Ever thought your inbox is like a wild safari, teeming with various species of emails? Businesses today are adapting like chameleons and using different ways to attract your attention. If you are on the other side and run a SaaS company, you might wonder what emails to implement to increase your engagement and cut through all that noise. With an average open rate of around 21% across industries, if we are to use another animal metaphor, grabbing attention can be as challenging as making a cat laugh — quite hard but not impossible.
In this blog post, we have curated 18 types of SaaS emails you can implement and real-life examples for each type. Use them as inspiration and run A/B Tests to see which type of email works best.
Like any other type of email, it’s important to keep the fundamentals of high open rates:
- Triggered behavior emails receive higher open rates than one-time blasts and newsletters.
- Send the email at the right time when a user is most likely to open it. For example, you want to educate users on that new feature when they try to use it, not when they’ve been inactive for months.
- Make your emails personal – go beyond name and use company data and custom objects to really personalize headlines and body copy with company info, usage info, geographic info, etc.
- Follow up – when a person doesn’t open an email, it’s not because your body copy is bad. They just voted against your subject line. Re-sending the same email with a different subject line is a sure way to increase the open rate.
Let’s jump straight to the emails!
Types of SaaS emails
1. Sign-up reactivation email
Benefits and use: This reactivation email targets users who started the sign-up process in your app but didn’t complete it. It’s a direct way to boost conversions by nudging potential leads and customers to finish signing up.
The example from one of our customers, stock market platform Scanz, uses persuasive copy to remind users of the value they’re missing out on, effectively encouraging them to complete the sign-up. There’s only one link in the middle of the email which is a clear visual clue on what is required from the user.
2. Confirmation email
Benefits and use: Confirmation emails are essential for verifying a user’s email address or other critical information. They could also be the first point of contact post-sign-up, reinforcing the brand. However, remember that transactional emails can not contain marketing or promotional information, so you want to avoid including such info in your confirmation email.
Example: This email from nDash.co includes a clear call to action and a welcoming tone, making a positive first impression. It’s hard to miss the large button at the bottom, which leads you in the right direction and avoids confusion.
3. Welcome email
Benefits and use: A welcome email introduces the SaaS company and its services, sets expectations, and guides new users. It’s key for initial engagement.
Example: A good welcome email, as shown in the example from financing company Xero, combines warm greetings with essential information about the product, engaging the new user immediately. They have also highlighted the key benefits and handled some common objections, like the setup fee.
4. Product intro email
Benefits and use: These emails educate new users about the product, increasing the likelihood of adoption and engagement.
Example: Scaleway uses clear, concise language and visuals to highlight key features and introduce new users to the product. It is essential for complex products with multiple use cases and features. Ideally, you should segment your audience in the signup process and offer the most relevant intro email by keeping it shorter.
5. Reward email
Benefits and use: The goal of the reward email is to congratulate and, if possible, incentivize users when they use a feature in your app successfully, thus promoting loyalty and encouraging continued use.
Example: FullStory congratulates its users when they receive their first recorded session (a critical moment in the app) and introduces the next logical feature in the user journey — OmniSearch. This feature allows people to search within user recordings.
6. Feature education email
Benefits and use: This type of SaaS email educates users about specific features, enhancing user experience and product usage. It can include feature images, GIFs, and links to videos on how to take best advantage of the feature.
Example: Todoist spends significant time educating new users on using its projects and sub-projects feature to better organize their lives. They provide step-by-step guides and templates, a shortcut to adopting the feature.
7. Feature adoption email
Benefits and use: The adoption email encourages users to try new or underused features, driving engagement and product value. Like the feature education email, it shares helpful information about a specific feature or set of features. Still, the goal here is to truly turn regular users into power users by sharing advanced tips, use cases, and examples.
Example: Cloud automation platform Skeddly helps their users understand the power of notifications and offers a hard-to-miss CTA that takes them to the feature page.
8. Reminder email
Benefits and use: Reminder or nudge emails aim to remind users and inform them about important next steps they need to take, thus ensuring continued engagement.
