The Internet abounds in advice on user acquisition. We all want new users at our SaaS company. That’s not surprising. After all, more users equals company growth. And company growth equals more revenue. But acquiring users means nothing if they leave us after a month or so. And even the best players may leave us for our competition unless we take care of them after they first log into our app.
Sadly, the Internet has very little to say about convincing the user to stay. Time to shed more light on customer retention. Today, I want to show you one of customer retention strategies that may help you fight churn at your SaaS company. And that’s all through a communication channel that you use on an everyday basis — email.
Why Email Is a Good Channel for Customer Retention?
We check email every day. We use it to communicate with our coworkers, customers and brands. We validate our accounts with emails. In the same vein, brands use email to nurture their marketing leads. So what is stopping them from using it to talk with those who already bought their SaaS solution?
Think about it.
Email is one of the few media that are easy to
- Scale
- Automate
- Personalize
- Follow up on
Email Is Easy to Scale
You don’t need to put a lot of effort to design a scalable email process. Spare a few hours to write an email sequence you want your customers to get and then add them to the email campaign as you would add your prospects.
The good thing is you can add more and more customers to your email sequence. And you can add more emails to a sequence if necessary. Email scales really nicely.
Email Is Easy to Automate
Right tools will get the job done for you. That’s why email is great. You don’t need to write emails manually and keep track of who to add or remove from your list.
You can easily integrate your cold email tool with your CRM or a Google spreadsheet where you would make a list of your inactive customers. Just a click and everything is set up.
Now you can have a customer retention strategy that works automatically.
Email Is Easy to Personalize
With email, you can talk to your customers as you, as the channel is more direct. You can write a message directly to them and only to them. They reply back to you on your personal inbox. You maintain a 1-to-1 connection.
And if they see a personalized, targeted email in their inbox, they will be more willing to act on your advice and tell you why they are inactive, even though they chose your tool.
Therefore, you can stay close to your customers with email. And you can easily gain insight into their changing needs, which is important in a SaaS company, a sort of business that requires constant improvement to stay relevant to their customers. They give you feedback on your solution and you can verify your hypotheses concerning company development. Direct feedback is priceless for that, isn’t it?
Email Is Easy to Follow up On
If you care about getting a response from your customers, there’s nothing easier. Add another email to a sequence, and there you have it. A follow-up email, which is a wonderful way to prove to your customers that you don’t send yet-another-marketing-stuff but an actual personal message that is meant to help them.
What to put in a follow-up email? Explain value of your product. Ask them whether you tried doing X or if they struggle with Y. Make it natural and easy.
How to Design an Automated Email Sequence For Customer Retention
It’s easier to say what an automated email sequence shouldn’t look like than should. It’s because we have different customer groups in our SaaS companies.
As I mentioned, email is a 1-to-1 communication channel. Take advantage of that and create a highly personalized email sequence. Now, I’m going to tell you how to do it.
Segment Your Customers
Take the quantitative data that you have about your customers and try to define different segments. You can use the data you have in your CRM or ask your salespeople to provide you with some stats.
At Woodpecker, we segment our customers into business types, such as SaaS, software houses, digital agencies, and the like. However, you can divide them based on their activity in the app. You do you.
If you’re going to create a customer retention email campaign, segment your customers before you go writing your emails. Each customer group may use your product differently. And a separate email sequence tailored to their problems will add a personal touch to your email.
All in all, divide your customers and prepare a different set of emails based on the problems they may face.
Use Blog Content to Keep Them Engaged
Did you know that you may use your content for customer retention? Actually, as a SaaS company, you need to convince your customers again and again that they need you. Always treat them as trial users. Use your blog to show them the process of using your tool or potential success roadblocks they may encounter.
At least that’s what we’re trying to do at Woodpecker. It works because our customers consult our blog before they use our app. They search there for answers to the issue they are facing. Even more so, they email us topic suggestions for the next blog post.
That’s really amazing. And actually, it’s really easy to do. I keep in touch with our support team to stay on top of customers’ problems. It works the other way round too. Support team members come to me to ask me to write a blog post.
Not every customer is like that of course. Some don’t read our blog. And those customers are usually the first to churn. So we send them an email with helpful blog posts for beginners.
You can go a step further and prepare content for different customer groups. Then, link to it in your email so they know you wrote it especially for them.
Ask Them Questions
A regular conversation is a two-way exchange. So can be your email. In order to welcome email conversation, ask your customer a question in your customer retention email. You need to be creative though, because a simple thing like “Are you enjoying the tool?” won’t cut it.
Remember that any question you ask will be a fully fledged part of your email, so make it connected to the rest of the text.
Leave Room for Personalization
If you decide to use an email automation tool, you can personalize every email at scale.
Sent Your Email When They’re Active
This is a pro-tip I haven’t figured yet. But I’m gonna share it with you. Use your app activity data, see when your customers are most active. Next, schedule your email at the peak time. You may catch them at the right moment.
We have a lot of customers from different countries, so it doesn’t work. But if you offer a local solution, it’s definitely worth a shot.
Will You Try It?
I would love to hear you feedback and results!
