In this article, I am going to walk you through how to get started with a SaaS cold email strategy, including essential tools, crafting effective emails, planning sequences, and targeting the right audience to boost your MRR.
What is SaaS Cold Email?
SaaS cold email is a targeted outreach strategy used by Software as a Service (SaaS) companies to connect with potential customers who have not previously interacted with their brand.
Unlike typical marketing emails sent to an existing subscriber list, cold emails are sent to individuals who haven’t shown prior interest in the company’s products or services.
The primary goal of a SaaS cold email is to generate interest, nurture leads, and ultimately convert recipients into paying customers.
This method is particularly effective for SaaS businesses as it allows them to directly reach decision-makers and key stakeholders, offering personalized solutions to their specific pain points.
Why Cold Email is Important for SaaS Businesses
Cold email for SaaS businesses is one of the best way to get started as well as to bring the highest paying customers as it gives you great targeting ability.
It’s used by thousands of SaaS around the world to generate profit and reach new customers and one of my favorite ways to consistently bring new customers.
Cold email for SaaS has so many benefits, but I would like to mention the 4 biggest benefits of running SaaS cold email strategy.
1. Affordable Low Customer Acquisition Cost
One of the biggest advantages of using cold email for SaaS businesses is its affordability.
The overall cost of setting up a cold email campaign is relatively low compared to other marketing strategies such as SEO, PPC, or social media.
Here’s a breakdown of typical expenses:
- New domain: $10-$15
- Contact finder: $29-$89
- Cold email sending software: $39-$100
- Optional warmup email: $39-$59 (many cold email tools include this)
- Optional cold email/sequence generator: $100-$300
These costs are minimal, especially considering the potential return on investment.
In fact, cold email has an ROI of about 1:42.
Cold emailing allows SaaS companies to reach a large number of potential customers without significant upfront expenditure, making it an attractive option for startups and businesses looking to optimize their marketing budgets.
And one of my top choices to grow SaaS!
2. Fast in Acquiring New Customers
Cold email campaigns offer a quick path to acquiring new customers for SaaS businesses.
Unlike other marketing methods, which can take months or years to yield results, cold emailing can start generating responses and leads for your business within a few weeks.
Typically, I see it takes between 2-3 months to begin acquiring customers from the first set of emails.
This fast turnaround time is ideal for SaaS companies looking to scale quickly and efficiently or quickly getting some cash to kick start the growth.
By targeting specific decision-makers and presenting tailored solutions, cold emails can quickly convert your prospects into paying customers.
This speed in customer acquisition not only accelerates growth but also helps businesses stay ahead in the competitive SaaS market.
And it allows you to invest in other marketing channels such as PPC.
3. Great for New SaaS Businesses
Cold emailing is an excellent strategy for new SaaS businesses, especially those with limited marketing budgets.
It provides a cost-effective and straightforward way to reach your potential customers without the need for significant upfront investment.
Unlike from advertising, SEO, or PPC campaigns, which can be expensive and complex to manage, cold emailing is relatively easy to implement and less time consuming over time.
With affordable tools and services available for finding contacts and sending emails, startups like yours can quickly launch targeted campaigns.
This approach enables your SaaS business to market your products effectively, generate leads, and build a customer base rapidly, all while keeping expenses low.
For startups looking to gain traction fast, SaaS cold emailing offers an accessible and efficient solution.
4. Relatively Easy to Start
And the last SaaS cold email benefit and the reason why it’s so gooooood is that it’s easy.
Unlike PPC and SEO, cold emailing is relatively easy to get right, making it an ideal marketing strategy for you.
With cold email, you don’t need to master complex algorithms or spend hours managing ads.
You can quickly learn the basics and start seeing results. Within a week, you can become proficient at crafting effective emails that engage your target audience.
There are plenty of resources and tools available to help you automate and personalize your campaigns, simplifying the process even further.
By focusing on creating compelling messages and targeting the right prospects, you can generate leads and convert them into customers without a steep learning curve.
Cold emailing offers a straightforward, efficient way to boost your SaaS business.
How is SaaS Cold Email Different?
SaaS cold email differs from traditional cold emailing by focusing on the unique needs and pain points of potential customers that your SaaS solution solves.
Your goal is to tailor your cold emails to showcase how your SaaS solution can solve specific problems or improve efficiency for the potential customer.
For example, if you’re selling CRM solution, then highlight how your software can streamline their customer management processes, improve lead tracking, and boost sales team productivity.
Thus, SaaS cold email targeted approach requires a deep understanding of your audience’s industry and challenges.
Additionally, SaaS cold emails often emphasize product demos or free trials to entice recipients to experience your software firsthand.
By highlighting clear benefits and offering immediate value without any commitment you increase the chances of engaging and converting prospects.
8 Step Plan to Create Your SaaS Cold Email Strategy
Alright now when we get over the boring stuff, let’s move to the actional part of this article.
In this section I am going to walk you through how to start with SaaS cold email.
I’ll walk you holding your hand just like you would be my baby marketer and you’re making your first cold email steps.
