Think of email marketing as gardening. Just as you carefully select and sow seeds that will grow into beautiful plants, email marketing involves crafting and sending targeted emails to your audience.

You plant the seeds of information and offers, hoping they will take root and grow into meaningful engagement or conversions.

The good news is that there’s a wide range of email marketing messages you can send. Even better news? For every dollar spent in email marketing, you can confidently expect an ROI of about $36.

So which types of email marketing messages should you start sending ASAP? Let’s get straight to it.

1. Welcome Emails

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When your email automation is properly set up, a prospect’s completion of a form on your landing page should automatically trigger a welcome email.

According to GetResponses’s 2023 Email Marketing Benchmarks, welcome emails have an impressive open rate of 68.59% and a click-through rate of 16.05%. 

Despite this good response, remember this is your first email contact with the prospect. They might not be ready to do business with you just yet, so avoid using aggressive marketing language.

Instead, this initial email should lay the groundwork for gently nurturing the prospects’ trust, building solid relationships, and steadily guiding them toward the buying stage.

Creating impressive welcome emails can make your prospect more receptive to other types of emails from your business.

So how do you make your welcome emails impressive? Follow these guidelines. 

• Personalize the welcome emails: Create an intimate connection with your new subscribers by addressing them by their names.
• Be concise: Introduce your business briefly, avoid turning the welcome email into a sales pitch
• State the benefits of being a subscriber. The benefits should matter to your subscribers, such as exclusive discounts, subscribers-only tips, or free resources.
• Deliver your promise: If you offered something on your landing page, free-trial, e-book, coupon, etc., add it to the welcome email. Consider giving your new subscriber a gift even if no specific promise was made.

You can choose to have a full welcome email series. Use the series to:

• Educate prospects about your brand and promise
• Share about the products that are relevant to the subscribers 
• Invite them to your social media channels

2. Email Newsletters

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Email newsletters are one of the most popular types of email marketing messages. 

Newsletters are not about making sales, but informing, educating, and even entertaining your SaaS customers and prospects.

They help you stay on top of your subscribers’ minds. 

Here are some email marketing message ideas for your newsletters.

• Product updates: Keep your customers up-to-date on the latest features you’ve added to your products and extra functionality. Make it a brief description with a link to a custom page where the customer can get additional information.
• Brand stories: Bring your company’s history, mission, purpose, and values to life with an authentic story. It builds an emotional connection with your subscribers, leading to loyalty. 
• New content announcement: Inform subscribers about the fresh material published on your website. The messages can contain brief and intriguing descriptions or highlights of the content and a link to the content.
• Exclusive tips: Share practical tips, advice, or best practices related to your niche or products. They should address a problem or pain point relevant to your subscribers.   

So how do you create newsletters that people actually read?

• Each newsletter should have a single focus.
• Focus on readability. Make your email content simple, catchy, and straightforward.
• Connect your email content to trending topics and events.
• Have a strict schedule. Subscribers should know when to expect your communication. 

3. Dedicated Emails

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Dedicated emails are also known as stand-alone emails. They are messages that require special attention and a clear, singular focus. 

Dedicated emails can contain:

• An important announcement 
• One exclusive or limited time offer for your services. 
• An invitation to an event you’re hosting.
• An invitation to view a new white paper you’ve published.
• A product launch

With this type of email marketing campaign, you create a context that introduces a call to action. The CTA links to the related landing page.

Send effective dedicated emails using these tips:

• Have a clear objective and ensure your message aligns with it.
• The action you want the reader to take should be obvious from your CTA. Use clear and actionable language.
• Avoid unnecessary details or information that might distract the subscriber from the main message.

4. Lead Nurturing Emails

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Lead nurturing emails are essential for converting leads and fostering long-term customer relationships, making them a cornerstone of your email marketing strategy.

You can use past interactions to put an effective lead nurturing workflow into motion. 

For instance, after a customer has subscribed, you can follow up with:

• A thank-you email expressing gratitude for their subscription or for taking up the offer
• An exclusive offer on an upsell or cross-sell that complements their initial subscription
• Educational content on how to get the most out of the software

Aim at providing value, building trust, and encouraging the recipient to become a loyal subscriber and advocate for your SaaS. 

