In the SaaS industry, you can't just send discounts like an e-commerce store. You need a sophisticated system that incorporates lifecycle, marketing, and transactional emails tailored to specific user actions and stages. If set up correctly, these automated flows can significantly enhance user engagement and drive growth.

This article will delve into the 12 indispensable automated email flows that every SaaS company should implement. These flows are designed to convert free trial users into paying users with the highest LTV possible—without changing your product.

You'll learn :

• What a SaaS email strategy is
• The 12 indispensable flows
• Marketing emails
• Transactional emails
• The tools you need
• Bonus strategies for success

By the end of this article, you'll clearly understand how to leverage email marketing to boost your SaaS growth. Let's get started.

What is email marketing for SaaS ?

In this article, we won’t discuss cold outreach, as it falls under your sales process. Instead, we’ll focus on three key types of emails that are crucial for SaaS email marketing :

• Lifecycle emails: These go out to users after they sign up for your product and cover everything from onboarding and upgrading to paid plans to customer loyalty campaigns. We'll cover these 12 essential flows in depth below.
• Marketing emails: These are sent to your leads and include things like lead nurturing campaigns, sales emails, and newsletters.
• Transactional emails: These are your service emails, like password recovery, product notifications, and billing invoices.

Email marketing for SaaS is about creating a plan to communicate effectively with your customers throughout their journey with your product. It’s about using targeted emails to convert leads, keep your customers engaged, and drive them to take action.

The magic happens when you understand the specific needs of your audience and deliver content that guides them through the sales funnel. Well-executed SaaS email marketing strategies help you build strong relationships, boost customer loyalty, and drive growth for your business. The key ? Leverage customer data to send targeted messages that hit home at every stage of their journey.

This will ensure your emails resonate with your audience and drive real results.

Segmenting your email list

Segmenting your email list is vital to any successful SaaS email marketing strategy. First, focus on planning your lifecycle segments using the twelve automated flows. These segments should align with key customer journey stages, from new users to long-term customers. Here's how to do it :

• Plan your lifecycle segments: Identify the key stages in your customer journey corresponding to the twelve automated flows. These stages might include new sign-ups, onboarding paid users, churn prevention, etc. Each segment should have a clear conversion goal, such as moving a free user to a paid plan or a monthly paid user to an annual paid user.
• Collect user data: To effectively segment your audience, you'll need rich customer data from your product backend. This data includes user actions, feature usage, and engagement levels. Implement a backend integration to send this data to your email marketing tool.
• Set up your segments: Once the data flows into your email marketing tool, set up segments based on your identified customer lifecycle stages. Ensure each segment is defined by specific user actions or milestones that align with your automated flows.
• Implement automated flows: Set up the corresponding email campaigns with your segments in place. Each flow should trigger when a user joins a segment, ensuring they receive personalized and relevant content that guides them to the next stage of their journey.

The three types of emails

In email marketing for SaaS, there are three primary types of emails: lifecycle, marketing, and transactional emails. Each type serves a unique purpose and is crucial for your success. Let's get started, as promised, with the 12 lifecycle flows.

Lifecycle - The 12 indispensable flows

Lifecycle emails guide users through their entire journey with your SaaS. User actions trigger these automated sequences, designed to convert free trial users, retain existing customers, and monetize paying customers.

At Digi Storms, we’ve worked with numerous SaaS companies and identified 12 lifecycle email flows indispensable for any successful email marketing strategy. These automated emails have proven essential in increasing our client's CLTV.

In the following sections, we will detail the 12 flows and illustrate them with a screenshot of an email we designed for Digi Storms if it was a SaaS instead of an agency.

Welcome flow

The welcome flow is for new users on a free trial or freemium plan, and it’s crucial for making a positive impression and setting the tone for future communications. This flow typically includes emails introducing users to your product, highlighting key features, and guiding them through the initial setup process.

💡 The primary goal of the welcome email campaign is to convert free users into paying customers by guiding them to the "Aha" moment—the point at which users realize the true value of your product. Reaching this moment is fundamental to their decision to continue using your service.

Start by segmenting your users based on their activity levels to achieve this. Identify who actively engages with your product and send them emails that dive deeper into advanced features, showing how your product can solve their problems.

For those who have yet to start using the product actively, send reminder emails with tips, tutorials, and easy wins to encourage them to log in and explore. Additionally, consider inviting less active users to a setup call and sending case studies to reiterate your product's value.

This approach ensures each user receives the most relevant information, laying the foundation for a long-term relationship and increasing the likelihood of turning free users into paying customers.