Example: Private space and note organizer app Mymind uses a personal approach with their reminder email that stands out from the crowd and is aligned with their simple but honest brand.
9. Re-engagement email
Benefits and use: Re-engagement emails aim to rekindle interest among inactive users, potentially recovering lost leads or inactive customers.
Example: Ai video editing platform re-engages stale trials with a special discount and shares all the updates they’ve rolled since last time.
10. Personal email
Benefits and use: Not all emails should be automated. A personal and manually-written email can create a special connection with the user, enhancing loyalty and trust.
Example: The founder of popular book summary app Blinkist reaches out with this personal email to new customers, offering a personalized approach to setting up Blinkist for Business.
11. Trial expiration email
Benefits and use: One of the most critical emails for SaaS apps with a trial model. The trial expiration email reminds users about the end of a trial period, encouraging them to subscribe.
Example: This heart-touching email from Squarespace emphasizes the benefits of subscribing, creating a sense of loss if not acted upon.
12. Limit reached email
Benefits and use: Informs users they’ve reached their plan’s limit, nudging them towards an upgrade.
Example: Nothing fancy here, but this email by process automation app Process Street gets the job done. Again, it’s important to remember that such emails should be sent as transactional emails to ensure your users or customers don’t unsubscribe from these types of notifications.
13. Upgrade email
Benefits and use: Displaying pop-up modals within your app to encourage users to upgrade is a common strategy for converting trial users into customers or persuading existing customers to choose higher-tier plans. But don’t limit this important action only to your app. Sending upgrade emails is an efficient method to highlight the advantages of your premium offerings, too.
Example: eCommerce platform BigCommerce explains how their plans work and what can be expected when you upgrade.
14. Invite a team member email
Benefits and use: Team member invitations are especially important if your pricing model is based on user seats. The goal of the invitation email is to expand the user base within an organization by encouraging current users to bring others.
Example: Video recording platform Loom helps existing customers become champions of the app by encouraging them to record a video of how they use Loom to get a buy-in. That’s a way to make two friends with one gift. Quite smart!
15. New post newsletter
Benefits and use: It’s important to stay on top of mind with your users. And newsletters and broadcasts about recent blog posts can do exactly this. They keep users informed and engaged with content.
Example: Social sharing SaaS platform Hootsuite shares their recent guides with this simple looking but effective email.
16. Discount email
Benefits and use: Incentivizes purchases and upgrades. Use email marketing to offer discounts to stimulate sales.
Example: Email marketing platform GetResponse uses this effective design to entice users to get 10% off if they upgrade. As we see here, discount emails usually work best with a sprinkle of scarcity.
17. Report Email
Benefits and use: You can send your users daily, weekly, or monthly performance or usage reports to show them the value they’re getting.
Pro tip: You can easily automate such emails using the Recurring Time Trigger feature in Encharge.
Example: This email by SEO tool Ahrefs demonstrates the product’s impact, encouraging continued use.
18. Webinar invite email
Benefits and use: One of the easiest ways to attract attendees to your webinar is by emailing a webinar invite. Of course, you must remind these people before the webinar starts and send another email. Check out our article on how to automate webinar emails for higher attendance.
Example: CRM platform Keap keeps things simple with this webinar invite email, emphasizing the CTA to “Register now”.
Do you need help setting up your SaaS emails?
These are just some of the types of SaaS emails you can send to your users. We have written many articles on the topic, like this one with 38 automated email templates and this with 35 email sequence templates. Yet, we don’t pretend for complete comprehensiveness. Every SaaS business is unique and requires a deep understanding of one’s audience before developing an email marketing strategy. We have helped hundreds of SaaS businesses increase conversions and convert more users to customers with good emails. If you feel like you want to be the next, do not histate to book a free strategy call with our customer success heroes. We promise we will not sell you Encharge if we don’t believe we are a good fit for you!
Read next: Top 13 SaaS Email Templates For Engaging Your Customers