My goal is to make it as easy as possible for you to get started!
Step 1: Prepare for Sending Cold Emails
First, purchase a cold email domain that’s similar to your main domain.
For example, if your main domain is example.com, consider purchasing example.info or example.email.
This helps protect your primary domain’s reputation.
Once you have your cold email domain, start warming it up to build a positive sender reputation.
It’s recommended to have at least 2-3 months old domain before you start sending your cold emails. ( I know it’s bummer…)
Warming up your domain will be covered more in Step 2.
Also, redirect your cold email domain to your main domain to maintain brand consistency and ensure recipients can easily find your primary website.
This setup is crucial for avoiding spam filters and ensuring high deliverability rates for your cold email campaigns.
Step 2: Get All the Tools Needed
First, to get you started you will need to get a few essential tools such as:
- Cold email sending software: This tool ensures that you can actually send cold emails to your prospects. Some of the tools I recommend are Instantly, Woodpecker, Lemlist, Salesblink, or Mailshake.
- Prospecting software: This tool helps you find your prospects based on criteria such as industry, company size, job title, etc. and gives you the prospects contact and personal information so you can reach out to them and personalize your outreach. Tools I recommend are, AeroLeads, Hunter, or Snowio,
- Email Warm-up: This tool will ensure that your email domain gains a good reputation, increasing the likelihood of your emails landing in the inbox rather than the spam folder. Most cold email sending software already provides this feature, but if you’re using one that doesn’t, I recommend lemwarm.
- Cold email generator (optional): Lastly this tool will help you to generate highly personalized cold emails and entire sequence for each of your prospects using prospects information, your information, your offer information, and the sequence set up. The best tool I recommend is ProfitOutreach. O.O
So, these are the tools you will need to get started with cold email outreach.
But don’t worry, they’re all affordable and it’s the best way to get you started.
Step 3: Set Up Your Cold Email Software
Next, set up your cold email software to ensure smooth and effective delivery. Begin by configuring all technical aspects, including setting up your email domain and authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to improve deliverability and avoid spam filters.
If I can recommend making sure your cold email tracking is off as it can reduce your cold email deliverability.
It’s also crucial to start the warm-up process for your domain.
This involves gradually increasing your email sending volume to build a positive sender reputation and avoid being flagged as spam.
Many cold email tools have built-in warm-up features that automate this process.
Additionally, customize your software settings to automate cold email follow-ups and personalize your emails based on the recipient’s behavior.
Properly setting up your cold email software ensures your campaigns run efficiently and reach your intended audience effectively.
Step 4: Research Your Target Audience
To craft effective cold emails, you need to thoroughly research your target audience.
Understanding who your ideal customers are allows you to tailor your messaging to their specific needs and pain points.
You might have several audiences, such as:
- CEOs in accounting companies.
- CEOs in law firms.
- CTOs in technology companies.
- Developers in small companies.
For example, if you’re using ProfitOutreach, your audiences might include:
- Sales and marketing leaders in SaaS companies.
- CEOs in SaaS companies.
- Sales and marketing leaders in B2B companies.
- CEOs in B2B companies.
- Heads of business development in tech startups.
- CEOs, marketing, and sales leaders in agencies, and consulting firms.
Identify the key decision-makers in your target industries and gather insights about their challenges and goals and how your solution solve their challenges.
This information will help you create highly relevant and personalized cold emails that resonate with your prospects and increase your chances of conversion.
Step 5: Plan Out Your Cold Email Sequence
The next step is to plan out your cold email sequence. Planning your sequence is crucial because it ensures your outreach is structured, consistent, and strategically timed to maximize engagement.
This is where you layout the types of cold email templates that you want to create across your entire sequence.
For example, your sequence might include:
- Initial introduction email
- Follow-up email
- Case study email
- Demo invitation email
- Final follow-up email
This is where you can experiment with different types of cold email templates and determine the optimal timing for each one.
If you’re new to this, you might not be entirely sure what cold email templates to use.
We recommend visiting our cold email template library, where you can browse through various templates to create your cold email sequence.
Alternatively, try our cold email sequence generator.
You can use preset options or build your own sequence by selecting from available templates. Creating your own template is for advanced users and is generally not recommended for beginners.
Step 6: Start Writing Cold Emails
Now that you’ve planned your sequence, it’s time to start writing your cold emails.
First you should focus on crafting compelling subject lines that grab attention and encourage recipients to open your emails as well as give relevant preview of what’s your cold email is about.
You can visit my article about best cold email subject lines to learn more.
When it comes to your cold email content should be clear, concise, and personalized to address the specific needs and pain points of your target audience.
I recommend around 90-150 words per cold email.
Start with strong cold email opening lines that introduces yourself and your company, followed by a value proposition that explains how your SaaS solution can benefit them.
Of course, the content should be written in the second person, just like you’re having a 1-on-1 conversation with your prospect.
Ensure that the cold email content is purely focused on the theme/template you selected.
For example, if it’s a cold email about case studies, make sure it’s only about that and nothing else.
