How to Creat Email Marketing Strategy & An Overview of Ready-to-Use Strategies

Wanna know how top-performing SaaS companies consistently hit their growth targets? 

There’s no magic wand. A significant part of their success lies in a well-crafted email marketing strategy. They make every message count, transforming communication into a strategic asset. 

In this guide, I bring you a practical, no-nonsense tutorial of what makes an effective email marketing strategy and why it’s so vital for businesses managing high-volume sending.  I focus on how to build an inbound, permission-based email strategies that actually work (no cold emailing). All the while, I explore tried-and-tested strategies and share real-world examples.

What is email marketing strategy? 

An email marketing strategy is a comprehensive plan for communicating with your audience via email. 

It is designed to systematically reach out to the right recipients with the right message at the right time, using the right email marketing content plan to drive business goals: sales, brand awareness, and build customer relationships.

To stress, this article focuses specifically on inbound email marketing strategies. This type of digital marketing involves communicating with people who have already shown interest in your brand and opted in. In turn, you get to build relationships with old and new customers and drive conversions through permission-based engagement.

If you’d like to know more about other types of email marketing, we’ve already blogged about it, so check the link ◀️. 

Also, when I talk about email marketing strategy, I’m referring to the realm beyond simply sending emails and hoping for the best. At a high level, you should conceptualize the strategy through four fundamental components:

1. The problem: This initial phase involves clearly identifying the specific challenges or opportunities your email efforts aim to address. Are you struggling with trial-to-paid conversion? High churn rates among new users? Maybe, low adoption of special offers? Pinpointing these specific “problems” or areas for improvement is the crucial first step in building an email marketing campaign strategy.
2. Research and raw data: Once a problem is identified, this component focuses on gathering the necessary information. This means digging into your existing email performance analytics (unsubscribe rate, email open rates, churn, etc.), user behavior data, customer feedback, market trends, and competitor analysis. Understanding your audience, their pain points, and how they interact with your product provides the insights to craft effective solutions.
3. Solutions: Armed with a clear problem definition and robust data, this phase is about brainstorming and formulating a concrete email marketing plan, automation workflows, content strategy, and segmentation approaches designed to solve the identified problems. This is where you design the “what” and “how” of your email communications.
4. Roadmap: The final component brings it all together into an actionable strategy plan. This involves outlining the sequence of your campaigns, setting timelines, allocating resources, defining key performance indicators (KPIs) for success, and establishing a clear path for implementation, testing, and continuous optimization. It’s your blueprint for putting the Solutions (email marketing tactics) into practice and measuring their impact.

Approaching the email marketing strategy through these components gives you the upper hand to transform a series of individual messages into a great email system that strategically supports your business’s growth objectives.

Email marketing strategy examples 

For SaaS companies that often operate with high-volume email sending, email marketing is a critical channel for user acquisition, onboarding, engagement, and retention. 

Therefore it made most sense for me to categorize the examples based on customer lifecycle stage and business models dominant in the SaaS landscape.

Note: These email marketing tips and case studies would also work for a small business looking to expand its reach. But keep in mind that it would require tactful adjustments to the strategy goal and the strategy outline.

Strategies for user acquisition and onboarding 

Besides email, there’s hardly a better way to guide prospective users through the initial user stages – from interest to becoming active, paying customers. 

One of the main reasons for that is consent. I mean, the moment someone signs up for your email newsletter, trial, or offer, they’ve expressed interest and the motivation to engage. Here are the strategies to help you make the best of this momentum. 

Freemium/trial nurturing campaigns

These campaigns typically involve a series of automated emails that welcome the user, highlight key features, provide tips and tutorials, and address common pain points. The goal is to demonstrate the full potential of the product and help users get up to speed as soon as possible.
Asana, a popular project management tool, excels at this. Their onboarding emails are highly personalized, suggesting relevant templates or integrations based on initial user setup.

They often include links to helpful guides and webinars, subtly nudging users toward deeper engagement and understanding the advantages of premium features. The emails include a clear call-to-action for upgrading, sometimes with a limited-time incentive.

Webinar and content promotion

For high-volume senders, promoting webinars, whitepapers, or insightful blog posts can drive leads and establish thought leadership.

