Keeping a good relationship with the customer impacts success. And one of the best ways to do that is through effective email communication.
It’s been proven time and again that emails are an effective way to keep in touch with your customers. Why else would they be one of the leading marketing channels? In fact, 4 out of 5 marketing professionals claim they would rather give up social media than email.
The top reasons for this are affordability, control, and easy personalization that emails provide. Using emails can create loyal customers, maintain and increase interest in your product, but also drive new leads.
The crucial question is—which type of emails should you send to achieve those goals?
To give you an answer, we’re going over nine essential customer success emails you should send to your customers to keep the spark in your relationship.
Jump to section:
Account Activation Emails
Welcome Emails
Pro-Tip Emails
Trial Ending Reminder Emails
User Reactivation Emails
Upgrade Emails
Webinar Invitation Emails
Product Changes Emails
Milestones Emails
Account Activation Emails
Anyone can make up a fake email to try out a service, so you should verify it with an account activation email.
That way, you’re ensuring that the email address customer provided is valid. Then in the future, you can send other emails to this address with certainty that they’ll be delivered.
In the end, you only want to engage with users who are serious about your product, so you can focus on turning them into paying customers.
Here’s an example of an account activation email from Medium, an open digital publishing platform.
Source:Medium
When new users sign up to Medium, they receive this email in their inboxes. What makes it effective is that it’s short and to the point.
Medium informs the user about upcoming emails and prominently displays a CTA button at the bottom to encourage them to take action.
Additionally, it provides a short explanation of why the customers have received the email.
So, to ensure your future emails will reach the right customers, follow Medium’s example and send good account activation emails.
Welcome Emails
Not getting a welcome email for signing up to a product or service is the digital equivalent of ignoring a person you meet for the first time. Basically, it’s a terrible first impression.
If you make a bad first impression, that will stay with the user, and 58% of them will abandon you and never use your product again. So, any SaaS company that values its business will send welcome emails.
Welcome emails should assure the new user they have made a good choice, as well as clear any troubles with the initial setup.
These emails set the foundation for the rest of your relationship with that customer. So, it’s essential to follow the best practices.
Let’s learn from SEMRush’s welcome email.
Source: MDirector
From the beginning, SEMRush fosters a friendly and inviting tone, wanting to make the new user feel special. Additionally, they’re counting on that positive feeling to stick so the company can nurture it for future conversion attempts.
Also, the company emphasizes the benefits of its product in a very clear way. They use pictures and a horizontal bullet list to communicate the next steps. Then, the bold CTA invites the user to try it out.
Finally, the email is short, visually engaging, and motivates users to follow through on the decision they made when they signed up.
These are all essential elements of a good welcome email.
The practices we’ve described should help you craft your next welcome email. Your new users will be highly engaged and look forward to future communication with you.
A Pro-Tip Emails
Sometimes a new product requires extra effort to learn how to use it.
For example, when you want to automate your workflow with Zapier but have trouble understanding how different features help your specific use case, you’ll receive an email like this.
Source:Vero
What does Zapier accomplish with this email?
They identified that a user had problems with the setup, so they proactively offered help. This helps boost customer retention because only those who are comfortable using the product will stick with it.
So, Zapier provides links to different use cases where the customer can find help based on their specific interests. This way, the person can see how others successfully used Zapier’s product and replicate the same.
In the end, the most important thing is to ensure you offer adequate support to new users.
Pro-tip emails like Zapier’s will help your customers see how they can benefit from the company’s product once they learn how to use it.
Trial Ending Reminder Emails
Free trial periods allow you to show customers what your product can do for them without commitment. It’s a marketing trick to get them to try out your product, find value in it and become a paying customer.
However, many new users will play around with your product for some time, leave and then forget they signed up.
In Klipfolio’s experience, 80% of free trial users tend to drop out after two days.
So, apart from keeping your users engaged, what you should be focusing on is reminding your users that their free trial will expire soon.
This is where trial reminder emails come in handy.
They communicate that the user needs to make an important decision before it’s too late, which could be the perfect opportunity for those undecided customers to give your product another chance and find value in it.
Following that, most SaaS companies, like Mention, send their reminder emails several days before the trial period expires.
Source: Vero
In Mention’s case, they remind the customer to upgrade two days before the expiration date. This is an optimal amount of time to create a sense of urgency, but it also gives the customer enough time to decide whether to commit or do nothing.
But reminder emails aren’t just notifications about upcoming trial expiration. They serve to motivate the customer.
How do they do that? By providing information about what the customer stands to lose unless they act immediately.
Mention explains to the user that they’ll be downgraded to a Free Plan with limited features if their trial expires. Similarly, Loom focuses on the benefits of the customer’s current plan (in case they’ve forgotten!) and creates urgency by emphasizing the limits of a lower pricing tier.
Source: Regpack
Remember, trial reminder emails are your chance to make the transition from a free trial user to a paying customer. The entire process should be seamless to ensure better conversion rates.
User Reactivation Emails
Reactivation emails have one core purpose: reengagement.
The good thing about reaching out to inactive users is that you know they found value in your product once. So, you’re more likely to convince them to use your product again than acquire new customers. Actually, monetizing existing or past customers will impact your revenue 2-4x more than the acquisition of new ones.
