A guide to email marketing for SaaS start-ups

Are you a SaaS start-up looking for a one-stop-shop for all your email marketing queries? We unpack the 7 key criteria for a successful SaaS email marketing strategy.

 

Determining how to use email marketing for your SaaS brand can be complex. From choosing the right tech, building a quality subscriber list, sending frequent emails, creating automated sequences and even lead scoring – the list goes on. 

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re also feeling a tad overwhelmed with all the email marketing-related advice out there. We know, it’s a lot. That’s why we’ve boiled down the ‘must-knows’ to a few essential considerations to help get you started.

Let’s begin with the basics.

 

Is email marketing dead?

Yes, we’ve heard the rumours too. But email marketing is far from being dead and is still a crucial tool in today’s digital age.

Email marketing presents some seriously good opportunities for businesses of all shapes and sizes. With roughly 4 billion daily email users, it’s no wonder that 64% of small businesses use email marketing to reach customers and a whopping 87% of brands declare it to be critical to business success. 

The opportunities for B2B marketing are only amplified when you consider every employee in a business has their own unique email address, checking this multiple times a day. Quite different from your personal gmail that might be full of spam! 

This cost-effective marketing channel also helps to foster relationships and build consumer trust – something even more important when operating in the B2B SaaS space. Some other superpower qualities include boosting conversion rates, driving new pipeline opportunities and achieving retention goals. Just a few of the many aspects that make email marketing one of the most effective channels for growth for SaaS businesses out there. 

 

Why does my SaaS start-up need email marketing?

According to HubSpot, 44% of B2B marketers say email marketing is the most effective marketing channel. If you’re not already sold, let’s discuss the specific benefits for B2B SaaS start-ups. These include, but are not limited to:

  • Engage prospective customers – Through delivering key updates, insights, offers and other valuable content, email marketing allows SaaS companies to guide their customer through the entire SaaS lifecycle. That’s all the way from an initial engagement on your website and requesting a demo, to becoming a sales opportunity and then a customer. 
  • Cost effectiveness – This channel is a low investment, high reward venture offering a high ROI. A big plus, especially when your marketing budget may be tight.
  • Instant feedback – This direct line of communication offers valuable insights on customer behaviour and preferences. Open rates, click-through-rates (CTRs), unsubscribe lists and other key metrics tell you what is resonating with your audience and allow you to pivot quickly if something isn’t working.
  • Testing ability – A/B testing (more on that later) allows you to quickly experiment with different types of content and messaging, ideal when refining your service or when your value proposition is in flux. 
  • Community building – Particularly important when you’re just starting out, company newsletters and updates about key industry events can all foster a sense of community and grow trust in your brand.
  • Scalability – With the right tools and focus, your email marketing efforts can grow as your business grows. Not forgetting the opportunities for global reach too.

 

7 fundamentals of SaaS email marketing strategy

We hope by now you’re hooked on the benefits that effective B2B email marketing can provide, and are ready to get started with building your SaaS email marketing strategy. 

For the purposes of this blog, we will be talking about inbound marketing. That’s a list of everyone who has already subscribed to your email list and therefore, expressed some level of interest in your product. This is not ‘outbound marketing’ which instead represents those individuals you’ve identified as a good fit for your product but may not have previously been in contact with.  

Now for the fundamentals. 

 

1. How to build your list

Building your email marketing list is an essential element in any B2B SaaS email marketing strategy. Here are some top tips for growing your subscriber base: 

  • Website pop ups – Capture your website visitors’ attention with a small, pop up window encouraging them to enter their email address in return for valuable content such as a whitepaper, Ebook or recorded webinar.
  • Lead magnets – Create high quality content (and we mean high quality) in the shape of Ebooks, industry reports or webinars that provide real value to your potential customers. This should then be gated using a landing page requiring users to fill out their details to access the content.
  • Event leadsAttending industry trade shows or conferences can be a great way to capture leads and build your email list. If you’re hosting, integrate email sign-up as part of the event registration process. If you have a stand at a trade show, you could include QR codes on branded flyers or freebies and have an iPad ready at your stand for email signup in seconds.
  • Lead scannersIf your brand is attending or hosting an industry event, consider utilising a lead scanning device or app that can capture attendees contact details directly from their badge. 
  • Subscription forms – Include opt-in forms on website pages with high traffic that direct visitors to enter their email address to sign up for your newsletter or upcoming webinar. Consider adding tick boxes to your form relating to the user’s unique set of preferences to further segment your audience list.

