While getting visitors to your site is very important, the fact is more than 90% won't buy from you. Don't despair. They might not want your product today but they might be interested later. But if you don't have any way to follow up with those visitors, those potential sales are lost forever. That's why you need a good autoresponder system.
With an autoresponder, you can capture those leads and follow up with them later with more information or any offers you have. An autoresponder is an opt-in form that you put on your website inviting visitors to sign up for your newsletter, ezine, ecourse, freebies or any information that can be sent to subscribers in a series of emails. Once they sign up, they automatically get added to your mailing list, you can also send them occasional ads or offers since they have now given you their permission to send them email. For more details visit to www.freeearningtips.com if you only had a few subscribers, you could follow up with them manually using your email program such as Outlook, but for the success of your business you want to build a mailing list with 10,000 subscribers or more. Even a million subscribers are possible if your mailing list is very successful.
Don't underestimate the power of a good autoresponder since there are many successful internet marketers who credit their autoresponder systems with helping to make them rich.
An autoresponder system allows you to prepare a series of messages in advance, program them into the system, and specify the intervals at which the emails will be sent out. They can be sent out once a week, once every 3 days or even at irregular intervals. For example you could have 3 emails sent out in a series, one after 3 days, the next after 4 days and the final one after 7 days. You can even have multiple autoresponder series, one for each of your websites, one for all customers, one for prospects, and one for customers who have purchased high-priced items. This allows you to mail different offers to different groups.
Another benefit of an autoresponder is that sending emails regularly to prospects helps them warm up to you and learn to trust you. If you make your emails personal, subscribers will feel like they know you personally and will less resistant to buying from you.
You can also use autoresponders to cut down on customer service emails. If a client or prospective buyer asks you a question about a product, you can preset the autoresponder to reply with a general FAQ that will answer most questions. I've noticed on websites I manage, the vast majority of email questions I get are the same questions asked over and over again. With autoresponders, you have two choices. You can buy a service that runs everything or you can buy a website script that you or someone you hire installs on your website. A script is usually the cheapest option but may require technical ability. For more details you can login to www.marketers-traffic-course.com not all autoresponders are equal though. Here are 11 questions to ask before you choose an autoresponder system:
1. How much does it cost? Is it a one-time fee or a monthly fee? If it is a free service, what are the disadvantages?
2. If it is an autoresponder script, does it come with instructions that anyone can follow to install it themselves or do you have to hire a professional script installer to install it?
3. How many accounts can you create with their system? A different account may be required if you want it to display different information, such as a company name or website, in the FROM field of the autoresponder messages.
4. How many mailing lists can you create?
5. How many follow-up messages can you preset?
6. What's the maximum number of subscribers you can have on a mailing list?
7. How much personalization can you add to your emails? Can you personalize emails with the name or purchase information? Personalization increases the effectiveness of autoresponder emails, especially when it comes to customer purchases.
8. How does the system let subscribers sign up to the autoresponder? The simpler the process the better.
9. What formats can you send emails in? Does it allow HTML and text emails? Does it give the subscriber a choice about which format they can sign up for?
10. Will you be able to track your subscribers for targeted marketing?
11. Is the autoresponder system easy to use?
Price is not necessarily an indicator of quality. There are expensive autoresponder services that have fewer features. If the autoresponder system you're considering meets all these criteria at a good price, the sooner you buy, the sooner you'll be on your way to continuous profits.
While it takes a bit of time and effort, writing a good autoresponder series shouldn't be very difficult to do. Simply send regular messages to your list that offer something of value. This might be a free ebook, it might be a question that is geared to get them to engage with you, it might simply be an article that you think your list will appreciate.
The tone of your email should be very casual. Write like you are sending an email to your best friend. The more you can create the feeling of natural dialog, the more your list will respond to you, trust you, and ultimately buy from you.
There are three main elements that your autoresponder should contain.
1. A welcome email - The first thing your subscribers should receive is a welcome letter. This should be short and sweet. Give them the information that they were promised and tip them off to whatever else they can expect for being on your list. The heads up on a soon-to-come free gift is always a good way to go. It is in this email that you will set the tone that you will have with your list so make it count.
2. Content emails - These emails are the relationship building portion of your autoresponder sequence. They should not sell anything - CONTENT ONLY. Build up trust and reciprocity with your subscribers for at least the first two or three messages. Get your subscribers looking forward to your emails. If you can get your subscriber to be looking forward to your emails, then you will have no trouble converting your promotional messages into sales.
3. Promotional Emails - As I've mentioned, these messages should come later in your series and less frequently than your content emails. Two content emails for every one promotional email - at the very - least is a good ratio.
When you write these emails, don't hard sell. Again, write like you are writing to your best friend. If you would be uncomfortable sending the email to your best friend, it is likely that your list will be uncomfortable receiving it. The goal is to NOT set off your subscribers subconscious spam detector.
You simply want to recommend a product, tell your list what is good about it, what is bad about it, and who the product can help. Be low key - but confident in the value of your recommendation.
Both Jaswinder.dec2008 & Mike Van Bergen are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.