enhance subscriber engagement by connecting a company with its customers and building long-lasting relationships. If you can increase customer engagement with every email you send, then you will increase sales, average revenue per customer, and company profits.
Ok, and now let’s move on to the SaaS email marketing templates you can learn from and improve your own.
1. Welcome email
You don’t have a second chance to make a good first impression. Welcome emails are your first touch to the potential customers after they signed up for your service. According to the Experian study, users open welcome emails more often than other types of marketing emails with an open rate of around 50%, so make sure your first hello to customers is engaging, useful, and worth their attention. Welcome emails copy should be friendly, short, and sweet, yet pretty informative.
Here are the welcome email components:
- Company’s branding and tone of voice
- Declaration of mission and values embedded into the brand’s story
- Educational materials about the products and services you deliver
Hubspot’s SaaS welcome email example is not only transparent and consistent but also packed with useful resources and tools you can use for free.
What you can steal from this SaaS welcome email template:
- Personalize your email
- Tell about your company’s mission and values
- Mention your product benefits
- Offer free tools or resources to boost customer engagement
2. Onboarding email
This email type can sometimes be a part of the welcome email. However, it would be great to send a separate email with a quick guide on how a customer can seamlessly use your service.
It should be a no-brainer for them to find out how the product works. The better experience users will have, the more chances they decide to stay with you longer or even advise their friends and family.
The onboarding email from Toggle came soon after I installed their time tracking app on my phone and started to learn how to use it. The concise tutorial relieved me from the headache of clicking random buttons to see what action they perform.
What you can steal from this SaaS onboarding email template:
- Short and to the point tutorial
- Unobtrusive offer to try other service options (like web or desktop apps)
- Closing note, saying about the next emails coming over the next few weeks
3. Free trial email
These emails are usually sent to the leads you intend to move to the next sales funnel stage. Offering a free trial is a great way to let your product speak instead of you. If a credit card is required to sign up for the free trial, you probably will get fewer leads, as people may feel pressure with submitting their credit card details. However, the chances are high that these very leads will convert to the paid users after their free trial ends.
As the information in the free trial email is usually pretty straightforward and aimed to push users to take action, it is crucial to:
- Communicate the message clearly
- Keep minimalistic design not to distract users’ attention from the CTA button
- Make the CTA button visually appealing
As a piece of free trial email templates, take a look at Evernote.
What you can steal from this SaaS free trial email template:
- Attractive self-explanatory image
- Clear value proposition with an accent on time-limited offer
- Big button with a comprehensive CTA message
4. Promotional Email
Promotional emails are one of the most critical email types. They have to be strong and appealing enough to attract customers and make them accept your offer. Also, they should clearly articulate your product value proposition while being sweet and not pushy.
The graphics should be consistent with your brand guidelines, but it is acceptable to play with brighter colors or use catchy elements, making the email stand out. In a word, it should give your customers a “wow” feeling. And it is up to your creativity how to achieve this effect.
By the way, if you want to breathe more life into your current product design or create something brand new, our talented designers here at Eleken are always at your disposal.
Here are two examples of promotion emails I received recently and that instantly had my attention.They are totally different, so you can choose which idea may work for your brand.
The first one is Bolt promotion. They use simple, minimalistic flat-style illustrations giving the feeling of the air and let the email breathe. The promo itself offers to try an additional scooter service and unlock it for free.
The second template from SkillShare is bright and eye-catching. They’re offering a fat 40% membership discount, backing it up with the happy members’ comments. The comments are placed on the vivid blocks that attract attention and make the offer even more appealing.
What you can steal from this SaaS promotional email template:
- Concise copy that clearly states promotion values
- Professional-looking design
- Customer testimonials to reinforce the offering
5. Product & features updates
Don’t forget to communicate to your customers any updates you release to keep them in the loop and take the most value from your product.
Below is the feature update email from Adobe, inviting me to try new Photoshop features for free. The brief copy and bright image made me open this email and quickly got the point.
What I find really smart, Adobe combined product updates with promotional elements - “Open today’s gift” encourages the users to click and move to the next stage of the marketing funnel.
What you can steal from this SaaS product & features updates template:
- Combine product updates with promo offering to engage the users
- Use bright and vibrant image colors
- Articulate clearly new features benefits
6. Service email
Let’s come back to Toggl again. I’m genuinely fascinated with the way they communicate with the customers. When I forgot to stop my time tracking, and it was on for 8 hours in a row, Toggl suspected my sudden increase in productivity might be a bit strange, so they sent me the note to check the log.
What you can steal from this SaaS service email template:
- Automated warning notes can be pretty helpful
- A simple and clear message with the inbuilt link to the service help your customers to investigate other product usage options
7. Newsletter
Regular communication with your customers is a way to long-lasting relationships. Newsletters work great to keep the users engaged with your brand. They also build loyalty. The newsletters can cover different topics - a worth-to-read industry content, company news, or product-related materials.
In the template below, Paysend’s year-end newsletter is a personalized Founder’s address to the customers with a 2020 recap and 2021 expectations.
What you can steal from this SaaS newsletter template:
- Personalized and trusting approach to build a human touch
- Clear and simple design
- CTA button, leading to the company’s website to learn more about their plans
8. Educational email
Educational emails serve to provide a strong reason why customers should stay with your product or service. They play an essential role in customer retention and early churn reduction. Also, with the help of educational emails, companies can upsell low-tier users to the premium plan.
Well, this was exactly what happened with Grammarly and me. I loved the features they offer within Grammarly Premium, and it didn’t take long for me to upgrade.
What you can steal from this SaaS educational template:
- Use .gif format to demonstrate a product’s features in a visually appealing way
- Describe clearly the value proposition
- Send educational emails to the targeted users who will be more likely to get interested in the information you provide
9. Customer experience survey email
Customer experience surveys are valuable tools you can use to gather user feedback and improve your retention rate. These emails shouldn’t be too fancy, yet they have to evoke the desire to push the button and pass the survey. The main secret is to sound friendly and show sincere interest in customers' opinion.
What you can steal from this SaaS customer experience survey template:
- Use a friendly tone of voice
- Create a simple message with a comprehensive call to action
- Make design clear and unobtrusive
Last thoughts
Email marketing strategy is all about building long-lasting relationships with customers. Don’t be upset if some of your emails won’t work. Keep testing your emails, learning more about your customers and what can work best for them. Also, as we’re living in the era of visuals, pay attention not only to the content but to the design as well. Check web design examples of high-converting websites to get valuable insights, which will help your business grow.
Don’t be shy to share this article on your social media if you find it useful!
