The 5 Email Automation Strategies Every B2B SaaS Startup Needs

Where can you apply an email automation strategy to maximize its power? And what kinds of strategies make the most sense for B2B SaaS startups?

Consider the following:

1. Encouraging webinar registrants to bring their coworkers, boss, and other key stakeholders -- generating additional inbound leads and supporting account-based marketing/ABM. As B2B SaaS startups march towards product/market fit and carefully set and refine their ideal client profile (ICP), multiple stakeholders usually appear as users and key stakeholders in the buying process. Because of this decision-by-committee mindset, your webinar registration strategy should do whatever's needed to encourage registration and attendance by multiple stakeholders from the same company. A simple email automation strategy can make this truly a set-it-and-forget-it.
2. Accelerating early-stage inbound leads (awareness) to mid-stage (consideration) and late-stage (decision) -- accelerating sales cycles As you create your buyer personas and map out the buyer's journey that each of your most important stakeholders progresses through, SaaS startups inevitably create content offers for various journey stages and buyer personas. To stack the odds of your early-stage inbound leads self-propelling from awareness to consideration to decision, set up simple email nurturing workflow automation that proactively suggests content offers that would be the logical next step in the buyer's journey.
3. Educating and building trust over time by sharing persona- and lifecycle-stage specific content -- critical for high-ticket, long sales cycle, considered sales processes. With so many B2B buyers now strongly preferring a digital buyer's journey, where there's little, if any, sales conversation required, your content needs to do the heavy lifting to accelerate leads through their buyer's journey. What kinds of content? Video content and webinar events can greatly educate and build trust with your most interested prospects. And very basic email automation can make sure that your best prospects get exposed to this kind of helpful content at the right time and in the right context.
4. Prospecting with email sequences to book meetings -- providing value and piquing curiosity over a series of messages to generate self-booked meetings for sales teams. Most B2B SaaS startups get terrible results from outbound emails because they essentially propose marriage on the first date -- when prospects haven't even gotten to know you. Approached with the right mind to educate and build trust, outbound email sequences, like those delivered with HubSpot Sales Hub Professional and Enterprise, can be powerful tools for prospecting that ultimately motivates hot prospects to self-book meetings.
5. Keeping internal stakeholders in the loop on trigger events -- allowing sales reps to respond immediately on high-value website revisits of known, owned contacts. Want to know the best time to pay attention to a high-value prospect? Quite simply, when that prospect is paying attention to you. But how do you know when this happens? Most marketing automation platforms can automatically email sales reps or other interested stakeholders on your team when a prospect revisits your website or completes another trigger event action of interest.

Are you part of a B2B SaaS startup? How do you currently use email automation? Let me know in the comments box below.

And if your team needs to grow faster by using automation technology to be more proactive about its email marketing strategy, enroll now in our free 7-day eCourse: Go-to-Market Strategy 101 for B2B SaaS Startups and Scaleups.