No one wants to lose customers. In SaaS we call it churn rate: the number of customers who cut ties with your service during a given time period. A SaaS relies on steady customer acquisition and effective customer retention. A retention email campaign is key in maintaining loyal and engaged users. Check out these tips to design better retention emails for your SaaS.
- Introduce yourself. Send a welcome email straight from a founder. This sends a message of professionalism and credibility right from the start.
- Use urgency. “You have 3 days before your reward expires!” should do it.
- Design emails that look good when images are enabled or disabled. They should be mobile-friendly too! This could be the punch your product needs to reach its real capacity.
- Introduce users to features they haven’t tried yet. Show them how to get the most out of your software.
- Use relevant news to reinforce your value. Sending newsletters that are holiday-charged or based on current events and trends can be a powerful tactic to boost engagement.
- Don’t use noreply@yourcompany.com. It’s ok if you don’t want to send from a personal email account but have some fun with your email address and keep it relevant to what your company does.
- Take advantage of your user’s social connections. Show them what’s popular with their friends or give them recommendations based on their own previous activity.
- Give upgrades, discounts, and random awards. Surprising customers is a proven way to increase customer satisfaction.
- Invite feedback. When customers suggest improvements they feel a sense of ownership. Don’t overload them with customer satisfaction surveys but create invitations for improvement in a place that they will see it.
- Use a call to action that focuses on taking the next step. Try “continue” rather than “sign up.”
- Focus on forming habits. Push them to download your program on all of their computers or to get your mobile app too.
- Reconsider why your customer became a customer in the first place. If you’ve somehow gotten away from your original value proposition, make changes to deliver the value that they signed up for. Read our article on why this is important.
- Send the inactivity email. Target them with details of their last interaction or let them know what they have waiting for them. Specificity adds relevancy and increases the chances that they’ll come back.
- Make it easy for customers to leave. It’s a fact of life. Some customers are going to leave and the harder you make it, the more they will make a social stink about their experience. Make the exit process easy, but also inform them of the value they are losing. Conduct an exit interview to understand why they left so you can create more value for your existing customers.
By using these tips, we are sure that you will be on your way to a better email retention campaign. If you’d like to learn more about how you can manage your SaaS retention campaign be sure to visit our campaign management page.