Convert leads to customers and MRR with email marketing
Email marketing is one of the most powerful tools for businesses today, but most entrepreneurs are just scratching the surface of its potential.
And most don’t know what to write about, and who to write for.
I spent 40+ hours, analysed successful SaaS and concluded 5 email sequences each one of them have.
Let’s start.
1. Onboarding Sequence — 7–10 emails
Purpose — Onboard a customer, take them through your trial, and aim to convert them to Paid Customer.
Days — Number of trials you have.
Emails — 7 to 10 emails.
Email 1 — Welcome. Keep it casual. Share key features (or give them a task), give some brand info.
Email 2 — How to use the product + Guided Tour (best if a person of authority could show. Get your best client to record it for you)
Email 3 — Result-based Case Study (Give them hope that they could get there)
Email 4 — Educational (Niche related Tip + product related info)
Email 5 — Educational (Niche related Tip + product related info)
Email 6 — Trial Expiring notification + Case Study
Email 7 — Trial Expiring +Call to Action
2. Engagement Sequence
Purpose — To engage existing customer. To make sure they’re getting their problem solved, increase brand trust and increase LTV.
Emails — This isn’t about an email sequence but consistently keeping in touch with your customer.
- Product Updates: Whenever a new feature is launched
- Monthly Updates: Make it feel personal. Tell them what you launched or troubleshooted last month
- Educational Content: Atleast twice a month, send them educational content on their niche. It could tie up with your app/saas/biz as well. If you have ecom, it could be trends or what most people purchased.
- Customer Suucess Story: Share how your customers and clients made money/solved a problem
- Feedback Requests: Ask for feedback, testimonial or even feature requests.
- Seasonal Campaigns: You can have seasonal campaigns or competitions or sales.
If you wanna stick to a schedule, here’s one.
1st — Monthly update
7th — Educational newsletter
14th — Customer Success Story
21st — Educational newsletter
28th — Customer success story
And once every 2 months, you can have office hours, feedback requests, or anything they wanna ask. Keep it open.
3. Abandoned Cart Sequence
Purpose — Someone who went to the checkout page and then stopped. Aim to convert them or ask them why they didn’t buy.
Email — At most 5. If they don’t convert in 5 days, they likely won’t.
Email 1 — Reminder Email (1 hour) — Just remind them they left something in the cart. Could be a network or payment provider issue and they only need to be nudged in the correct direction.
Email 2 — Offer Email (24 hours) — You could give them a discount offer, or if you don’t want it to be taken advantage of, you could offer a FREE asset of your niche. Maybe a free audit, free asset of their niche. Better yet, ask a question about what they are struggling with and give them options. And based on what they click — deliver an asset. That asset could have the info they need and a case stufy for the SaaS too.
Email 3 — Social Proof Email (48th hour) — Show testimonials and a semi detailed case study. Share how your customers are successful and how you can help them too.
Email 4 — Limited Time Offer (72 hours) — Throw in some urgency and finish with a Call to Action.
Email 5 — Final Reminder (within 5 days)
If you can, you may also ask the reason they aren’t buying.
But instead of asking what you are missing, frame it as “What do you need to make it a 10/10 purchase?” That reframes the question from “me” problem to “you” problem and gives you insights.
4. Sales Sequence
Purpose — To convert a lead to a trial starter (or better yet, a customer)
A lead can be someone who got in with a free asset and now you wanna sell them your business or app. Either start a free trial or let them be a customer.
First up, its possible that not all of them will be converted in 7 day sequence, so if possible, keep sending them niche-related newsletters. Slight nudge in the right direction, with every email you send.
But anyhow, let’s do an email sequence to convert them to a customer in limited time frame.
First up, get them to open the email.So either deliver the asset by the email or send them another free thing and tell them they’ll get it in the email.
What we’ll be doing is, we’ll be giving value via emails too.
Look, leads know they’ll be sold to and they likely don’t even want your emails.
So we will give them a roadmap of learning in the 5 emails, and with each of those emails, we will also nudge them towards buying.
Example — If your business is fitness related, and you have a home workout app, and your lead magnet was 10 day fitness routine. Then in the email sequence, you can give them additional info on habit forming, postures and stuff and take them through how your app simplifies it.
So you’ll be helping them and nudging them towards the app.
Email 1 — Asset delivery + Small Introduction + Tell them what’s coming next
Email 2 — Education + Walk through
Email 3 — Education + Walk through + Social Proof Story
Email 4 — Education + Personalized Walkthrough invite
Email 5 — Offer (limited offer)
Email 6 — Objection handling + Offer + Social Proof
Email 7 — Final Offer + Social Proof
5. Customer Feedback and Testimonial
Purpose — To gather stories from existing customers. You should likely do feedback and testimonials separate and do it in the first 30–45 days of them becoming a customer. Slowly warm them up to tell their story.
For detailed testimonials, like video or case study — you should be reaching out personally to the best people (from your data).
Now let’s discuss the emails.
- Feedback: Ask for feedback from customers. Give them a feedback form or ask them to go all out and not restrict themselves.
- Testimonial: Send a polite testimonial request.
- Success Story: Thank them for using and tell them you’d like to share their story. Tell them the process is easy and for now you only have to reply with “YES”. Most people don’t wanna do it because it requires time. Then find the easiest way to note their story.
- How I use it + Incentivize: You can also ask people to share how they use your app, have a contest among them, and award prizes. Or incentivize by giving a discount. You can repost it on social media platforms, or use this in your email flows.
Finally, let’s summarize
- Onboarding Sequence (7–10 emails) to convert trial users to paid customers
- Engagement Sequence for existing customers (product updates, educational content, success stories)
- Abandoned Cart Sequence (5 emails) to recover almost-buyers
- Sales Sequence (7 emails) to convert leads to customers by providing value
- Feedback/Testimonial Sequence to gather customer stories and social proof
The final tip — Always provide value upfront in your email sequences before making an ask or pitch.
With this, it’s a wrap. Hope it helped! Let me know if you have any questions :)
More posts in this series
2. Nail Customer Conversations and Validate your business idea
3. Run your first google ads in 20 minutes
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