But the trick is in the way you approach inactive users. They became inactive for a reason, so your reactivation emails should be very enticing.
The secret to reactivation emails lies in three key ingredients:
- Exclusivity
- Urgency
- High value
Then a typical reactivation email could look like this.
Source:Really Good Emails
Clear gives the customer an added value ($60 discount) to their existing product to incorporate exclusivity.
They want to make their new offer more appealing, so giving discounts is a good strategy.
For urgency, they added the validation date of this exclusive offer at the bottom of their email.
Note that it would have been better if they had emphasized it somewhere in the main body of the email because most customers won’t look at the fine print at the end of their email.
To improve on Clear’s email, you should better clarify that the customer has limited time to respond.
Like Williams-Sonoma does in their reactivation email.
Source:Essence of Email
In this way, you’ll spur them into action faster. Otherwise, they’ll think they have more time to make a decision, close the email and forget about you again.
Finally, Clear mentions improvements in their product to demonstrate high value, thus reminding the customer of the benefits they enjoyed before. This makes the customer more interested in the rest of Clear’s offer.
Approaching inactive customers takes effort, and you can pull them back if you do it right. Reactivation emails should help you revive your passive users and show them you can still solve their problems.
Upgrade Emails
Aside from trial reminders, you should also send upgrade emails if you have a trial period for your product.
The first mistake you can make is to ask customers to upgrade too quickly. For example, if you have a 14-day trial period like most SaaS companies, and your customer reaches their Aha! Moment after five days, don’t send an upgrade email right away.
You’ll seem too eager and annoy your customer. What you should do instead is to give them time and wait for their trial to expire.
Then follow what Basecamp does with their upgrade emails.
Source:Encharge.io
First, they inform the user of what happened and how it affects them. Then, Basecamp clearly outlines the next steps in the upgrade process with a bullet list.
They assure the customer their data is safe and provide the necessary information so the customer can take action.
An important part of an upgrade email is to include ways for customers to contact customer service.
In case they have more questions about subscription plans or want to extend the trial. So, you should give them options and resources to make an informed decision.
In this way, you’re showing them you have their back whether they decide to continue the business relationship or if they cancel. This provides a great customer experience which impacts 88% of customers’ purchasing decisions.
You appear more reliable in the customers’ eyes, and they’re more likely to stay loyal.
In the end, upgrade emails are essential to improve your conversion rates, but you should pop the question at the right time and with all the important information.
Webinar Invitation Emails
Webinars are a great way to provide more value to your customers and enrich your online content library.
You’ll have a prime opportunity to address customers’ most common concerns or educate them about a topic they’re interested in.
Basically, it’s a chance to build a community around your product in a new way. So, most companies send webinar invitations like Asana.
Source:Automizy
A good webinar invitation email should provide all the necessary information about the event, which include:
- The presenter, company, and guests
- Date, time, and duration
- The main topic and benefits
- The registration CTA button
Consider the fact that webinars are a great tool to generate leads, so you should send more than one webinar invitation to nudge your leads into attending.
In fact, your first email should get to your customers two weeks before the event, so you give them enough time to register. Then, send a couple of reminders a week before the event and one the day before.
Remember, multiple webinar email invitations are a great way to promote your event and encourage participation.
Product Changes Emails
Product changes are often necessary to help SaaS companies stay up to date and ahead of the competition.
But what most companies forget is that unexpected product changes can seriously affect their customers.
It could make users feel alienated if they weren’t informed beforehand and create unnecessary frustrations if changes severely affect their product experience.
One way to prevent that is to send timely product changes emails.
Here’s how Groove used its product changes emails to not only announce new features but to nurture their existing customer relationships.
Source:Groove blog
Their main goal with product changes emails is to show customers they listen to them. They do this by logging customers’ feature requests and gathering them in one place.
So when they finally develop and release the requested feature, they send a personal email to every customer who requested that feature.
Here’s how customers responded:
Source:Groove blog
And the best part is the response rate to their product change emails was 68%.
Customers didn’t need to respond, but Groove’s method shows that a personal approach to product changes emails helps maintain a satisfied customer.
So, there’s one thing you can learn from Groove.
A personal approach with product changes emails is the best way to show you care about your customer’s needs. In turn, this will convince them that doing business with you was the right choice.
Milestones Emails
There’s no better way to let customers know you care than sending them personalized emails on their special days.
Celebrating milestones strengthens your overall relationship with your customer. Simply put, engaging with customers should continue as long as they do business with you.
That is the only way to keep your retention rates high and generate more revenue.
Therefore, when a customer makes a significant accomplishment with your product, acknowledge that via email.
For example, Premier Agent celebrates their customer reaching 50th review.
Source: Emfluence
Another popular milestone email is a yearly recap which includes different statistics about the customers’ behavior.
For example, Spotify neatly summarises its customers listening preferences for an entire year.
Source:Iterable
In the end, milestone emails should serve as an encouragement for your customers to continue using your product. That way, you’re creating long-lasting relationships and advocates for your company.
Conclusion
Sending targeted customer success emails ensures you’re properly engaging with your users. That way, you’re creating loyal and lifetime customers who will generate more revenue.
As customers’ demands for a more personalized experience increase, having the right communication strategy is crucial. So, the only way to reach them and give them what they want is by utilizing customer success emails.
