Step by step guide on how to use autoresponder email series in marketing. What to sell, how to set up and ways to keep customers coming back for more.

1. Autoresponders
How to use them in your marketing to drive
more profit, repeat customers and drive down costs

2. So why market with an autoresponder?
What’s it useful for
• Explaining – How to use our website
• Teaching – A training course chapter by chapter
• Advising – FAQs on your product or service
• Selling – order forms, product guides, taster sessions
• Introductions – New joiners always ask the same questions
• Guides – Free report giveaway
• Upselling – After buying – offer the upsell immediately
• Case studies – Showcase your best work
• Tips and hints- archive your newsletter column
• E-books – publish one chapter at a time

3. Planning the series
Start with the outcome you desire.
What is the customer path or journey? Where are they heading, who will they
meet on the way and when they arrive what happens next?

4. An autoresponder about autoresponders
Getting Automatic – read this – it explains how autoresponders can work for
marketers. Written by the team from Creative Agency Secrets > Resources
Subscribe link http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=856363
The image is the back end of the software we use to manage them, FeedBlitz.com

5. Pre-requisites
You will need
• An opt-in email list
• A website
• Energy and enthusiasm
You will not need
• Not suitable for individualised messages
• Time-limited offers – may not get payback
• Short-term products and services – may expire before people finish the series

6. Structuring the series - linear
Credit: Rowperfect.co.uk

7. Structuring the series – cyclical
Credit: Problogger.com

8. Let’s plan an autoresponder
Which type of products/services in your business are appropriate?
• Go back to the list
• Explaining
• Teaching
• Advising
• Selling
• Introductions
• Guides
• Upselling
• Case studies
• Tips and hints
• E-books
Can you create a new product out of the auto responder?

9. Writing the detail
Consider the interval - set by hours or days (or both)
Joining instructions – what does the reader need to know?
The first message
• Welcome people to the list
• Set expectations about what will follow
• When they’ll get their next email
• What the emails will be about.
• How long the series lasts
Example
Digital Photography School
This welcome email has a site logo, my picture, some links to key parts of the site
like the forum, some suggested reading for catching up on key posts in our archives
(I send them to a few ‘sneeze pages‘ that send them deep within the archives and
get them viewing multiple pages) and shares what the subscriber will receive in the
coming weeks in terms of future emails.

10. How to structure sales messages inside an auto responder
Start with your outcome – where is the journey going?
What products do you want to sell
How easy are they to buy? one click / considered purchase / recurring fee
What’s the price – is it perceived expensive or cheap?
Can emotion be used to sell the product?
What about impulse buying?
Does it need a money back guarantee?
Where and when could the sales message insert into the series?
Should sales emails start small and build up?
Is a big bang all-in-one sales offer worthwhile? Or should it build to a crescendo?

11. How to keep prospects engaged
After the auto responder series ends – what happens next?
Consider the customer journey
Triggers – activate before or after the autoresponder series
Parsers – automatically trigger from external source e.g. shopping cart
Export subscribers into your CRM database

12. Ways to promote sign-ups
Where could you promote this autoresponder?
• Website
• Newsletter
• Mail shot
• Email signatures
• Social media
• Letters
• Advertising
• Trade show / exhibition
• Trade journal articles
• Press relations
• Partner marketing
How many times should / could you promote it?
Is it seasonal?

13. Anticipate issues
Email service providers may not be on the white list for your readers
Warn them about double opt in
Email format – text, web or HTML
Example
ProBlogger.com
Lastly I generally focus my efforts with this list on HTML emails. Aweber does give
you the ability to send out a text email as well for those subscribers whose email
system doesn’t allow HTML. For the text version I usually just send out a short email
that links to a HTML version of the email.
I did use to send out a full plain text email for these people but found that when I
switched to a shorter email linking to the HTML version that most readers clicked
through and appreciated seeing the images (this might be particular to my niche).

14. An offer
We are FeedBlitz.com users
Get yourself a discount of 10% off their prices – forever
Use the discount code when you sign up
AUTO2012

15. Resources – where you can learn more
• http://kb.feedblitz.com/category/20/0/10/Autoresponders/
• http://www.allaboutautoresponders.info/howto_use_autoresponders/howto_u
se_autoresponders.htm
• http://www.problogger.net/archives/2011/10/26/introduction-to-
autoresponders-and-how-you-can-use-them-to-drive-traffic-and-profit/
• http://www.problogger.net/archives/2011/10/27/8-ways-to-use-
autoresponders-to-drive-traffic-and-increase-your-blogging-income/
• http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/10/31/how-i-use-email-newsletter-
to-drive-traffic-and-make-money/
• http://voices.yahoo.com/what-autoresponder-it-340388.html
• http://lifehacker.com/5852936/how-to-effectively-use-email-auto+responders-
without-being-annoying
• http://www.workoninternet.com/article_2063.html