To succeed with this type of email, always focus on improving the user experience, not closing a sale.

5. Transactional Emails

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Transactional emails are triggered by an action a customer takes on your website. 

For instance, if they sign up for a free trial, they get a transactional email to confirm their subscription.

Although customers must engage with transactional emails to complete a transaction, don’t frustrate them with a sloppy email.

Use these tips:

• Make the subject line clear. The customer should easily spot the email in their inbox.
• Be concise. Provide a brief summary of the information the customer is expecting. 
• Include all necessary details depending on the purpose of the email. Make sure this information is presented clearly and is easy to understand.

6. Re-engagement Emails

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If data from your mail management software shows certain customers have been inactive, a re-engagement email re-establishes contact.

It brings your business back to their minds. And truth be told, regaining the attention of an inactive subscriber is much cheaper than acquiring a new customer.

If your re-engagement email achieves the opposite effect and your customer unsubscribes, look at the bright side. You’ll have a clean email list and your email engagement rates will soar.

High engagement rates makes internet service providers less likely to flag your emails as spam.

How do you get re-engagement emails right?

Pay special attention to your subject line. It should grab their interest. Try using a crazy and personalized offer or ask an intriguing question.

Once the subscriber has opened the email, you can:

• Describe how your company has changed
• Acknowledge them and remind them why they subscribed
• Highlight new benefits or value of your product or service

Don’t be annoying. If you’ve sent a re-engagement email to a customer before and got no response, they may not want to be contacted again. The best action is to remove them from your email list.

7. Video Emails

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According to GetResponse, adding a link to a Vimeo video in your emails can boost open rates by about 14%.

Video emails are excellent build engagement. They add visual appeal to your emails, making them more captivating and dynamic compared to plain text.

Videos also make it easy to convey complex information in an easily understandable format.

You can use a video to:

• Educate subscribers
• Invite subscribers to an event
• Thank customers
• Show your silly side with humorous content
• Announce contests
• Share customer testimonials

It pays to include the word ‘video’ in your subject lines.

8. Seasonal Campaign

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A seasonal campaign centers your campaign around a certain holiday, such as Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, or Christmas.

You need to start building excitement around your holiday offers early enough so that your customers know what to expect.

Here are a few tips you can use to make your seasonal email campaigns successful:

• Create FOMO by making your subscribers watch a ticking clock.
• Segment your email list based on geographic locations and keep track of the holidays in all locations.
• Be the first one to reach their inbox. You can be sure your subscribers will receive tons of offers around that season.
• The theme of your emails and tone of your copy should match the holiday.
• Be generous with your discounts. It creates excitement around it.

9. The Post-Purchase Drip

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Once the customer has made a purchase, do you stop at that? No. You build brand loyalty with a post-purchase email series.

Post-purchase emails are one of the least used email marketing types. Yet these follow-up emails reinforce the customers’ decision to make the purchase and build brand loyalty.

Here are some ideas you can use when creating this type of email marketing messages:

• Provide customer support resources
• Send subscription renewal reminders
• Educate customers about any integration options or customization features available with your software
• Offer training sessions or webinars to help customers deepen their understanding of your software and learn advanced tips and techniques
• Provide exclusive updates, new feature announcements, or special offers to keep customers informed about developments with your software
• Encourage customers to join a community or user forum where they can connect with other users

Start Sending Your Emails Today

The different types of email marketing campaigns you can carry out for your business are numerous. But at the end of the day, what matters is the value they bring to your subscribers.

Mix up the different types of email marketing messages with three rules mind:

• Only send relevant emails that keep your prospects interested in your brand and all you have to offer
• Don’t overdo it. Sending too many emails makes you spammy
• Use different types of email marketing messages to tactically move your customers through the sales funnel

Your focus should be on providing key information each individual subscriber needs to have a better customer experience.

Keep your subscribers engaged by using powerful subject lines, using clear and polished email designs, and where possible, give it a personal touch.