These emails focus on providing educational value, inviting prospects to learn more about industry challenges or solutions that your SaaS product addresses. They’re designed to attract new sign-ups or re-engage existing leads.

HubSpot, a well-known CRM and marketing platform, frequently runs high-volume email campaigns promoting their extensive library of free resources, including webinars on inbound marketing, sales, and service. 

Strategies for engagement and retention 

Once users are onboarded, the focus shifts to keeping them active, demonstrating ongoing value, and preventing churn. Here are the email marketing strategies that let you achive exactly that. 

Feature adoption and usage tips

High-volume senders can segment users by their engagement with specific features and send targeted emails to encourage broader product adoption.

These emails should provide tips, tricks, and tutorials on how to use features the user might not have even touched, or introduce new functionalities that could enhance their workflow. Anyway, let me give you an example that’s likely to hit close to home. 

Grammarly frequently sends “Tips & Tricks” emails or “What’s New” updates that highlight less-used features or recent product enhancements.

These emails are typically concise, visual, and directly applicable. They show users how to get more out of the platform and reinforce its utility for team communication.

Customer feedback and NPS surveys

Regular user feedback loops are crucial for SaaS product improvement. These emails also show customers their opinions matter. Short, direct emails asking for feedback via surveys (e.g., NPS – Net Promoter Score) or direct replies can gather valuable insights and identify potential churn risks or advocates. 

Note: Feel free to ask users about the disadvantages of your product or service. Besides high-volume senders, this is particularly beneficial for small businesses, retailers, or any growing business. 

Companies like Miro send periodic emails asking for feedback on service quality, new features, or overall satisfaction. This not only helps them improve their service but also makes users feel heard and valued, contributing to a stronger customer relationship.

Pro tips:

• In my experience surveys that are gamified and offer a meaningful reward convert best. Miro, in the example above, runs a gift card raffle, but you could also offer a small discount. 
• Always be explicit about the time it takes to complete a quiz or survey, this could affect your click-through rate.

Re-engagement campaigns

A targeted re-engagement strategy can prevent churn with users showing signs of decreased activity. These campaigns aim to win back inactive subscribers by reminding them of the product’s value, highlighting recent improvements, or offering a personalized incentive (e.i, a coupon) to return.

Now, let’s take Venmo, the payment platform. If a user stops logging into their app or fails to update the service, their re-engagement emails might showcase the latest developments, extended offers, and the revamped loyalty program. 

Tip: Highlight what users are missing or how a recent update directly benefits their previous use case.

Strategies for conversion and upselling

I’m sure you don’t need an email marketing strategy consultant to tell you that email remains a powerful tool for converting trial users to paid customers. The same goes for encouraging existing users to upgrade or expand their service. Here are the strategies you can employ. 

Abandoned onboarding and setup nudges

Similar to e-commerce cart abandonment, users often start setting up a SaaS account or trial but don’t complete the process. These emails gently remind users to finish their setup, offering assistance or highlighting the immediate benefits of completing the initial steps. 

Many streaming platforms, like Hulu, send automated emails to users who signed up for a trial but haven’t converted or even used the platform.

These emails might offer direct links to setup guides, video tutorials, or even invite them to a personalized onboarding call with a sales representative, effectively removing friction points. Or, as in Hulu’s case, have a super direct, tactful copy that borders on being pushy, yet it highlights all the goodies users like.

Upsell/cross-sell communications

For high-volume senders, identifying opportunities to introduce higher-tier plans or complementary products is crucial for revenue growth.

These campaigns rely on highly granular email list segmentation, targeting users who are hitting limits on their current plan, actively using a feature that’s part of a higher tier, or could benefit from an add-on. They focus on demonstrating the additional value of the upgrade.

Otter, the automatic note-taking app, is very good at these emails. They email free users, demonstrating the advanced features available in their premium version (e.g., turning notes into actionable steps) with concrete examples of how these features can improve their workflow. The emails clearly articulate the benefits of upgrading to tackle more complex tasks.

Want to check out more strategies? Tune into our dedicated video:

Why is email marketing strategy important 

Email marketing is important because it determines whether your efforts will bring real, measurable business results or will be a waste of resources.

Let’s break down into real business cases.