Conclude with a clear cold email call-to-action, whether it’s scheduling a demo, downloading a resource, or simply replying to the email.
Remember to keep your tone professional yet approachable, and always proofread your emails to avoid any errors.
Of course, this can get challenging as your prospects list grows and if you want to send hyper-personalized cold email emails, you can try ProfitOutreach.
We personalize your cold email data based on several data sources and write sequence for each individual user resulting in sending 100s of personalized and unique cold emails that converts.
Step 7: Create a List of Potential Customers
Now that you have your cold emails ready to be sent, you need to find your prospects. This is when you utilize the prospecting tool that I recommended.
Remember, as I mentioned, your cold email sequences and cold emails should be personalized based on your selected target audience.
So now you need to find those prospects that match your target audience.
Luckily, with the prospecting tools, it’s pretty easy as they provide a ton of filters to find relevant prospects, such as their position, company size, location, industry, etc.
Once you have your prospects downloaded, you also want to clean up the list to ensure that the prospects are the ones you want.
Additionally, I recommend verifying their email addresses to reduce the bounce rate, as that also influences your reputation.
A high bounce rate means more emails end up in the spam or promotional folder.
Step 8: Start Sending Cold Emails Gradually
The next step is to start sending cold emails very slowly.
If you thought that you downloaded 1,000s of prospects and started sending 100s of cold emails every day sorry to disappoint you.
When you’re starting with cold emails in general, you must start by sending a low number of cold emails every day.
Otherwise, you would ruin your reputation, as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and others see big sudden spikes in sending emails as spammy, and thus your cold emails would end up in your spam folder.
So, start slowly find sending cold emails.
Here is our recommended rate of sending cold emails:
3-6 months: 0, only run warm-up email service.
- Week 1: 10 cold emails/day
- Week 2: 20 cold emails/day
- Week 3: 40 cold emails/day
- Week 4: 50 cold emails/day
- Month 2: 50-100 cold emails/day
- Month 3: 100-150 cold emails/day
- Month 4: 150-250 cold emails/day
- Month 5: 250-350 cold emails/day
- Month 6: 350-500 cold emails/day
This is where we would recommend stopping as sending more than 500 cold emails per day equals around 10,000-11,000 cold emails per month.
More than enough to scale your operation.
Step 9: Keep Testing, Measuring, & Improving
To ensure the success of your cold email campaigns, continuously test, measure, and improve your strategy.
Regularly review key metrics such as cold email open rates, click-through rates, and response rates to gauge performance.
Experiment with different subject lines, email content, and sending times to see what resonates best with your audience.
A/B testing is particularly effective for optimizing your emails. 60% of organizations find A/B testing highly effective for improving conversions.
Gather feedback from recipients to understand their needs better and refine your messaging.
Use this data to make informed adjustments and enhance your cold email approach.
By constantly iterating and improving, you’ll maximize your campaign’s effectiveness and drive better results for your SaaS business.
Conclusion
With all that being said, starting with a cold email strategy for your SaaS business can be one of the greatest ways to get you to quickly generate revenue as well as boost your business growth.
With cold email tools, it’s becoming much easier to manage it even if you’re solopreneur without any prior skills.
Remember, the key is to start and then polish up things as you get data and better at it.
How ProfitOutreach Can Help?
ProfitOutreach revolutionizes personalized outreach, automating LinkedIn and cold email campaigns.
Our advanced SaaS platform lets you design customized sequences using real prospect data like job title, company details, and industry.
With diverse templates and the ability to craft tailored offers, each message hits the mark.
ProfitOutreach streamlines the process, enhancing engagement and boosting response rates.
Enjoy features like extensive template libraries, bulk sequence capabilities, and advanced customization options.
Perfect for businesses of all sizes, ProfitOutreach simplifies outreach, making it efficient, effective, and scalable.
Elevate your outreach game with ProfitOutreach.
FAQs about SaaS Cold Email Strategy
In this section, we’re going to answer the following questions about SaaS cold email strategy:
Do cold emails work for SaaS?
Yes, cold emails work for SaaS businesses by effectively reaching potential customers, generating leads, and driving conversions through targeted, personalized messaging that addresses specific pain points and offers solutions.
How to write a cold email for a SaaS product?
To write a cold email for a SaaS product, personalize the message, highlight a pain point, present your solution, include a clear call-to-action, and keep the email concise and engaging.
How do you write a catchy cold email?
To write a catchy cold email, craft a compelling subject line, personalize the content, address a specific pain point, offer a clear benefit, and end with a strong call-to-action. Keep it concise and engaging.
Related Articles:
- Cold Email Copywriting Ultimate Guide: Tips & Best Practices
- How to Find Emails for Cold Emailing
- Answer to How Many Cold Emails to Send Per Day
Related Cold Email Templates:
- How to Write Introduction Cold Email Template
- Exclusive Offer Cold Email Template Guide: Examples, Best Practices, and Tips
- Follow-Up Cold Email Template Guide: Examples, Best Practices, and Tips
