Autoresponder marketing is one of the most effective ways to make money online. The idea behind autoresponders is to establish a strong, durable relationship with your subscribers. Everyone has heard the saying “the money is in the list” but the saying to remember is actually “the money is in the relationship with the list”.
When people opt into your list, they usually expect something in return: valuable content, tips and tricks, special offers, product bonuses… They gave you the permission to email them, and that’s already a first step to a relationship. That’s what autoresponder marketing is all about. However, to build a strong, durable relationship, you must constantly provide them with value. The best way to achieve this is by (effectively) using autoresponders.
Autoresponder Marketing
All internet marketers and home business owners should use autoresponder marketing and have an email series ready to be sent out. It is indeed much easier to sell to an existing customer than it is to get a new one. It has been proven that people only buy from you if they know and trust you so having the ability to follow up with them allows you to build that trust. It has also been proven that it usually takes 6 to 7 follow ups for a customer to purchase.
Creating an email series requires some time and efforts at first, but once it’s up and running, all you have to do is sit back and watch. The whole process should be automated as much as possible so you can then focus on other important tasks like monitoring, improvements, etc.
There are several autoresponder marketing programs available on the market. Two of them distinguish themselves from others. The first one is Aweber, which is certainly the most popular of all email marketing programs. Plenty of top industry players use this program because it has a great range of features including of course an autoresponder system.
Another autoresponder marketing program you should consider is Imnica Mail. While Imnica Mail isn’t as popular as Aweber, it has a few very interesting advantages over its competitors. For example, the plans are much cheaper, which is great if you’re on a tight budget. It also has a great analytics system that will help you analyze your email marketing campaign in depth with ease.
Autoresponder Marketing
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Aweber |
Imnica Mail |
Autoresponder Marketing
What you basically need to do with your autoresponder marketing program is setting up an email series to be sent to your subscribers. Once they subscribed, they should receive a welcome email, with some information about your business, products or services (for example). Then, every few days (or at least once a week), they should receive other emails, in which you provide them with valuable content. It MUST be related to the topic of your online presence, otherwise your subscribers are likely to unsubscribe.
Autoresponder marketing is great for building a relationship with your list. If you email people with valuable content, on a regular basis, they are more likely to read your emails, maybe even respond to them, visit your site or blog… and ultimately purchase your products or the products you promote. Building a list isn’t only about size but also conversion, hence the need for a relationship.
It may take you a little while to write email copies and set up the autoresponders at first. However, these efforts are definitely worth the time spent. As previously mentioned, autoresponder marketing is one of the most effective ways to make money online. It’s a proven technique and remains very popular among internet marketers and home business owners.
Bonus tip: Instead of writing long email copies, simply send short, eye-catching emails to your subscribers with a short description and a link to a page of your site or blog. Pages can easily be bookmarked and shared around, unlike emails… and this will drive additional traffic to your site or blog.
This blog post is part of a series of hot topics for making money online. Stay tuned for more and feel free to share your own experience on autoresponder marketing with us!
Did you miss out on the two first hot topics? Here they are:
Hot Topic #1: Keyword Research Tips and Tools
Hot Topic #2: Choosing a Web Host: ViralHosts vs HostGator
I'm an avid fan of your blog, and the content is always top notch - great reading. I'm always impressed with the variety of content and the way you get all the important steps outlined for processes, but still manage to keep it short and simple - few people do that quite as well.
Mike Purvis
Andy Fletcher
Todd Gross
I just switched from 1shoppingcart to aweber and I must say that what I like the most about aweber is the wizard that you can follow in setting up the opt in form and the campaign messages.
Hi Chris,
yes they have a very nice, and easy to use interface…. Also have many features 1shoppingcart doesn’t as an AR service as it is the specialty. Thanks for the comment, looking forward to interacting with you more
Auto responder system and follow-up responder is convenient and saves your time by automatically replying to your email and sending out follow up emails instead of you having to manually keep track of it. You can personalize your e-mail replies by including the sender’s name, prospect specific fields or information extracted from the incoming email. You can even add the extracted information to a prospect database for later use in your subscription email marketing campaign.
Leads Business software will simply reply to your e-mail messages with a prewritten response.
A professional autoresponder system is a must for every commercial website.
Hi John,
Yes if you run an online business you NEED an autoresponder. I really am starting to enjoy Imnica Mail – They are improving features fast and are still much cheaper then other options 🙂
Hi there,
I have read with extreme interest your blog re Auto-responder marketing. you are so right, it is an absolute must for anyone with an online business.
I believe that in many ways I am doubly blessed because not only do I have a fabulous auto-responder which does all my requirements and more besides, but I have Ad-Tracker, rotators, capture pages, free conference rooms, etc with fantastic bonuses, and the biggest part of that blessing is the whole lot only cost me a one time apyment of $96!!!
However, that price is only available until December 16 before it will no longer be there.
I am not trying to pump my own tyres here, just showing how much easier it is to go the one place for all the necessary tools instead of going to one palce and paying for AR and then somewhere else for an Ad-Tracker etc etc,
I have been there and done that, and spent a lot of money doing it. then I found what I have now. I havew previously used Aweber, getresponse, several free AR’s but the free ones had too many ads going out on thewm.
Aweber was beyond my monthly means because I am a Pensioner, and Get Response was hopeless for me also because I refused to pay for it I had to put up with their ads.
Not good when one is promoting an entirely different program. It takes people away from what you are trying to explain.
You have some excellent points in your post but that is my comment. hope thats oaky. I wasn’t meaning to sound smarty or anything, just being honest in my opinions.
Warm regards,
Danella Rutherford
Danella,
You don’t sound ‘smarty’ but unfortunately someone has misinformed you if they say that doing it yourself is best. You see, it doesnt matter how many people you have on your mailing list if they dont get your emails.
Let me explain. Aweber and companies like that (I know first hand Imnica Mail have just hired 2 staff) have teams of people who’s job it is to keep their hundreds of IP’s on the whitelist. They have relationships with people at isp’s like AOL etc. and they ‘sign’ their mail in the header of the email that it is being sent from Aweber or Imnica Mail or icontact, getresponse etc. and then the ISPs know that they can trust these compaines are meeting the CAN-SPAM act.
So getting mail delivered, and not bounced away by the ISP, or hitting spam filters by the companies that run the spam lists (there are a couple of big ones most mailing services use) is where the value is.
That is why, even though I have sending servers, we use Aweber and Imnica Mail on our sites (ViralNetworks!) our big social network site is using Imnica… we want our users to get emails from us, because we want them reading our messages 🙂 In this world of mass spam, to do that you need to have the best on your side and as long as you play by these Auto responder companies rules, you can have that!