Improves email deliverability

There are a bunch of technical aspects that can make or break the deliverability, and we already covered those extensively in a different article. (Hit the link to learn more about the technical side.)

But, in this section, I’d like to view deliverability from a strategic vantage point. So, besides all the technical stuff, the secret sauce lies in a well-thought-out approach that aligns with your audience’s needs and expectations. It’s about sending the right content to the right person at the right time.

To be more specific, a cohesive strategic plan considers your audience’s journey, preferred content types, and optimal sending times. Basically, your job is to tactfully define the following elements:

• Understand who your users are. 
• What do the users need?
• When they’re most receptive to your messaging. 

If you nail the answers to these questions, your messages are more likely to land in the inbox (get higher deliverability). Plus, the emails are much more likely to get opened and engaged with. 

Consequently, you get into a positive feedback loop with the ESPs. I mean, high engagement rates (opens, clicks, replies) signal to email service providers (ESPs) that your emails are valuable, improving your sender reputation and, in turn, your deliverability. 

And, at the very top level, the cycle goes like this – better strategic choices lead to higher engagement, which leads to even better deliverability, ensuring your vital communications (onboarding, feature updates, billing) consistently reach their mark.

Makes email marketing a high ROI channel

Research consistently shows email marketing can generate an average ROI of $36 for every $1 spent, with some sectors reporting even higher figures. 

For SaaS, where customer lifetime value (CLTV) is key, the ability of email to nurture leads, convert trials, and reduce churn directly translates into significant revenue.

But, the impressive ROI isn’t accidental. 

It’s the direct result of a clear communication blueprint that dictates whom to target, how to personalize messages, and what language resonates best with specific user segments. By strategically segmenting your audience and tailoring content, you make every email more relevant, boosting conversion rates for trials, upgrades, and retention efforts.

Finally, as other digital channels face increasing costs and complexities (e.g., rising ad costs, SEO shifts influenced by AI, platform algorithm changes), the direct, owned nature of email becomes even more invaluable. Email marketing offers a relatively stable and controllable environment to reach your audience, making it a critical asset in future-proofing your marketing efforts.

Provides long-term growth of email marketing

Marketing channels such as social media are often considered as ‘rented’. To clarify, the social media platform owners provide (and often deny) access to followers and their respective data. In contrast, email provides direct ownership of your contact list and the rich behavioral data associated with it.

This distinction is fundamental for sustained growth. 

Investing time and resources into building your email list and refining your communication strategy is akin to building a valuable, proprietary asset. You own the connection and, more importantly, the data, giving you unparalleled flexibility and control over your email templates, messaging, and audience insights. 

A data-driven email marketing Roadmap allows you to plan out sophisticated, long-term marketing and sales funnels. From initial lead nurturing and trial onboarding to ongoing engagement, upsell sequences, and win-back campaigns, each step can be strategically mapped out. 

This ensures that every interaction moves users along their journey with your product, transforming initial interest into loyal, high-value customers. The strategy defines how you gather this audience, segment their data, and leverage email marketing tools to build enduring relationships that fuel continuous growth.

This allows for deep personalization and highly targeted campaigns that drive value over the years, not just days. 

But the value of personalization doesn’t stop here, read on 🔽.

Builds direct relationships through personalization

Think of an email strategy as your plan to know your audience truly, no matter how big or small it might be. 

The idea is to move beyond generic email blasts aimed at conversions and use email communication to understand your audience’s interests, behaviors, and preferences. These insights fuel segmentation, allowing you to send highly relevant content to specific groups. 

For instance, a dev-centric SaaS can send entry-level implementation tips to students (or beginners) and senior software architecture tips to veteran full-stack devs. 

This level of personalization drastically reduces the chance of emails being marked as spam and boosts engagement metrics. Even for businesses targeting seemingly “niche” audiences (like developers), a strategy focused on providing genuine value and relevant technical content via email is effective. 

To conclude, email’s suitability isn’t about audience size but about strategic, informed communication.

How to create an email marketing strategy 

In the coming sections, I’ll show you how to create a strategy from ground up. But, there’s also nuggets of wisdom for those looking to refine their existing email marketing strategy and identify noticeable gaps. 

Overall, I aim to teach you how to collect scattered emails into a coherent, impactful plan that can genuinely push your business forward. 

