The “One Thing” To Do In 2024 For Higher Email ROI

Hi folks,

This week, Ekaterina will be taking over our newsletter. Ekaterina (Sam) Howard is a conversion copywriter and strategist who works with B2B SaaS startups.

And today, we'll get to hear her thoughts on what's the one thing you should do in 2024 while creating your email marketing strategy to get higher email ROI.

Now, over to you, Ekaterina.

For most startups, emails are a bit of an afterthought. So when Myra Ahmed asked me on LinkedIn what would be “a sequence that could be a goldmine for AARRR — but many businesses overlook,” I listed all the things that most startups don’t have in place for the longest time:

• segmentation
• JTBD or use-case-based onboarding sequences that support in-app experience
• behavior-based triggers for onboarding emails (instead of time-based drips)
• reengagement emails for inactive users
• "churn prevention" pre-renewal sequences
• feedback loops
• nurturing sequences for lead magnets
• upsell sequences

Let’s break this down before jumping to the one thing that would help you decide which of the following would make the most sense for your business:

• Segmentation

Basically, not treating everyone on your email list the same – which seems like an obvious thing but takes some planning to execute on. It could be something as simple as separating them into newsletter subscribers, free trial users, and paid users or segmenting by industry or interests.

The bottom line is delivering relevant emails that will be opened and read and would encourage actions aligned with readers’ goals.

• Job to be done (JTBD) or use-case-based onboarding sequences

Figuring out how to use a new product without feeling overwhelmed can be hard.

If there are multiple ways in which your customers can use your product, help them get to value faster by focusing your onboarding sequences on their most important goal.

• Pre-renewal sequences

“Your Year in Review” is not only for Spotify users.

Make it easier to advocate for keeping a subscription to your SaaS product by highlighting how it’s been helping achieve users’ and business goals.

• Feedback loops

One of the most underrated sequences – but if you have them in place, you’ll have access to an endless supply of ideas on how to improve your trial experience, product, messaging and so much more.

• Nurturing sequences for lead magnets

Not everyone who downloads a lead magnet is ready to convert – but it doesn't mean that you should only keep sending them a newsletter.

Instead, identify folks who are actively researching a solution and give them reasons to take the next step towards becoming a customer.

• Upsell sequences 

When are your product users ready to move to the next tier or buy add-on services?

Connect these sequences to product usage or changes in the number of users – and make sure you’re highlighting the value of taking action.

To be clear, all of those types of emails can help you move the needle, but the tricky part – as always – is executing on them in a way that brings you the results you need.

And this is where things often get derailed, because the One Thing – overall approach to planning emails – is missing.

And that one thing is aligning your email strategy with your readers’ goals. 

Of course, we all know that emails need to deliver value. What we sometimes forget is that there’s more than one way to do that.

It can be reporting on fixed bugs. It can be helping new users get better at accomplishing their JTBD. Or – and this one is extremely rare in B2B SaaS – it can be making someone feel seen and supported.

Here’s an example of a B2B SaaS email that actually does that.

Imagine logging into a SaaS product late at night or over the weekend instead of [insert any non-work related thing you would actually prefer to do instead] and getting this email:

Credits: Night Owl / Weekend Warrior email,
How To 4x Daily Active Users With SaaS Onboarding Emails, Tom Hunt, 10/06/2019

Even if you don’t actually need help, having someone acknowledge that “playing catch-up” late at night is not what you’d rather be doing is powerful (especially in the startup grind culture).

Technically, this email doesn’t have a CTA connected to business KPIs or a list of support articles that would help the reader achieve their goal. But whenever I run interviews for my startup clients, feeling supported is frequently mentioned in conversations with long-term users as one of the reasons they choose to continue using the product. It’s never the primary goal – but it definitely is a factor.

This brings us to the One Thing – understanding how you can help your audience achieve their goals in relation to your product. This can be something as straightforward as helping them accomplish their onboarding goals faster – and something as subtle as recognizing the needs of a user segment and offering them some extra help.

To get there, you need to understand how your prospects, trial users, and customers interact with your product and what their goals, challenges, and aspirations are.

Not a task you can get done in 2 weeks before the start of the next year – but this is where I see the biggest impact happen.

Here’s what you can do in the remaining time to get started on building your email strategy for 2024:

• Audit existing email sequences:
  • Which ones are performing well?
  • Which ones are underperforming?
• Any obvious gaps that you need to address first? Prioritize those.
• If not, what do you know about your customers’ journey from prospects to customers to renewed customers? Can you create a map of their experiences?
• If the answer is “not much,” start with your internal KPIs as key touchpoints and align them with your readers’ goals. If there’s no overlap, there’s likely no value for your audience. How can you fix that?
• Next step: customer research

For in-house folks, my favorite resource to recommend is Forget The Funnel book (that comes with a workbook) as a starting point.

It’s not focused on emails, but it’ll save you weeks, if not months, by guiding you through the process of figuring out what “understanding customers” means – and how to turn it into tactics, including emails for each stage of the customer journey.

🗞️ Things you might find interesting

• Like Spotify, Twitch is also providing a year-end recap in a unique way called The Twitch Recap Game. It's a great initiative that engages their audience in a fun and relevant way.

• Learn how to boost your Shopify store conversion metrics in our recent email edge session.

• A new study suggests that marketers & influencers are optimistic about AI’s impact on advertising. This also was the case when we interviewed a bunch of marketers who have used AI. See what they had to say below 👇

The Real Lives of AI Marketers | Worldwide Release

Join us for the worldwide release of Mailmodo's first original, The Real Lives of AI Marketers, in which expert marketers uncover questions about the future of marketing in the AI world. They also share their learnings about how you can onboard AI in your marketing stack.  

Mark your calendar for 11 AM EST, December 13, 2023

That's all, folks! I hope you enjoyed this edition with Ekaterina. 

If you want to hear more from her, check out her website or follow her on LinkedIn, where she posts content on how to turn customer research into converting copy. 

I'll see you all next month with more tips and ideas.

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