Win Back flow

The win-back flow is designed to re-engage free trial and freemium users who haven't upgraded to a paid plan after the free trial. This flow typically includes emails reminding users of the benefits they might miss out on and offering incentives to return.

This email sequence can include an invitation to extend their free trial, case studies, testimonials to reinforce the product's value, a survey to understand why they haven't upgraded, and a discount on the upgrade plan.

By targeting inactive users with a thoughtful win-back flow, you can reignite their interest in your product and encourage them to convert to a paid plan or try your solution once again.

Abandoned payment flow

The abandoned payment flow targets users who initiated but did not complete a purchase or subscription renewal. This flow typically includes a couple of reminder emails that prompt users to finalize their transactions. Highlighting the benefits of your SaaS product, showing use cases and testimonials, and offering limited-time discounts or incentives can entice users to complete their transaction.

By implementing an effective abandoned payment flow, you can recover potentially lost revenue and convert hesitant users into paying customers.

Onboarding flow

The onboarding flow is crucial for ensuring new paying users have a smooth and successful start with your product. This flow typically includes instructional emails guiding users through key paying features, setup processes, and best practices.

By providing step-by-step guidance, helpful tips, and resources, you can help users quickly become proficient with your product. This will increase their satisfaction and likelihood of continued use.

An effective onboarding flow can reduce churn, enhance user experience, and set the stage for long-term user retention and loyalty.

Related article: 7 SaaS onboarding KPIs you can't miss

Gamifying flow

💡 The gamifying flow leverages gamification techniques to engage users and encourage them to explore and utilize your product more extensively. This flow can include emails introducing milestones that users can achieve by completing specific actions within the product.

The best technique is to break down your product into five to seven core milestones, ranging from the simplest to the most advanced. Completing each milestone leads to the user gaining credits. At the end of task completion, the total number of credits is credited to the user’s account. These credits can be used to access certain features requiring credits or unlock add-ons.

By making the user experience more interactive and enjoyable, you can boost user engagement, increase product adoption, and foster a sense of achievement and loyalty. This approach can be particularly effective in motivating your users to discover and use advanced features, enhancing their experience with your software.

Annual upgrade flow

The annual upgrade flow targets paid users currently on a monthly plan, encouraging them to upgrade to an annual plan. Pushing users to the annual plan greatly benefits SaaS companies by ensuring steady revenue, reducing churn rates, and enhancing customer lifetime value.

To effectively encourage users to switch to an annual plan, send an email every other month offering a discount, such as 20% off, for upgrading to the annual plan.This flow typically includes emails highlighting the benefits of committing to an annual plan, showcasing new features, and providing a discount incentive.

Feedback flow

This flow typically includes a single email requesting feedback, with follow-up emails sent every six months to those who haven't responded.

💡 It's crucial to make the feedback email as actionable and simple as possible. In the screenshot, we're simply asking one question; the recipient has to click on any button. It's that simple. When recipients click a button, they are directed to a simple, open-ended question survey to provide more detailed feedback. You can create it using a simple Google Form.

An effective feedback flow helps improve your product and strengthens the relationship with your users, fostering a sense of partnership and trust.

Feature upgrade flow

The feature upgrade flow aims to inform and encourage users to take advantage of other features in your solution. This flow typically includes emails highlighting the benefits and functionalities of these features, providing detailed explanations and use cases. This flow is particularly effective for promoting higher-tier plans, suggesting add-ons based on user activity, or encouraging the purchase of more credits for credit-based features.

While this flow has many use cases, the overarching goal is to guide users toward purchasing more and unlocking greater value from your product. Emails in this flow should be sent sparingly to maintain a balance and avoid seeming overly promotional.

Review request flow

The review request flow seeks to gather positive reviews and testimonials from satisfied customers, focusing on dedicated SaaS review platforms like Capterra and G2. Implement an A/B test—not to determine which message works best, but to split the audience evenly. Half of your users will receive an email requesting a review on G2, while the other half will be asked to review on Capterra.

This approach ensures broad coverage across both major review sites. To encourage participation, offer incentives such as credits, add-ons, branded merchandise, or top-priority support for a month. This flow should be implemented at strategic moments, such as after a positive customer interaction or successful milestone, to increase the likelihood of receiving favorable feedback.

By actively seeking reviews and offering incentives, you can enhance your product's reputation, build trust with potential customers, and increase brand credibility, ultimately attracting new customers. This is a good example of leveraging your users to gain new users, just like the following flow.