As mentioned a few times before, that involves a systematic approach, touching on everything from defining your objectives to continuously refining tactics. 

Okay, I understand it might sound overly complex. But let me remind you, when approached through the lens of four strategic components (The Problem, Research and Raw Data, Solutions and Roadmap) the strategy is much less the angry T-Rex in your office.

So, here’s what to focus on.

The goal

It might sound obvious, but clearly defining your goals is the absolute bedrock of any successful email marketing initiative. Without a target, your efforts can easily drift. If you’re new to this, don’t feel locked in; flexibility and iteration are your allies. 

Check the substeps I use to nail the goal:

1. [Reminder] Identify your problem: Begin by pinpointing the specific problem or opportunity you want to address. Are you looking to boost free trial conversions, reduce user churn, increase feature adoption, or drive upgrades to higher-tier plans?
2. Set measurable objectives: For SMEs, setting SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) is crucial. For instance:
   • “Increase user onboarding completion rate by 20% within the next two months through automated welcome email sequences.”
   • “Improve engagement with new feature announcements by achieving a 25% click-through rate over the next quarter among active users.”
   • “Convert 15% of trial users to paid subscriptions by optimizing our trial nurture emails over the next 90 days.”
3. Iterative adjustment: Your initial goals are a starting point; use real-world feedback and split testing to adjust and scale the goals as you uncover what truly resonates with your audience and drives results. This iterative refinement is key to shaping your Roadmap.

Audience and segmentation

Understanding is the intelligence that fuels all your Solutions. While it arguably feels like the very first step, its insights will flow throughout your entire strategy. Here’s how to approach it:

• Deep dive into research and raw data: This phase is about truly knowing the people you’re talking to. Dig into their pain points, their “jobs-to-be-done” (what they’re trying to achieve), the factors influencing their product choices, the content they consume, and even the language they use. It helps you define the benchmark for good email messaging. For SaaS, this process is often tightly integrated with product development and user research.
• Gain insights: If you’re starting with limited insights, get creative. Explore relevant online communities (e.g., Reddit, Slack groups), initiate discussions on platforms like LinkedIn, leverage AI-powered deep research marketing services for initial hypotheses, or conduct simple outreach to existing customers.
• Strategic segmentation: Once you understand your audience, you can strategically segment them. This involves dividing your subscribers into smaller groups based on shared characteristics (e.g., user behavior, lifecycle stage, plan type, industry, feature usage). Effective segmentation is vital for delivering highly personalized and relevant Solutions through marketing automation, ensuring your high-volume sends feel individual.
• Build your list ethically: A crucial strategic consideration for the long term – never buy email lists! Always focus on building permission-based lists through ethical subscriber mechanisms. Ensure your sign-up processes are transparent and compliant with regulations like GDPR, CCPA, or HIPAA (if you handle medical data). Your list is a valuable asset, and its quality directly impacts your deliverability and long-term success.

Email marketing platform

Choosing the right email marketing platform is a foundational decision that impacts your ability to execute your entire strategy. And I wouldn’t exaggerate to say that it’s not just a tool, but a strategic partner. Here are the parameters to keep in mind. 

• Beyond basic features: Some platforms offer convenient features like signup form or pop-up builders (helpful for list building), but the underlying infrastructure is much more critical for high-volume SaaS senders. This includes robust deliverability features like IP pooling, IP warm-up support, and strong sender reputation management. 
• Enable your solutions and roadmap: Look for an email marketing platform that provides powerful segmentation and automation capabilities, enabling you to implement the nuanced Solutions you’ve designed. The platform should empower you to create complex user journeys and scale your communications effectively. This strategic choice directly underpins your capacity to execute the Roadmap you’ve planned.

Content and personalization 

With your goals set, target audience understood, and platform in place, your content becomes the voice of your Solutions. It’s how you deliver value and move users forward. So, do the following. 

• Tailor content to your goals: The specific content you create should directly align with the type of emails you’re sending and the goals you want to achieve.
• Build content marketing funnel: You can construct logical content funnels based on your audience research. For lead nurturing, ensure your email content addresses jobs-to-be-done, pain points, and helps prospects navigate their product selection process. To push users through sales cycles, focus on showcasing relevant product features, use cases, or upsell opportunities that directly address their evolving needs.
• Don’t forget the power of personalization: Beyond addressing users by name, personalization means sending content that’s genuinely relevant to their behavior, preferences, and position in the customer lifecycle.
• Optimize email subject lines: Don’t underestimate the power of your subject lines. They are the gatekeepers to your content. Focus on clarity, curiosity, and relevance, and make subject line optimization a continuous part of your testing efforts.

