Where SaaS companies must create a sales funnel via email marketing to lead generation and subsequent positioning within the sales funnel to a free trial conversion to real dollars, where companies simply have a transaction and a customer retention focus. Email marketing plays an essential role in keeping users engaged from day one of a free trial. For example, automated emails can greet users upon their initial platform login, guide them through essential features, and offer beneficial nudge-factor suggestions that may lead to conversion. Alternatively, should users choose to cancel, an email campaign can mitigate such churn by emailing the company why and disclosing what benefits might be gained by staying.
Crafting the Perfect Welcome Email for Free Trial Users
The welcome email is the first step of contact between a SaaS company and its trial user and sets the tone for all future correspondence integrated into the customer experience. Therefore, this welcome email needs to both congratulate them on signing up and simultaneously attempt to familiarize them with appropriate next steps to get off on the right foot. Things like a welcome email that forges such bonds can either entice a trial user to want to spend time with the product or frustrate them to the point where they don’t even want to bother for the extended trial period.
The perfect welcome email would feature information about the platform and what it does, an outline of the key benefits, the most important features and operations, and a link to a help center and/or assistance. It should ease the onboarding experience with resource links to make a user’s first day better. For example, a welcome email that details links to such guides or wizards that allow users to connect third-party apps and/or customize their accounts should also have links if they do not want to connect certain things so users can do it sooner than later.
The welcome email is an all-encompassing way to bring users up to speed because many users sign up for the free trial and never fully experience the product.
A welcome email can give them the nudge in the right direction. The strong call to action will make them take that final step to see what the service can do for them. It could be as little as completing their profile or adding their first data source to a tutorial teaching them how to use the software. Furthermore, the welcome experience is something that is sometimes variable, making this email even more personalized and useful. For example, welcome emails can be generated with someone’s name and then have appropriate features suggested depending on an appropriate field or title. Also, the welcome email is a great opportunity to inform users that, should they need it, assistance is always available.
Adding customer service emails, a link to a FAQ knowledge center, or a community forum empowers new users that they are not going to be using the software in a vacuum without direction. In addition, some SaaS companies also offer a live webinar or one-on-one product demo opportunity to meet the team and ask questions live as well. The ideal welcome email will set SaaS companies on the course for success, optimizing the user experience and increasing the likelihood of conversion when trial periods end. A welcome email of ease and simplicity with the call to action from beginning to end positions an empowered user ready to explore all that the products have to offer.
Onboarding Emails: Guiding Users Toward Activation
A converted user is one who was once a free trial user but engaged with the product during their trial period. Therefore, they need an onboarding email series. This means teaching them about the platform and introducing features in the correct order that they’ll appreciate and find most beneficial.
For example, if the SaaS product is project management software, the first onboarding email can teach users how to create their workspace; the second can teach them about collaborative features. Such segmented courses not only teach users the software’s features in the meantime without overwhelming them, but also provide customized onboarding emails since the content will be relevant based on what a user has experienced during the trial thus far.
Leveraging Behavioral Triggers for Timely Engagement
This is why behavior-based emails can significantly boost open and click rates because not all test users take the same journey. A SaaS provider can determine whether someone is using the application and based on that use or non-use send an email. In other words, people are receiving important, timely messages to better facilitate their grasp of the software and their testing experience.
Therefore, for instance, if a user signs up but never onboards, an email can be triggered to help them onboard with an in-software link to where they last left off, a tutorial video detailing what’s next, or a brief about how onboarding will help them better grasp the software. If a user enters some first-party data but nothing else, no generated reports, no audits an email can be triggered to provide recommended next steps to assist.
If this end-user interacts with the app and even becomes a frequent user but does not use that heavily trafficked, heavily monetized feature, for example, an email can suggest it and encourage deeper use. An email can illuminate how one feature saves time, is more effective, or easier when delivered at the right time. For example, this project management software knows that during the trial period, a user assigns tasks but doesn’t explore automation yet. An email can speak to task automation and include a brief how-to video or a testimonial from someone who made it successful.
Beyond just a functional nudge, email support on behavior-triggered messages can acknowledge small victories and make users feel happy and connected enough to continue. For example, if a user reaches a milestone if they download a certain plug-in an email can go out congratulating them on their achievement and providing next steps to best use the platform. If a user hasn’t signed on in three days, an email can go out as a soft nudge that they’re in the trial, and suggestions could help them engage better with the tool before they exit out of the trial.
These tactical measurements increase engagement and guarantee use of the trial in the most effective way. A customized, behaviorally based email drip for those who start a trial instead of a generic, all-user post-subscription send makes for easy acquisition with decreased likelihood to churn and an increased likelihood to convert. Ultimately, the SaaS company can, via a championed automated process with metrics, give its newcomers what they want and when and always stay above the expected average user.
