Newsletters: Why Your SaaS Marketing Strategy Needs One Now

In recent days, you may have received your fair share of newsletters from businesses offering help, advice, and reassurance that they are doing everything they can to support their customers and employees during the COVID-19 crisis. 

For many organisations, this will be the first time they are having to reach out in this way. Previously, they may have sent friendly, informal emails to update you on business activities or promotions. As we all band together – governments, businesses, and individuals – sharing information and building a good rapport with one another is more important than ever. 

Sending out a tactful email to offer support helps to maintain a message of resilience, hope, and reassurance that we are all in this together. When we do come out of this pandemic crisis, the businesses that remained authentic, grounded, and genuinely helpful are most likely to survive and thrive – simply by demonstrating what their brand's values are all about. 

A newsletter is, essentially, a form of marketing content. It's important to carefully curate the information you put out so that customers can have a straightforward idea of what services you are currently able to provide and how you are working to support them. 

If you're new to newsletters or wondering how to approach this part of your SaaS marketing activity in the current climate, we're here to offer some advice. For a more comprehensive look at your marketing strategy as a whole, you may want to download your free copy of SaaS Marketing: The Ultimate Guide.

Why your clients really need a newsletter right now

Sadly, many businesses will be challenged by the financial implications that the pandemic will have. And so, now is not the time to dive in with hard-sell tactics or push promotions onto customers who may very likely be having financial concerns of their own. 

Sending out a humane and informative industry newsletter to thank people for their support, reassure them of your efforts to maintain service, and an offer of help (if possible) will pay dividends in the future when customers reflect on the organisations that did not try to profiteer out of what is a tough time for many. Sending out a newsletter of this nature is in line with inbound best practices and definitely something you should not overlook. 

How SaaS lead nurture through newsletters is essential right now

According to surveys, 91% of people check their email at least once a day – we'd hazard a guess and say that these figures have slightly increased since more of us are spending time in isolation and relying on our devices for information. For businesses that offer free trials, this is a good time to be helpful and engaging so that anyone who may be taking advantage of your free trial gets the opportunity to get real value from your software.   

Thanks to automation tools and CRM platforms like HubSpot, you can effectively segment your audiences to ensure that the right emails go out to the right customers – in line with their particular level of interaction with your product. This approach enables you to keep applying inbound methodology to you SaaS lead nurture strategy. 

Improve conversions with a newsletter

Email marketing is still one of the most highly successful tactics for SaaS lead generation – it's 40 times more effective than social media – so if you spend the time effectively nurturing your leads now, you will generate a wealth of leads to convert in the future. 

For SaaS businesses, in particular, this may be an exciting period as people find more time to explore free trials. It's important to reach out to a new sign-up with a welcome email and some useful information to help them during the onboarding process so that they can begin to effectively engage with your product. This kind of attention to detail will determine whether the customer decides to go ahead with a paid version of your service in the future.

Learn how to make the most of your free trial offer with our SaaS Free Trial eBook and Cheat Sheet. 

Even if the user doesn't convert immediately after the free trial, they will now be in your pool of contacts. This means that when they feel more confident in allocating budget towards new software or infrastructure, they will have kept up to date with service improvements and new features you may have on offer. Although the lead may not be a paying customer yet, they are a much warmer lead. 

You can continue to offer valuable information that addresses their pain points and provide exclusive subscriber updates to increasingly strengthen your relationship. 

Top tips for a great SaaS newsletter

1. The first and most important thing when sending a newsletter out is to define its purpose. What is the ultimate goal that this piece of content needs to achieve? If you send out fluffy emails that don't offer value or have no steps for the recipient to follow, they're likely to unsubscribe sooner rather than later. 
   
   
2. How are you going to measure the success of your emails? You must outline the key performance indicators that will help you to measure the performance of your newsletter. With HubSpot, you can track open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and other essential metrics that determine whether your newsletter is making the right impression. 
   
   
3. Understand your buyer personas so that you can time your email appropriately. Research the habits and routines of your target audience so that you can send your email at a time when they are most likely to be in front of their screen and able to give your email the attention it needs. Using HubSpot, you can find out when users are active on your website and gauge their availability.  

Understandably, you may be struggling to come up with the best strategy for your email content right now. If you're unsure of where to start, we're more than happy to jump on a call with you and give you some guidance. 

It's important to keep the conversation going with your prospects and customers at this time, and a well-structured newsletter is one of the best ways to achieve this. The seeds you sow now will help your business to bounce back in the months to come and continue to inspire confidence in your customers and help you to build up leads for the future.

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