I've noticed a curious thing about every SaaS company - these businesses specialise in Software as a Service. They are quite open about sharing how much they charge for their software, which aligns with best practices in the industry. Moreover, their commitment to customer service in the context of data center hosting companies is remarkable. They provide transparency when discussing a marketing automation platform, email marketing automation workflows, and email marketing in general.
On the one hand, email marketing software can be a good thing. It's usually better to be transparent about pricing than not. But on the other hand, it's also an indication of how little thought most saas companies have put into it.
Check out the following articles to learn more about Saas Lead Generation:
- The Best Beginner's Guide to SaaS Lead Generation Today
- How to Innovate SaaS Marketing for 2023 and Beyond
- Go to Market Strategy for SaaS: Tips and Best Practice
Here's what I mean: when you ask people "how much does x cost?" they respond by telling you what they charge. But when you ask companies that question, they respond by telling you how great their product is and how important it will be to your business.
So why do SAAS companies behave differently? Because the way most people buy things from them is similar to how startups buy things from them: someone in marketing applies for a free trial, and then when they like it, they involve someone in operations to evaluate the software's cloud computing capabilities and talk to sales to finalize a price that works for everyone.
I'm not sure whether this is good or bad for saas companies, but I can't help noting that no one ever buys anything else this way.
Setting up a system of SaaS automated email workflows will be one of the most important jobs your inbound marketing agency embarks upon.
The contacts you've accumulated in your marketing database, in the context of a SaaS business model, represent potential customers that need effective engagement to convert. Customer support plays a critical role in this model, ensuring a positive customer experience. SaaS businesses, operating within the Software as a Service industry, rely on proactive sales teams to follow up with leads and transform them into paying customers, highlighting the significance of maintaining strong customer relationships.
Today, email marketing and automated email sequences remains one of the most effective – if not the most effective – marketing channel.
Indeed, according to the latest report from the Content Marketing Institute, 91% of B2B marketers cite email marketing as being the number one channel for content marketing success.
(Image source: contentmarketinginstitute.com)
SaaS email marketing automation strategy workflows will form an essential part of both your lead nurturing and customer retention strategies and will ultimately improve your conversion rate.
They will need to be set up using email marketing automation workflow software, with a series of personalized emails with relevant content created that will be triggered when each customer or prospect that you have performs a certain action or reaches a particular stage in the buyer's journey.
Your inbound marketing agency can create any number of SaaS email marketing workflows based on any information about your contacts and your email marketing strategy. They are a critical element of targeting initiatives, designed to drive continued engagement throughout the customer journey, from the moment they first submit their contact information, to long after they've made their first purchase. To make it easier for potential customers to convert, make sure to include a clear call-to-action button that leads to your pricing page.
So let's consider a few examples of automated email marketing workflows your inbound marketing agency can set up for you to start extracting the most value from your database of contacts as they progress through your sales funnel.
Read How the Top Companies Chase and Close SaaS Sales Leads
SaaS Email Marketing Workflow; To Engage and Retain Customers
New Subscriber Welcome Workflow
Right at the top of the funnel of your content marketing efforts is your blog. When you get new subscribers, a SaaS email automation workflow should be in place to welcome these prospects so you can begin to build a relationship that will start to convert them into leads, and then those leads into customers.
The trigger will of course be the act itself of subscribing to your blog, which will automate the sending of a warm and welcoming email, thanking the prospect for subscribing, explicating the value they will get out of reading your blog, and directing them towards some further educative materials.
As a matter of course, every time a new blog is published, the automated system will send an email, as well as when your newsletters are released.
But, somewhere along the line of the workflow, you will want to be offering something extra. That’s what photo-framing startup Framebridge does in its offer of additional educational content to keep its subscribers engaged – in this case teaching their blog readers a helpful skill.
(Image source: blog.hubspot.com)
Lead Nurturing Workflow
In the sales process, lead nurturing is all about moving prospects down the sales funnel.
Let's say a visitor to your site has downloaded a piece (or several pieces) of your ToFu (top of the funnel) content materials – an eBook, infographic, or white paper, say. These are common called Lead Magnets.
Having submitted their personal information, this visitor now becomes a contact in the sales cycle – and their action(s) (i.e. requesting access to gated content) indicates that they may be ready to be guided towards the next stage of slaes automation.
The trigger for your B2B SaaS, which stands for Business-to-Business Software as a Service, is the action of downloading the initial content offering. This content serves as the starting point to engage potential customers. Your SaaS email workflow automation system automates email-related processes and is configured to send follow-up emails to these contacts. These follow-up emails offer middle-of-the-funnel content, which is designed to educate and influence qualified leads to become customers. Furthermore, the system places a particular emphasis on social media and project management, addressing the specific needs and strategies of your business.
This MoFu content can take many forms – perhaps it's a blog post featuring a customer success story, a case study, or an invitation to a webinar. Here's one such triggered email example from email automation company Litmus.
(Image source: blog.hubspot.com)
New Customer Automated Workflow
New customer SaaS automated emails are essential. As soon as someone has made a purchase or signed-up to your service, your inbound marketing agency will ensure that a purchase confirmation email as part of your marketing automation, is triggered, containing a big thank you to the new customer.
It’s also important at this stage that your email does what it can to address any buyer’s remorse head on. It’s not uncommon for a new customer to feel a tinge of regret when they make a purchase – in fact it’s very common.
What you need to do, therefore, is to help your customers rationalise the purchase they’ve just made from you – and your email content is the perfect medium for doing just that.
Indeed, sometimes it may be appropriate to not actually “thank” them for the purchase, but to “congratulate” them on it instead. This will serve to support their decision, which you will bolster with positive, confirmation messages that explicate the new value they’ve just released for themselves or their business, all of which will help them justify the purchase they’ve just made.
Here’s an example from ecommerce platform WooCommerce:
(Image source: woocommerce.com)
Abandoned Cart Workflow
Studies show that the average documented online shopping cart abandonment rate stands at 69.23%.
This equates to millions if not billions of pounds' worth in lost revenue from companies around the world each and every year.
As such, your inbound marketing agency will be searching for a solution to reduce your cart abandonment rates – and automated email marketing workflows will naturally be a primary tactic.
The trigger here will be customers loading up their online carts with items but failing to complete the purchase. And the trick with the email that you send will be to entice them back to finish what they started.
Here, mattress manufacturer Casper includes a customer testimonial in its abandoned cart email to lure customers back.
(Image source: blog.hubspot.com)
Over to You
These are just a few examples of how to use SaaS email workflows to engage and retain customers. A good inbound email marketing agency, however, will ensure that you have many more, each of which designed to be triggered by very specific actions taken by very specific customers and leads.
The email marketing automation software you decide to use with automation workflows that you use from your marketing automation provider will also be configured to trigger internal emails as well.
This means that your sales department will be notified when someone reaches the bottom of the funnel (BoFu) stages of the buyer’s journey, or certain members of your marketing department can be contacted if an MQL (marketing qualified lead) is identified and this can all be achieved with email marketing automation tools.
A marketing automation platform with a SaaS automated email workflow is an advanced tool for the serious inbound marketing strategist – if you need help with yours, then please get in touch with the inbound marketing experts here at Incisive Edge today.