Email sending 

Strategic email sending is about orchestrating your messages to arrive at the optimal moment, maximizing visibility and engagement. I know you expect some bullets, therefore…

• Strategic timing: Your objective is to strategically time your emails so they are most likely to be seen and opened. Consider user behavior patterns, key moments in the user lifecycle (e.g., onboarding milestones, trial expiry), or even specific product usage triggers.
• Go beyond general best practices: While general research on “best times to send” can offer a starting point, remember that everyone uses the same research. The most effective approach for your SaaS is to form a hypothesis about optimal sending times, then rigorously test it within your specific audience.
• Test and validate: Your initial suggestions for sending schedules are just that – suggestions. Use testing to gather real feedback on open rates and engagement, and then adjust your Roadmap accordingly. This continuous validation is crucial for optimizing your email delivery for a high-volume environment.

Tip: If you also send user-triggered, transactional emails, on top of marketing, their deliverability needs to be 95 %+.

A/B testing 

If developing your email approach means planning, ideation, and reflection on outcomes, then A/B testing is your indispensable tool for gathering tangible feedback on how well your Solutions are performing. 

Check the main components of running successful A/B tests. 

• Strategic validation: A/B testing allows you to systematically experiment with different elements of your emails (from subject lines and calls-to-action to content blocks and sending times) to understand what truly resonates with your audience. This isn’t just about minor tweaks; it’s about validating or challenging underlying assumptions within your Problem, Research and Raw Data, and Solutions phases.
• Adjusting your roadmap: The insights gleaned from A/B tests provide the crucial data needed to adjust your overall Roadmap. If a particular onboarding sequence isn’t converting as expected, A/B testing helps you pinpoint why and then optimize it.
• Continuous experimentation: Embrace experimentation. Focus on establishing a testing cycle, and then continuously test different strategic approaches within those cycles to uncover what drives the best results for your new product and audience. This iterative feedback loop is what makes your strategy dynamic and effective over the long term.

Best email marketing strategies 

When I talk about “email marketing strategies,” it’s not just the overarching planning framework we discussed earlier (the Problem, Research & Raw Data, Solutions, and Roadmap). It’s also about the actionable, proven approaches and techniques that constitute the most effective Solutions for your SaaS business, particularly if you’re managing high-volume sending. 

Think of this as your implementation guide to building a truly impactful email program. Below are the tested methodologies that transform your strategic vision into tangible results, ensuring your email efforts contribute meaningfully to customer acquisition, engagement, and, more importantly, customer loyalty.

Note: I’ll repeat a few previously mentioned points to ensure you understand how the given actions fit strategic workflows.

Focus on deliverability  

The most brilliant email campaign is useless if it doesn’t reach the inbox. For high-volume senders, robust deliverability isn’t a technical detail; it’s a fundamental pillar of your email success, directly impacting your ROI. 

As I highlighted in “Why email marketing is important,” deliverability fuels your reputation and directly influences engagement. And here are the areas to pay attention to:

• Implement robust email authentication: A critical Solution to prevent spoofing and ensure your emails are trusted is to set up and maintain strong email authentication protocols like SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance). These act as your digital ID, verifying your sender legitimacy to Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
• Proactively manage sender reputation: Your sender reputation (for both IP and domain) is crucial. Consistently monitor feedback loops, bounce rates, and spam complaints. A decline in these metrics signals issues that need immediate attention to avoid blocklisting.
• Ensure high-quality, permission-based email lists: As discussed in “How to create an email marketing strategy,” building a clean, permission-based list is paramount. Regularly validate email addresses and remove invalid or inactive contacts. This hygiene prevents bounces and complaints, which harm your sender score.
• Craft engaging content for inbox placement: Beyond authentication, the content itself influences deliverability. Avoid common spam triggers (excessive links, all caps, certain keywords). Focus on valuable, relevant content that encourages positive engagement signals (opens, clicks, replies), which ISPs interpret favorably.
• Adopt strategic sending practices: For high-volume senders, strategic IP warm-up for new IPs, consistent sending volumes, and targeted segmentation (as opposed to blasting your entire list) are crucial. This tells ISPs you’re a legitimate sender, not a spambot.