And this leads on nicely to segmenting your audience.

 

2. Segment your audience

According to HubSpot, segmented emails drive 30% more opens and 50% more clicks-throughs than unsegmented ones. Categorising your email list into persona groups determined by key criteria is a crucial element to your SaaS email marketing strategy to drive engagement and conversion figures up, and unsubscriber numbers down. 

For example, you may choose to divide your list using key criteria such job title, industry or behaviour such as engagement levels. This ensures the content you’re sending out is more relevant, fostering better relationships with your prospective customers and turning lukewarm leads into red hot opportunities. 

 

3. Types of emails

Broadly, there are two broad types of B2B marketing emails you should know about that make up an inbound email marketing strategy. These are:

 

  • Campaign emails – As the name suggests, these emails are usually part of a broader campaign and are sent to your subscribers with a specific purpose, for example, to tell them about a product launch or upcoming event. These are usually one-off emails. 
  • Lead nurturing emails – These are a series of automated emails sent over a period of time that help prospective customers move further towards a purchase decision. For example, when a prospect downloads an eBook, they may be enrolled in an automated welcome series that introduces the lead to your SaaS brand, highlighting industry-specific case studies or emphasising the core features of your software.
  • Newsletters – These emails are sent on a monthly or bi-weekly basis that share broad updates to keep your business front of mind for prospects in your database. They are less targeted and typically include new content, business updates or new product information. Codi runs a monthly newsletter – Unicorn Status, which you can subscribe to if you’d like to see how it’s done. 

 

4. Automated lead nurture flows 

Now you have an idea of the different types of email you should be thinking about, let’s talk specifically about automated lead nurture flows more specifically. 

The term ‘flow’ in email marketing refers to an automated sequence of emails triggered by a specific customer action. Automated lead nurture flows allow you to nurture leads at scale and more efficiently guide them through the entire SaaS customer lifecycle from awareness, consideration, conversion through to retention.

For B2B SaaS businesses, the buying journey is rarely linear. You may attract a lead through a piece of top of funnel content that isn’t yet ready for a sales conversation, or have a prospect sign up for a demo and then drop off. The important thing is that you continue to engage these leads and move them down the funnel towards becoming a paying customer. 

This is where nurture emails truly shine. You can build tailored workflows based on the action that a prospect has taken so far with your business. 

For example – if a lead has downloaded a guide to effectively managing event accountancy, you may wish to enrol them in a nurture flow that looks something like this: 

Email 1: Thanks for requesting the guide! Download link inside 

Email 2: [First Name], event accountancy resources just for you (this email would contain additional resources you have produced on the same topic) 

Email 3: How are [Lead Industry] organisations saving money with [Your company name]? (This might include a case study or client testimonial with a CTA to find out more) 

Email 4: Ready to take your event accounting to the next level? (This is your demo pitch – you’re trying to engage your lead to book a demo with you) 

 

The key things you need to remember with nurture flows are: 

  • Build specific nurture flows depending on the action taken. For example, if they have downloaded content on one topic, don’t email them about a different subject entirely! 
  • Make sure your content is aligned with the customer journey. Someone who has first heard about your brand and downloaded an eBook on Tuesday, likely isn’t going to be ready for a demo by Thursday. You need to make sure the next action you’re asking them to take isn’t a huge jump. 
  • You’re trying to build trust and a relationship with this prospect – personalization is key. People buy from people and the more you can make it feel like you’re talking directly to them, the more successful your nurture flow will be. 

 

5. Test, test, test  

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again – and A/B testing helps you do just that. A/B testing is the process of sending two different iterations of the same email to different lists in order to test performance. For example, changes can be made to subject lines, layout and each call-to-action to identify audience preferences. 

Make sure your test audience size is large enough to get a significantly relevant answer to your A/B test. Many email marketing tools such as HubSpot have in-built functionality allowing you to determine the appropriate sample size for more reliable results. 

As with any marketing channel, data should drive action, effort and therefore, effectiveness. A/B testing, when used effectively, drives higher engagement and conversion rates, betters ROI and ultimately, helps you to understand your audience better. Need we say more? 

 

6. Track performance 

Of course, no robust strategy is complete without monitoring your results. Here are some key metrics to look out for when tracking your email performance: 

  • Delivery rate
  • Open rate 
  • Click-through rate (CTR)
  • Unsubscribe rates 
  • Pipeline opportunities or closed ‘won’ deals from email

By tracking these metrics, comparing to industry benchmarks and using the right tools, B2B SaaS companies can gain a comprehensive understanding of their email marketing performance and continually optimise their strategies for better results. 

