Send to KindleSo you’ve got a fabulous ethical bribe, are persuading readers to opt-in to your email list and all is looking good. You’re building a  loyal subscriber base just as all the marketing experts advise you to do. Great stuff. This is probably the single most important thing you can do in your online business after all, we don’t want to be totally dependent on the search engines do we?
BUT if you don’t follow your email list up with a good autoresponder sequence then you’ll find head-butting a brick wall more productive for your business. Yes, a good autoresponder is that important,  lately I’ve been helping more of my clients sort out their email responses and messages to get great results, so a blog post on the subject is long over due.
A good autoresponder sequence builds a relationship with your subscribers. It should get the recipient to engage with with you, start a business relationship and ultimately build trust so that they feel confident enough to purchase a product or service.
Many businesses get it wrong and yes, it’s very easy to get the sequence wrong, and stack up the messages without giving much thought to what they are actually achieving.
Here’s how to plan your autoresponder sequence and get it right:
1. Put yourself in your subscribers shoes
You are probably on a few email lists already. What emails do you get excited about when they land in your inbox? Who do you delete without reading? What things do you like to share with your friends and colleagues?
Think like your subscriber thinks!
Easier said than done? In the sentence above you visualised whose emails you couldn’t wait to read, and we’ve established that some you delete with out reading…. Ask yourself do you really want to be receiving sales email after sales email each and every day? Do you really? Honestly?
Constant sales pitches burn lists out, people unsubscribe really fast from a list that constantly sells.
The first step towards writing a good autoresponder sequence is to put yourself in your subscribers shoes and think about what they would like to open and find in their email.
- What interests them?
- What will benefit them?
- What helps them trust you?
- What gets them to take action?
- What stops them from pressing “spam”
2. Give content. Don’t just sell.
It’s a funny thing but the truth is that the less you sell, the more you’ll sell! Give quality content in your autoresponder sequence and look out for your subscribers interests. Tell stories, give them helpful advice that they can put into action straight away without needing to buy anything. In the Zero to Blogger email sequence I give blogging calendars, free book chapters, free tutorials as well as sharing the odd really useful checklist. When I share a checklist I get an inbox full of thank-you notes :)
3. Carefully time your emails
Autoresponders let you space your messages in any way you wish. All you have to do for each message is to specify the number of days between that email and the last one. Try delivering them every day for the first few days, and then space them out a little longer after say the first week. Why? Because immediately after subscribing people are ‘hot’ about you and it’s a great time to sell the important things to them – trust, great advice, support and perhaps an ebook…
Most people build their list by giving away some sort of freebie in return for the opt-in, here you can grab a free copy of my successful blogging guide. A top tip for writing a good autoresponder sequence is to make sure that your emails relate back to the original thing they signed up to receive. If your ethical bribe was about blogging then they are obviously interested in blogging or they wouldn’t have subscribed!
Your readers didn’t sign up for a stream of info that is of no benefit to them.
Above all – give quality content and deliver to your subscribers content that you know they will enjoy.
PS you might like this video by Aweber on autoresponders 
Try AWeber’s Autoresponders for $1
Sarah Arrow
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[...] then you have some work to do. Start building your list actively – use a pop-up and set up an autoresponderto maintain contact with your readers. Marketing to your email list is another way of increasing [...]