Email list management

To remind you, your email list is your most valuable owned asset. Strategically managing and segmenting it transforms generic sends into highly relevant, impactful communications. From a helicopter view, these actions directly inform your Solutions and maximize the value of your Research and Raw Data.

Here’s how to manage the list properly:

• Enforce strict permission and consent: Building on our earlier discussion, you need to adhere to double opt-in best practices and regulations like GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) as if your life depended on it. This ensures high-quality, engaged email subscribers and protects your brand.
• Implement proactive list hygiene and real-time validation: Don’t wait for bounces. Use real-time validation tools at the point of sign-up and regularly clean the list to remove invalid or risky addresses. This saves sending costs and protects your sender’s reputation.
• Utilize strategic and dynamic segmentation: This is where insights from your Research and Raw Data truly shine. In a nutshell, dynamic segmentation allows you to deliver highly relevant Solutions at every stage of the customer journey. So, segment your list based on diverse criteria such as:
  • Behavioral: Feature usage, content downloads, trial progress, landing page visits, login frequency.
  • Engagement: Open rates, click-through rates, recency of interaction.
  • Demographic/firmographic: Company size, industry, role (especially critical for B2B SaaS).
  • Preferences: Topics of interest, frequency of communication (via a preference center).
• Actively manage subscriber engagement and implement sunset policies: Identify inactive subscribers who haven’t engaged in a long time. Implement re-engagement campaigns (as covered in “Email marketing strategy examples”) and, if unsuccessful, establish a sunset policy to remove them. Sending to disengaged users hurts your deliverability and ROI.
• Provide clear preference centers and easy unsubscribe options: Empowering new subscribers to control their experience builds trust. A well-designed preference center lets them update their interests or frequency, while an easy unsubscribe option reduces spam complaints.

Email automation

For SMEs handling high-volume email sending, automation is the engine that executes your Solutions consistently and at scale, turning your Roadmap into reality. It ensures timely, relevant messages without manual effort. So, do the following:

• Identify key customer journey touchpoints: Map out the critical moments in your SaaS customer’s lifecycle where automated emails can add significant value. Think:
  • Welcome series: Onboarding new sign-ups/trial users.
  • Lead nurturing: Guiding prospects through the sales funnel.
  • Abandoned cart/trial: Follow-up emails to remind users to complete their setup or purchase.
  • Feature adoption/education: Driving usage of key product functionalities.
  • Re-engagement: Winning back inactive users.
  • Upsell/cross-sell: Promotional emails for higher plans or complementary products.
• Design strategic automation workflows: Don’t just set up single emails. Build interconnected sequences that react to user behavior. For instance, if a trial user completes step A, send email X; if they don’t, send reminder Y.
• Leverage behavioral triggers and data: The power of automation lies in its responsiveness. Use real-time user actions (e.g., logging in, completing a task, hitting a usage limit, viewing a pricing page) as triggers for highly contextual messages. This draws directly from your Research and Raw Data.
• Implement personalization at scale: Within automated sequences, dynamic content and advanced merge tags allow you to personalize messages for thousands of users simultaneously, making high-volume sends feel tailored.
• Set clear goals and KPIs for each workflow: For each automation, define what success looks like (e.g., increased activation rate, reduced churn, higher conversion to paid). This allows you to measure the effectiveness of your Solutions and refine your Roadmap.
• Regularly review, test, and optimize performance: Automation isn’t “set it and forget it.” Continuously monitor workflow performance, A/B test variations within sequences, and adjust based on data to maximize their impact.

Content personalization

Generic emails rarely cut through the noise. Deep personalization transforms your emails into highly relevant conversations, making each message a potent Solution directly informed by your Research and Raw Data.