Referral program flow

Referral campaigns aim to leverage satisfied customers by incentivizing referrals with rewards or discounts to expand your user base. This flow typically includes emails explaining the referral program, highlighting the benefits for the referrer and the new user, and providing easy-to-share referral links or codes.

An effective referral program flow can increase customer acquisition, customer engagement, and accelerated business development through word-of-mouth marketing. Don't send this email to anyone - only the most engaged ones. If you have a substantial user base on the annual plan, they would be the ideal target audience for this campaign.

Churn prevention flow

The churn prevention flow targets users who show signs of disengagement or are at risk of canceling their subscriptions. Typically triggered by about one month of non-login, this flow includes a series of personalized emails highlighting the value of your product.

💡 If possible, leverage social proof by showcasing a case study relevant to the user. That's when 'demographic' segmentation comes in. So far, we've segmented based on user behavior, but knowing which industry your users come from and their job roles can be handy in these situations.

An effective churn prevention flow can reduce cancellation rates, improve customer retention, and demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction, ultimately contributing to the long-term success of your SaaS business.

Cancellation flow

💡 First and foremost, an effective off-boarding process (in-app) that addresses user concerns and potentially changes their mind about leaving is essential to reduce cancellations. When a user is about to cancel, ensure the off-boarding process includes a brief survey asking why they are canceling.

This feedback can be collected within your product or via email if it has not already been implemented.

Now when a user cancels, the cancellation flow begins with an email confirming their subscription has been canceled and explaining what happens next. Keep these users on your contact list to nurture them through regular newsletters despite the cancellation.

Additionally, send a monthly discount email to prompt them to return to their plan. An effective cancellation flow can help retain some users, gather important data, and leave a positive impression, increasing the likelihood of users returning in the future.

Marketing emails

Lead magnets

This isn't really an email, but it does lead to an email sequence and is part of any respectful email marketing strategy. Lead magnets are valuable resources or incentives offered to potential customers in exchange for their contact information. This strategy aims to attract and capture leads by providing high-quality content like ebooks, whitepapers, and templates.

💡 To create a compelling lead magnet, you should be almost reluctant to give it away for free. If it’s good enough that you could charge for it, your audience will perceive it as highly valuable. Offering something of this caliber can entice more users to subscribe to your email list.

Most SaaS companies offer a poor lead magnet. But if your lead magnet doesn't provide substantial value and is merely a means to collect emails, it's better not to publish it. A subpar lead magnet can discredit your brand and reduce trust among your potential customers.

Lead nurture

Once people have signed up for your lead magnet, it’s time to nurture these leads and build lasting relationships. These promotional and educational emails are designed to provide valuable and relevant content over time, gradually guiding email subscribers through the sales funnel toward requesting a demo or signing up for a free trial.

Delivering personalized and timely messages can address your target audience's needs and pain points, fostering trust and credibility. An effective lead nurture strategy involves sending emails highlighting your product's benefits, sharing success stories, and offering solutions to common challenges.

The goal here is to convert leads into engaged users ready to take the next step, whether requesting a demo or starting a free trial.

💡 But don't be too promotional. Think 'Jab, jab, jab, right hook', as in, give free value, solve your audience's pain points, and then ask for the sale.

Newsletters

Newsletters typically include updates about your product, industry news, tips and tricks, and other valuable content. By consistently delivering informative and engaging newsletters, you can inform your audience, nurture relationships, and maintain top-of-mind awareness.

Newsletters also offer opportunities to highlight customer success stories, share educational resources, and promote upcoming events or special offers.

An effective newsletter strategy can enhance customer engagement, build community, and drive long-term loyalty and retention for your SaaS business. Moreover, a highly valuable and well-crafted newsletter can become a powerful lead acquisition channel on its own.

💡 When your content resonates deeply with a specific niche, it encourages sharing, expanding your reach, and drawing more potential customers into your marketing funnel. This organic growth can significantly amplify your marketing efforts.

Transactional emails

Specific user actions trigger transactional emails, which provide important information related to those actions. Examples include receipts, password resets, account updates, and more. These emails are essential for ensuring smooth business communication and enhancing the user experience. People often overlook transactional emails in SaaS email marketing. But, they offer chances to reinforce your brand, add value, and encourage engagement.

The tools you need for your SaaS email marketing

You need the right email marketing software to implement a successful SaaS email strategy. These tools fall into three categories: email marketing platforms, dedicated SaaS email platforms, and transactional email services.