Encouraging Users to Upgrade Before the Trial Ends
So, we’re going to have to email the user upon expiration to instill some urgency and a reminder of why they shouldn’t revert back to the free plan. Email warmup ensures that these critical reminders land in the inbox rather than the spam folder, maximizing their effectiveness. The common error done by most SaaS companies is to only notify them halfway through the free trial or at the end that an upgrade is necessary. But a campaign of reminder emails prior to the expiration will foster some goodwill.
Another method of facilitating upgrades is to provide reviews and case studies of another’s successful use of the product. Moreover, upgrade time-sensitive offers or reduced cost to upgrade prior to a trial period expiration also help. Therefore, the easier a low-stress opportunity to upgrade is given to the consumer, the more likely the transaction will take place.
Addressing User Concerns with Proactive Support Emails
There are certain customers who have yet to decide but may have concerns or questions that remain unaddressed. An FAQ email addressing general concerns about pricing, functionality, and security can relieve some apprehensive thoughts. An email outlining how trial users can schedule their own live demo or reach out to a support agent with questions can assuage any other concerns.
When the company seeks to merely support and transform its attitude to a customer-centric one, these kinds of emails don’t pressure a conversion which is what would happen in normal circumstances, they facilitate an effortless transformation to paid.
Re-Engaging Lost Trial Users
They may not convert day one, but trial users aren’t a lost cause and in fact, at-risk trial users can easily be courted back to bigger intentions with emails promising them a service for which they almost paid. Weeks after a free trial, for example, an email about new features, a surge of five-star ratings, or connection with a new low-price offer can have people rethinking and signing up after all.
Moreover, taking it one step further with a more customized approach, an email asking why they didn’t convert can provide great analytics to back up the at-risk email campaign. People like to be acknowledged, and if they feel their concerns are valued, they’re far more likely to give the service another chance.
Using Email to Strengthen Customer Retention
Converting trial users into paid subscribers is only the beginning. SaaS is designed for long-term use, and without email marketing, churn is inevitable. Once a person converts, follow-up emails should go out about updates, tips for using the software more efficiently, and even links to webinars or discounts.
In addition, once people get obsessed with the software, letting them become brand ambassadors through an email campaign for a referral program can urge satisfied customers to spread the word, too. With an ever-engaged email list, SaaS companies can effectively enhance their engagement with customers for improved retention.
Measuring the Success of Your Email Marketing Strategy
SaaS companies know what’s successful in their email marketing because it succeeds with open rates, click-throughs, conversion rates, decreased churn. If something works (or doesn’t work), they know and can pivot accordingly.
For example, if the welcome email isn’t opened frequently, perhaps the subject line is too boring. If the trial expiration email doesn’t convert, perhaps the email’s body needs adjustment to provide better value. A/B testing various emails over an extended period will guarantee accuracy.
Conclusion
Email marketing plays a critical role in turning free trial users into monthly paying customers of a SaaS company. For example, an email campaign can guide a customer through onboarding after setting up their free trial to enjoying benefits and features to appreciate their value of the service to payment. Furthermore, a planned sequence of follow-up emails educating about the brand and product serves as a welcome, engagement, and call-to-action that extends beyond avoiding a free trial to wanting extended access.
The key to effective SaaS email marketing is personalization and contextual sends. If you know what your users are doing, when and why they’re doing it, you’ll always send the right email. For example, if someone uses one feature of your software every single day, send them some ancillary content. If they haven’t onboarded into the software a week later, send them an email asking if they’re confused. The trigger emails get sent a tutorial because you’ve been on that feature too long, get offered a discount because three days are left on a free trial to help elevate conversion rates. Further, if you know someone’s going to object to something pricing versus value, issues with the interface, ability to integrate with pre existing software you can address such issues before they become deal-breakers.
In addition, post-conversion engagement is not disbanded, but specialized email marketing campaigns send later conversion-related follow-ups that acknowledge the purchase, keep them apprised, and encourage further product usage. When they are updated and taught how-to’s and special bonuses they stay shockingly retained and become brand advocates.
Where email marketing is concerned, the successful SaaS companies of the future will either have a solid A/B testing strategy or assess open/click-through rates and play with varied autoresponders.
They will have the edge in an increasingly competitive SaaS arena. Using such information to constantly adjust revenue-generating products will have them step up their game. However, a data-driven focus integrated with a practical, consumer-friendly email marketing approach will not only generate revenue, but allow consumers to feel as if they have the controls to work with the company for the long haul.
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