Your autoresponder is one of the most important parts of a successful email marketing strategy. The autoresponder allows people to know who you are, get an introduction to what you do, and learn about one of your products (and possibly buying that product). Striving to make your autoresponder as close to perfect as possible will allow you to develop a deeper relationship between you and the people on your list, and you will accumulate more revenue in the process. Here’s how you create a super awesome autoresponder:
Start With The Free Prize
Before you can get people to your autoresponder, you must give your visitors a good reason to subscribe to your blog. The best way to entice a visitor to subscribe to your blog is by offering a free, value-packed incentive exclusive to your subscribers. I offer free, lengthy eBooks to my subscribers that aren’t available anywhere else. By offering an exclusive free prize to your potential subscribers, many of them will subscribe for the value they expect and for the exclusivity of the free prize.
Not only does the free prize itself matter, but the way your free prize looks is equally as important. Do you remember the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover”? Do you remember when you didn’t judge a book by its cover? I don’t. We like to judge the value of a product based on the way it is presented. If the product is presented in a sloppy manner, then we quickly assume that the product must be sloppy and insufficient for our needs. I want you to look at all of the books you bought and read, and I want you to look at their covers. Then, ask yourself which book covers don’t look visually appealing (if any).
The Welcome Email
The first email your new subscribers gets is the welcome email which gets sent a few minutes after the initial subscription takes place. In this welcome email, you must give your subscriber access to the free prize that you promised. You should also introduce your mission in your welcome email so your new subscribers have a better idea of what type of person you are and what you strive to accomplish.
In your welcome email, you should encourage people to reply to the email so you can build a stronger relationship with more of your subscribers. Your autoresponder will help strengthen the relationship, but a new subscriber would feel even more appreciated if he/she personally got an email from you. At the end of my welcome email, I encourage people to ask a question or just say hi, and then I mention that I will respond. This last sentence has been responsible for hundreds of email conversations that I have had in the last few months.
The 2-3 Value Emails
After a subscriber gets the welcome email, the next step is to provide them with free value. Every two days, I send a value email to the people on my list. All of the value emails are about a topic related to the free prize that the subscriber received a few days ago. The value emails allow you to show off your expertise to your subscribers and provide them with value. You can either showcase your videos or some of your older blog posts that are related to the free prize your new subscribers got a few days ago. Just as you do with the welcome email, you should encourage your subscribers to respond to your email so you can know them better and personally respond to their emails.
The Product Pitch
The more valuable your value emails are, the more enticed your subscribers will be to buy one of your products. However, the product you choose to pitch also impacts how many sales you generate. Your free prize and value emails have all followed a very similar theme. The product you choose to pitch should also be related to that theme. In other words, don’t pitch a Facebook training course if your free prize is about getting Instagram followers and your value emails discussed certain tips to take your Instagram presence to the next level.
What Happens Next?
After a subscriber goes through your entire autoresponder, the next step is to send them occasional email blasts. Most of the email blasts you send to your subscribers should be value emails. Only every 6-12 weeks will I promote one of my products in an email blast, and I only promote a product if I actually have something to promote. In other words, I am not going to promote a product just for fun.
If you have never sent your own email blast to your email list using a service like iContact or Aweber, then you should start by sending one email blast per week while occasionally increasing/decreasing that frequency to test how your subscribers would respond to receiving more/fewer emails. By constantly experimenting with your email list and your autoresponder sequence, you will create a better experience for your subscribers, and this better experience will lead to more traffic to your blog when your email blasts promote your blog posts and more sales when you do a promotional email blast.
In Conclusion
Taking the time to master your autoresponder sequence will allow you to build a strong relationship with the people on your email list. Your subscribers will look forward to your emails, click on the links to your blog posts, and buy your products later on. As social media expert Kim Garst says, “People buy from people who they know, like, and trust.” In your autoresponder, you have a chance to present you and your expertise in such a way that your new subscribers will know, like, and trust you and what you do.
How many emails are in your autoresponder sequence? Does your autoresponder sequence generate sales? What tips do you have for creating better autoresponders? Please share your thoughts and advice below.
Thanks for sharing some useful tips. A super awesome autoresponder can really make email management so much simpler. I know how emails can pile up sometimes, that it is very easy to overlook some of the most important ones that require response. With a great autoresponder, it is easier to establish connection with your leads and avoid losing the interest of your prospects.
Great insights. The autoresponder lets that relationship build and if your autoresponder is superb, people will remember you and buy your products later on.