So, what does good look like exactly? Here are some B2B SaaS email marketing benchmarks based on SaaS Series A businesses we’ve worked with across 2024. 

For one-off campaigns:

  • Open rate: +25%
  • CTR: 2-3%
  • Unsubscribe rates: Less than 1%

For lead nurture flows: 

  • Open rate: +35%
  • CTR: 8%
  • Unsubscribe rate: Less than 1%

Most email marketing platforms, such as HubSpot or MailChimp, offer built-in analytics trackers, and when connected to your CRM, can be a seriously efficient  way to monitor growth. 

Unsure of where to get started? Codi can advise you on the best tools to use and how to get the most out of your Martech.  

 

7. Think about frequency

At Codi, our clients often ask us, ‘how many emails is too many?’ Well, it’s a good question. Send out too many emails and you could risk being marked as spam. Send out too few emails and you could be missing out on valuable opportunities to capture your audience’s attention. 

Many marketers make decisions about frequency based on historical data about email engagement. No good if you’re a start-up yet to settle into a rhythm with email marketing. 

As a general rule, excluding nurture flows, we’d advise sending no more than 4 to 8 emails a month and to keep referring back to your data. Open and unsubscribe figures drastically low? It may be time to reduce volume, or refine your messaging. The key is to always be aware of what automated emails you have set up and exclude those who will already receive an email that day. Nobody wants multiple emails from the same company in one day!

 

How Codi can help with your SaaS email marketing 

As we’ve discovered, for many start-ups implementing an effective B2B email marketing strategy can feel a bit like heading to the gym (after putting it off for a while) and picking up the heaviest weight you can find. And for businesses with a SaaS model it can be even harder with multiple customer lifecycle stages to consider. 

At Codi, we’ve been where you are – building a business from the ground up with limited resources, time and manpower and an endless list of ‘must-dos’. That’s why we’re perfectly positioned to help with your B2B SaaS marketing strategy and help you figure out how email fits into that. 

Many businesses come to us with a desire to ramp up their marketing efforts with the aim to drive demos for their sales team.. One way we help clients achieve this is by helping them to get set up on email marketing platforms (like HubSpot), establishing customer lifecycle stages, tracking and reporting metrics, before moving onto determining a robust marketing that encompasses multiple channels.

Different from traditional marketing agencies, we are a Fractional Marketing team meaning we integrate fully with your team. Depending on the size of your business, we can take responsibility for developing your full marketing strategy and all of the execution channels you need, or slot in alongside your existing marketers to offer fresh perspectives, input and experience across a broader range of marketing tactics. 

 

Need some support with your B2B SaaS marketing strategy or email marketing?

Get in touch to discuss how Codi can support your goals and business growth – after all, we’re just an email away!

 

FAQs

Still have questions for us? Here are some questions our clients ask us the most.

 

Do I need any specialist software to start email marketing? 

Gmail and Outlook are not sufficient when it comes to sending marketing emails at scale. Instead look to platforms like HubSpot, Mail Chimp and ActiveCampaign allow you to create, send and track email campaigns and can be integrated with your CRM or website. 

Get in touch with our team to discuss how to build the right Martech stack for your business.

 

What is a good open rate? 

Based on our experience working with SaaS Series A businesses across 2024, for one-off campaigns we’d say anything from 25% upwards is classed as a good open rate. 

For nurture flows we’d aim for anything from 35% upwards.

 

What is a good CTR? 

Based on our experience working with SaaS Series A businesses across 2024, for one-off campaigns we’d aim for a click-through-rate of between 2 and 4%, and for nurture flows roughly 8%.

 

How do I ensure GDPR compliance?  

Great question! Ensuring your emails are GDPR compliant is essential to any email marketing strategy. We have briefly outlined the key steps below, however, to ensure full compliance we do recommend talking to us directly or referring directly to GDPR guidelines.

  1. Gain explicit consent from users often through a double opt-in process
  2. Keep detailed records of how and when consent was obtained and regularly refer back to your database to ensure records are up-to-date.
  3. Provide a clear and easy way for your audience to unsubscribe.
  4. Inform subscribers on how their data will be used and ensure all data processing activities are lawful. 
  5. Safeguard your subscribers by implementing robust security measures to avoid potential data breaches.
  6. Stay up-to-date with regulatory updates to ensure your processes are in line with updated laws and guidelines.

 

Discover how Codi can support your goals and business growth