What is SaaS free trial email sequence?
This series is to help you convert your free trial/ freemium users into paying customers.
🎯 The goal of SaaS free trial email sequence
Get people to start using the product/service.
Create product stickiness.
Convert free users to paid users.
Recommended emails in SaaS free trial sequence: 7 or more emails depending on your product complexity.
Optimum flow time: Spans the entire free trial period
Emails in SaaS free trial sequence
Email # 1: Free trial welcome email
Email # 2: Free trial getting started email
Email # 3: Free trial offer email
Email # 4: Free trial feedback email
Email # 5: Free trial case study email
Email # 6: Free trial reminder email (free trial ends)
Email # 7: Nudge to upgrade email
Email #1: Free trial welcome email
📩 Why this email
Welcome new users and confirm their subscription to your free trial/ freemium plan. This email will also decrease spam complaints and unsubscribes in the future as people are made aware that they have subscribed to your email list.
✅ Best practices
Use a basic single-column layout for your welcome emails, and don't use any other complicated layout
Send the welcome email immediately, within the first hour. If you send it too late, they might have forgotten about you already
Email # 2: Free trial getting started email
📩 Why this email
Talk about the steps they should take next to set up their account or to start using the product. Explain what they can expect from your platform and how it works.
✅ Best practice
Don't overwhelm them with all the info in a single email.
Email # 3: Free trial offer email
📩 Why this email
Showcase your unique features and what you can provide to your users. In this email, you can introduce the exclusive features only available in the paid plan to show them what they are missing out on. You can send multiple offering emails like this to showcase your product to the users.
💼 Expert tip
"Don't be afraid to email them. If they don't want your emails, they can unsubscribe. I email them almost daily during the trial, and our conversion rate from free trial to paid subscribers is ~15%."
-Bill Zimmerman, Spotlightr
Email # 4: Free trial feedback email
📩 Why this email
Ask people about their experience using the product. Get their thoughts on how it can improve. Ask them about what updates/features they would like. Collect quantitative and qualitative feedback through emojis, NPS/CSAT, and text inputs.
💡 Recommendation
Make the experience as seamless as possible for your users. Instead of redirecting to your website, you can collect feedback via email with Mailmodo. Check out how it works.
Email # 5: Free trial case study email
📩 Why this email
Show how people use some of your product’s premium features to solve their pain points. This provides social proof of your product or service's effectiveness to justify that your paid plans are worth it.
Email # 6: Free trial eminder email (free trial ends)
📩 Why this email
Send them a reminder to notice that their free trial is coming to an end.
💼 Expert tip
"If they are actively using the product, try to understand why they don't want to convert by directly asking for their feedback. However, if they have stopped using your product mid-way during the free trial, ask them why and how you can improve the product."
-Vikash Koushik, Microsoft
Email # 7: Nudge to upgrade
Encourage them to switch to the paid plan to continue their progress and have an uninterrupted experience using your product.
⛔ Free trial sequence exit
After completing the free trial flow, send them to the product/feature adoption flow. However, if you identify people as churn risk, send them to the churn prevention flow.
Talk to an email expert. Need help? Schedule an email consultation. Don't worry; it's on the house.
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