I grew up on the Microsoft Office Suite. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint were the Holy Trinity of schoolwork and real-world work.
Somewhere along the lines, Google entered the picture with the G Suite — the most prominent tool being Google Docs.
Since high school, I have almost exclusively written in Google Docs. I mean, it’s just so dang convenient.
But Google Docs has some annoyances. It lacks some features Word offers, and collaboration can be difficult beyond the basics.
Plus, it’s hard to keep my research, notes, outlines, and drafts all in one convenient place in front of me. Swapping between different GDocs and navigating to find things drains energy and makes me less productive…
So when I heard there was an alternative to Google Docs called ButterDocs, I was eager to check it out.
I signed up for the free trial and got an onboarding sequence that spoke directly to me, the target market.
Today’s Email Breakdown shares one of these emails.
You’ll see why it’s effective at bringing free trial customers into the fold and how it serves as a building block in an overall sequence aimed at converting these trialers into paid plan users.
| Table of Contents |
| About ButterDocs The Email: Onboarding With the Problem/Solution Framework The Subject Line and Sender Name The Body Copy Takeaways What to Do Next |
About ButterDocs
ButterDocs is an online writing software tool that aims to make your writing process more productive.
It was founded by Michi Huber, currently CEO at the time of writing.
ButterDocs markets itself as a “Google Docs alternative for serious writers” by focusing on minimizing distractions, enhancing collaboration, and making it easier to access all your “peripheral materials” (like research) while writing.
The tool itself has elements of a “second brain” tool, à la Tiago Forte and his Building a Second Brain.
It has some neat features, like:
- Making your research super easy to see and access (without closing the document)
- Letting you see your outline next to your draft as you write
- A digital whiteboard that lets you plan the draft structure before writing
- Stashing unused text in your “Stash” (maybe you write a brilliant line but it doesn’t fit the current section and you don’t want to delete it)
- A focus timer to help you work in “sprints” on writing distraction-free
- An AI assistant to help with various quick tasks
These solve a lot of annoyances Google Docs has.
(Uh-oh, I hope Google isn’t monitoring me as I trash Google Docs in a Google Doc!)
Alright, I’ll stop selling the tool. That’s their job. Let’s get into the Breakdown.
The Email: Onboarding With the Problem/Solution Framework
Today’s email is part of a SaaS onboarding sequence:
Nice, neat plain text with bolding, line breaks, and varying paragraph lengths. It’s pleasing to the eye. Digestible. Not a dissertation of an email. I like it so far.
But let’s see how the copy holds up…
The Subject Line and Sender Name
The subject line taps into a pain point among the user base — collaboration issues in cloud word processing programs:
Trust me, collaboration on Google Docs can get annoying. It’s workable but a bit wonky and frustrating at times.
ButterDocs promises a fix.
Not a lot of “copywriting magic” needed in an onboarding sequence. You just need to focus each email on a benefit.
As for the sender name:
I like the “Team” style sender name for onboarding, especially for smaller companies who may not have dedicated “onboarding” people.
It retains a personal touch without pretending the CEO is onboarding everyone.
The Body Copy
The email starts with the ButterDocs logo and some “refresher copy”:
Logos are about the only visuals I think EVERY brand (barring some personal brands, perhaps) should include. It’s not super flashy but immediately draws the customer’s mental repository for your brand to the front of their mind.
As for the copy, it does a few things:
- Reminds the reader what the onboarding sequence has discussed so far, reinforcing the “journey” into using the software
- Encourages readers who missed those emails to go back and read them (boosting opens, clicks, and engagement while helping the reader)
- Bridges the gap from one use case to another — individual writing use to team/client collaboration use.
The last clause creates a subtle anxiety in the reader. “You’re going to have to get other people involved in your document.”
This flows perfectly into the next line:
It’s true. The moment you share a document (with at least commenting privileges), another person gets to mark things up.
You now have to deal with someone else’s mental processes, work style, etc. Things can quickly get out of hand. This single line connects with the reader on this pain point.
But ButterDocs swoops in the moment the reader is reminded of the last time they had to collaborate on a Google Doc:
Boom. ButterDocs shows how easy it is to accomplish a big thing the target reader wants to accomplish — add collaborators.
Plus, explanation on how to tag comments… while subtly differentiating ButterDocs from Google Docs (you can avoid comment overwhelm by sorting comments with customer hashtags).
And yet ButterDocs isn’t done highlighting their main collaboration features:
Feature + parenthetical benefit. Feature + parenthetical benefit. Quite a simple formula. Give the feature name, then explain why it matters and what it’s used for.
This helps the reader understand why they should care and even visualize ways they could use these features in their own work.
One might call that future pacing.
I like how each feature — their names, as proper nouns, that is — is bold. Breaks up a longer chunk of copy and draws attention to the important bits.
We come to the CTA, which, to the surprise of many, isn’t to open ButterDocs and start writing:
This CTA fits the email well. The linked article isn’t just about Branch Copies… it’s the full content creation guide.
This helps readers who have not followed along catch up by centralizing ButterDocs features in one guide…
And it helps readers who have followed along get a refresher and see where Branch Copies fit the larger feature set.
ButterDocs doesn’t try to shove the reader into the software in every email so that they can immediately apply what they learned.
Some emails send you to the software, but others covering more complex features send you to the feature guide to ensure you learn it.
One tiny change I’d make: Anchor the link to land directly on the Branch Copies section. It currently lands on the top of the page, making the reader scroll or do a Ctrl + F to find “Branch Copies” toward the bottom of the page.
I’m nitpicking, though.
Takeaways
Here are some big takeaways:
1. The Copy Mechanics
Onboarding emails for SaaS products don’t have to use “hacks” or clever “tricks”. It’s more about showing the customer around and demonstrating how the product helps them.
So there’s not a lot of mechanical genius here.
Takeaways include:
- Bolding and line breaks to enhance readability and draw attention to important points
- Parenthesis to insert additional thoughts into sentences without it getting wonky
- Being personable within brand guidelines
- Turning features into benefits… and dimensionalizing those to show how the user’s life becomes easier with the product
2. The Email Structure
This is a problem/solution email, essentially. The email structure is as follows:
- Refresher copy
- Pain point intro
- Knife-twisting
- Introduce the solution
- Features and benefits
- CTA
It’s pretty simple. You can use this structure (perhaps with minor tweaks) for many SaaS/free trial onboarding sequences. After all, each feature solves a particular problem or helps achieve a specific goal.
3. The Overall Strategy
The most obvious strategy takeaway of an onboarding email: It aims to onboard.
You want customers using your software. Getting some easy wins. Casting a wide net throughout the flow to help as many of your target customers as possible. If the software has a paid upgrade, this helps sell that upgrade.
But how about the overall structure of the flow? Let’s talk about the timing of this specific email in the sequence.
EVERYONE uses a word processor personally. If you use a word processor with team members, you, at some point, use it personally. But not everyone who uses it personally will necessarily use it with other team members (maybe you just write random musings).
So ButterDocs first showed the basics of the software itself. These apply to everyone. THEN they narrow the focus to more specific use cases, starting with team collaboration.
What to Do Next
- Get on my email list using the signup form below for more Email Breakdowns and other helpful marketing content.
- Share this with someone who might find it helpful (or entertaining).
- Reach out to me if you want help writing emails like this one.
- Check out ButterDocs for a distraction-free, writer-focused alternative to Google Docs!