Email marketing platforms

A general-purpose email marketing platform like MailChimp is a versatile tool to run your email marketing campaigns. Other tools include Drip, MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, etc. These platforms are excellent for managing your email list, creating engaging newsletters, and running all sorts of email campaigns. Some of them will even allow you to create landing pages.

Dedicated SaaS email platforms

For SaaS lifecycle emails requiring a more sophisticated approach to handling user data, dedicated SaaS email platforms like Userlist or Customer.io are essential.

These tools are designed to manage the entire customer journey, providing personalized and timely email communication that nurtures leads, onboard new users, and retains existing customers.

Transactional email services

Transactional emails such as password resets and purchase confirmations must be delivered instantly. A generic email marketing software would be unsuitable because it can't guarantee real-time delivery.

Instead, use dedicated transactional email services like Postmark, SparkPost, or SendGrid. Direct API calls integrate these services directly into your product's backend, ensuring immediate email delivery.

Bonus strategies

AB test

A/B testing is a must for optimizing your SaaS email marketing campaigns. You can determine which version performs better by comparing two versions of an email with a single variable difference, such as subject lines or call-to-action buttons.

This data-driven approach helps you make informed decisions to improve open, click-through, and overall engagement rates. Regular A/B testing allows you to refine your email strategy. It ensures your messages resonate with your audience and drive desired outcomes.

Timing

Timing is a critical factor in the success of your SaaS email marketing campaigns. Sending emails at the right time can significantly impact open rates, click-through rates, and overall engagement. Analyze your audience's behavior and preferences to determine the optimal times for sending emails.

Consider factors such as time zones, industry norms, and user activity patterns. Additionally, timing can be crucial within the context of the customer journey, such as sending onboarding emails shortly after sign-up or renewal reminders before a subscription expires.

Don't be too promotional

Balancing sales campaigns and educational content in your SaaS email strategy is crucial for maintaining subscriber engagement. If your emails are too promotional, you risk alienating your audience and increasing unsubscribe rates. Instead, focus on providing valuable content that educates and informs your subscribers.

Share industry insights, tips, and success stories that highlight the benefits of your solution without overtly pushing for a sale. This approach builds trust and credibility, positioning your brand as a helpful resource.

Personalize

Personalization is a key factor in successful SaaS email marketing strategies. Tailor email content to individual subscribers based on their preferences, behavior, and engagement history. This can greatly improve relevance and engagement.

Personalize email messages by using the recipient's name, recommending features or content based on their usage patterns, and sending targeted messages that address their specific needs and interests.

Using user data to personalize emails shows that you understand and value your audience, leading to higher open and click rates and more satisfaction.

Leverage data

Data is the backbone of any effective SaaS email marketing strategy. Collecting and analyzing user data allows you to gain valuable insights into your audience's behavior, preferences, and engagement patterns. This information allows you to segment your email list, personalize messages, and optimize your campaigns for better performance.

Monitoring email marketing metrics, such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates, helps you measure your efforts' success and identify areas for improvement. Leveraging data-driven decisions ensures that your email strategy is continuously refined and aligned with your audience's needs, leading to more successful campaigns.

Optimise deliverability

Optimizing deliverability ensures your SaaS email campaigns reach your audience's inbox. Craft compelling subject lines that grab attention without using spam trigger words like "free," "guarantee," or "urgent," which can lead to emails being flagged as spam. Implement email authentication protocols such as DKIM, SPF, DMARC, and BIMI to verify your emails' legitimacy and improve inbox placement.

Monitor your domain reputation regularly and maintain a clean email list by removing unengaged or invalid addresses. These steps will significantly improve the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign.

Subject Lines

Subject lines are a critical component of your emails. They are the first thing your target audience sees and significantly impact open rates. To craft effective subject lines, keep them clear, concise, and relevant to the content of the email.

Aim for a length of 3 to 8 words to ensure readability, even on mobile devices. Use action-oriented language to create a sense of urgency or curiosity, prompting recipients to open the email. A/B testing different subject lines can help determine what resonates best with your audience.

Perfect your SaaS email marketing strategy with Digi Storms

At Digi Storms, we specialize in helping SaaS businesses perfect their email marketing strategies.

Our team of experts understands the unique challenges and opportunities in the SaaS industry, and we're here to support you every step of the way. Whether you're looking to implement automated email sequences, optimize your email content, or leverage data-driven insights, we have the tools and expertise to elevate your email marketing efforts.

Partner with us to create personalized, targeted email campaigns that drive engagement, retention, and growth.

‍Fill out the contact form and let us help you achieve your business goals.