• Leverage diverse subscriber data: Go beyond just first names. Utilize all available data such as:
  • Demographics: (if relevant for your SaaS target)
  • Behavioral: Past interactions with your product, website activity, email engagement.
  • Preferences: Stated interests, content topics they engage with.
  • Purchase history/subscription level: For upsell/cross-sell opportunities.
• [Reminder] Strategic segmentation as the foundation: As explored in “How to create an email marketing strategy,” robust segmentation is the prerequisite for effective personalization. The more precisely you segment, the more relevant your dynamic content can be.
• Implement dynamic content and personalized recommendations: This is the execution phase. Use dynamic content blocks that change based on subscriber segments or individual data points (e.g., showing features relevant to their current plan, recommending integrations based on their usage, or suggesting content based on their Browse history).
• Tailoring messages to lifecycle stages and triggers: Personalization is most powerful when it aligns with where a user is in their journey. An onboarding email will differ significantly from a re-engagement email or a new feature announcement, even for the same user. Messages triggered by real-time behavioral cues are highly effective.
• A/B test personalization elements: To truly optimize, continuously A/B test different levels and types of personalization. Does including their recent activity in the subject line perform better? Does a product recommendation based on similar users convert more?
• Ensuring data privacy and consent: All personalization efforts must be conducted with strict adherence to data privacy regulations (like GDPR) and transparent consent. Trust is paramount for long-term customer relationships.

Mobile optimization

A significant portion of your SaaS users will interact with your emails on mobile devices. A mobile-first approach is no longer an option; it’s a strategic imperative to ensure your Solutions are accessible and engaging everywhere.

• Prioritize responsive email design: Your emails must automatically adapt to any screen size (smartphones, tablets, desktops) without compromising readability or usability. This is the baseline for effective mobile engagement.
• Optimize for readability on mobile: Think concise email copy, larger font sizes (typically 14-16px for body text), ample line spacing, and single-column layouts for easier scrolling. Avoid overly dense paragraphs.
• Ensure fast load times: Mobile users are impatient. Compress images, minimize complex coding, and ensure your email loads quickly to prevent abandonment.
• Design finger-friendly Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons: CTAs should be prominent, easy to tap (at least 44×44 pixels), and clearly guide the user’s next action.
• Craft mobile-first subject lines and preheader text: Mobile screens truncate long subject lines. Keep them concise (30-50 characters), impactful, and use preheader text effectively to provide additional context and entice opens.
• Consistently preview and test: Always preview and test your emails across various mobile devices and email clients (iOS Mail, Android Gmail, Outlook Mobile, etc.) before sending your high-volume campaigns. What looks good on desktop might break on mobile.

Testing and optimization (the iterative Roadmap)

The “best” email marketing strategy is never static. It’s a dynamic, evolving Roadmap that’s constantly refined through data-driven insights. As I briefly discussed in “How to create an email marketing strategy,” testing is your compass, and here are some more pointers. 

• Beyond basic A/B testing: While A/B testing individual elements (subject lines, CTAs, visuals) is crucial, elevate your approach. Test broader strategic hypotheses: Does a new onboarding flow increase activation? Does a different re-engagement series bring more users back?
• Establishing a culture of experimentation: Encourage your team to continuously question assumptions and propose new tests. Every email sent should be viewed as an opportunity to learn and improve.
• Define clear hypotheses: Before you test, clearly state what you expect to happen and why. This helps you interpret results and make informed strategic adjustments to your Solutions.
• Analyze results and iterate: Don’t just look at open rates. Dive into click-through rates, conversion rates, time spent, and ultimately, the impact on key SaaS metrics (e.g., trial-to-paid conversion, churn reduction). Use these Research and Raw Data insights to inform your next steps and refine your Roadmap.
• Embrace the iterative loop: The journey of a “best strategy” is an ongoing cycle of planning (Problem), understanding (Research and Raw Data), designing (Solutions), implementing (Roadmap), and refining (Testing). This continuous loop ensures your content marketing remains effective and adaptable to changing user behavior and market conditions.

Lastly, if you’d like to see what not to do, check out video below.

Wrapping up

Forget shouting into crowded social media feeds and hoping someone hears. Email offers you a golden ticket: a direct, permission-based line to the people most interested in what you offer. 

But that line is only powerful with a strategy behind it. By focusing on the core pillars – getting delivered, managing your community, speaking directly to individuals, and constantly refining your approach – you turn that direct line into a reliable revenue engine and relationship builder.