Your inbox is inundated with dozens, if not more, emails each and every day. Some you send straight to the trash and some you even mark as spam. But then, there are the select few you open and read. Maybe you then even click through to a website and buy a product. You even look forward to the emails!
Thinking about your own experience with your inbox can help you relate to your customers. Take a step back now to think about the process behind those emails getting delivered and finally, being opened. These emails were designed, planned and scheduled for success. Learn how to harness hands-off email marketing methods to find success within your own email marketing plans. Get more customers, higher quality leads and sales! All from a simple email.
Autoresponders
Autoresponders are traditionally used to remind subscribers of an event or are used in the delivery and follow-up of a purchase. For many, the thought of an autoresponder ends there. Each business can add value to the community in which they serve. Harness hands-off email marketing by investing the time to create a powerful series of autoresponders that lead users through a series or class. Set an area to subscribe and time the emails to go out accordingly.
Soon enough you will have people going through this series of educational material with a promotion or call-to-action in each email. The great part about an educational series that adds value is that the cap is unlimited and users can be at different places at different times. It will be a consistent source of leads.
The Soap Opera Concept
If you’re developing a topic and want to have that “gotta have more” effect with your audience, integrate into each email a cliffhanger. Tell them there’s something really cool coming in the next email. Start a story and stop before the end. This method is referred to as The Soap Opera Sequence, and it’s a method first introduced by Andre Chaperon in his product Autoresponder Madness.
The theory behind the “SOS” plays into the fact that each email leaves them craving the next, with each building upon another in a story-like sequence, much like soap operas and popular TV shows have people craving more. Make all of these autoresponder emails even more valuable by adding a complementing video; screen shot the video while playing, insert the screen shot image in the email, and link that image to the video (email won’t allow for a video embed).
Product, Service and Event Follow Ups
Sending out a simple thank-you email is always a great idea to send your well wishes after an event, but take a serious look at your current letter and ask yourself this: Does it add value? Does it engage them further into your site? Your brand? Including a few key pieces to each letter can boost your engagement and sales conversion rates almost instantly and certainly effortlessly.
Rewrite your letter to include the following portions:
- Learn More: A link to the autoresponder series you think your readers would be most interested in.
- Come Back: Information on another upcoming event or similar product. Something else they can engage with, as they have with the current event/product/service.
- Watch/Read Now: Something for them to sink their teeth into for instant gratification.
Your “Learn More” section allows your readers to become more involved and allows you to keep your business in front of their faces and consistently in their inboxes. The “Come Back” aspect of your site engages them further to interact with the brand while the “Watch/Read Now” section gives them instant gratification and interaction that they can get lost in and potentially share with their friends and social media network.
With the Come Back section, you can encourage them to spend more or re-engage with the company in person where you can, well, encourage them to spend more! As you can see, it’s a well-rounded approach that touches on other aspects of your marketing while keeping it all together and uniform.
Holiday and Seasonal Promotions/Autoresponder Series Ideas
If you’re stumped on something to do, think about the upcoming holidays and what you can offer in terms of a seasonal promotion. Autoresponder series are extremely versatile in the sense that they can add value as a standalone, be an asset to a campaign or purchase or finally, be used in a promotional sense to pitch product directly.
When used alone to pitch a product directly, it’s best to come up with a solid game plan that either involves a promotion surrounded by a holiday or a made-up campaign or event that is extremely well-thought out and put together. Our article is Harness Hands-Off Methods for Success and this technique is completely effective – but some methods aren’t hands off from the start. The effort you put in now has a HUGE return later!
- For your specific campaign, consider an autoresponder series of 4, 8 or 12 emails depending on the complexity of the campaign and the size of your database or marketing audience.
- Divide them up accordingly depending on the type of campaign you’re doing.
- If a daily email delivery isn’t required, we recommend sending emails Tuesday through Thursday for optimal open rates with Sunday as a third place runner.
Some great promotions based on seasons or general sales include a cleanse in the spring, cool down with savings in the fall, wake up in the winter to deals and melt away price tags for summer. Within each season and holiday period there are thousands of ways to get creative. Make a campaign your own, set up an awesome autoresponder series that engages customers and brings in sales!
Harness our hands-off marketing techniques and see more success within your business and the overall brand presence in the community and the world. Open your eyes to the world of autoresponders in terms of email marketing and experiment with what works for your business.
Images: ” Yellow memo and orange pin on white keyboard. Reminder concept / Shutterstock.com“
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