Setting up autoresponder emails

[affiliate_marketer]

Hello everyone,

I'm just starting out in email marketing and I have several questions regarding setting up an email campaign (autorepsonders):

Let's say I'm promoting a product on affiliate marketing or dating and I have 7 professionally written emails to promote this product. How often should I send these out (every other day, once a week etc)?

Should I provide free content related to the product I'm promoting? Let's say I'm promoting an email list building club. Should I send out free plr articles on email list building in between my promotional emails? If so, how often would you recommend sending out free content such as plr articles? If I do send out a free article in an autoresponder should I still include a link to the affiliate product in the PS section at the bottom or should I stay away from any kind of promotions(overdoing it) in that kind of email as those links are already included in the 7 promotional emails?

I would appreciate some feedback on this. Thank you.

Arek

[LondonPaladin]

You should contact your list every 7-14 days. Mix the free info with your sales emails. So free info-sales-free info-sales. You want to give value to your list.

[AllanJames]

Originally Posted by LondonPaladin

You should contact your list every 7-14 days. Mix the free info with your sales emails. So free info-sales-free info-sales. You want to give value to your list.

Yep, good general advice, but the real answer in any individual case comes from split testing and reacting to the results in each situation.

I have one list: Day 0,1,3 7, 7, 7, 7 and it woks best this way. In another list, the 0,1,3 really peeved them and I had a lot of unsubscribes.

Grab a good tracker, you can get good ones for as low as $9 a month, and do some testing.

[travlinguy]

I can comment as both the receiver of autoresponder email and a sender. First, the quickest way to get me off of an opt-in list is to send too many offers. I recently subscribed to a couple of high-powered and well-known contrarian financial newsletters. I wanted the information and was glad to get it. And boy, did they ever send it. At least one a day and some days up to three.

That's way too much. And as much as I enjoy the material, I opted out after a couple of weeks. When I opt in to any list I use a throwaway account just so I can see what the sender is up to. If the information is of good quality and valuable, I'll then subscribe with my primary email to be sure I get it in front of me when it's sent.

There aren't many who make it to my main email because most bombard their subscribers with offers without providing much in the way of quality.

I've only managed one list and that was several years back. The subscribers were interested in a health-related topic and I had a 200 - 300-word email go out once a week. The information was valuable and in each email there was always the option to purchase one of three products. However, the message wasn't built around the pitch, it was more of a soft sell.

Looking back, I'd do it differently. I would make one in four messages a high-powered pitch with bonuses, like a mini sales letter. That seems to be what the successful email marketers do.

I don't claim to be an expert in email marketing. Not even close. But I think all marketing comes back to a few foundational ideas. Under promise and over deliver is the main one. With email marketing you've got to find a balance between bombarding your subscribers with offers and delivering useful content that they look forward to getting.

You mention sending out free PLR articles. I'm not sure it matters that the material might be recycled as long as it fits the 'value' model. With PLR stuff you have the opportunity to tailor it to your audience, so that's probably what you should do. Personalize it by relating directly to your subscribers. Since it's generic material I doubt it's written specifically for your people.

Rewrite those PLR articles so they speak to your subscribers. Play on the benefits of owning your products. Again, deliver value and don't pound them with the stuff. I had very few people opting out while delivering fairly short message once a week. Testing will tell. Good luck.

[Paule123]

Hi what you really need to do is give a quality info or free gift on your first follow up.

Then after a couple of days ask them how they are getting on and then give them some more valuable free info.

Leave for say 5 to 7 days and then send them some more quality free info or gift.

A few days after that follow up with another email with more quality info only this time put a link in to your product somewhere near the end that is actually relating to what they signed up for.

Then once in a while you can send them some more quality info but with a quality special offer added at a discounted subscribers price.

Then rinse and repeat this cycle.

The reason for this is that you are nurturing goodwill and trust with your list and on doing this it will pay you back a thousand times over.

The major ingedient in all of this is that it has to be related and of really good quality,

Yes this seems long winded but remember it is a Business that you are building not an instant "Get Rich Scheme".

Hope that helps

[SuzanneR]

Like the others said, you ideally should mix up the content in the emails. Thre's really no single approach to doing this, but I personally like to alternate between giving out valuable information (education) and storytelling (entertainment)--all of which gracefully segues into selling the product with well-positioned links in several places.

[dorothydot]

Originally Posted by Paule123

Hi what you really need to do is give a quality info or free gift on your first follow up.

Then after a couple of days ask them how they are getting on and then give them some more valuable free info.

Leave for say 5 to 7 days and then send them some more quality free info or gift.

A few days after that follow up with another email with more quality info only this time put a link in to your product somewhere near the end that is actually relating to what they signed up for.

Then once in a while you can send them some more quality info but with a quality special offer added at a discounted subscribers price.

Then rinse and repeat this cycle.

The reason for this is that you are nurturing goodwill and trust with your list and on doing this it will pay you back a thousand times over.

The major ingedient in all of this is that it has to be related and of really good quality,

Yes this seems long winded but remember it is a Business that you are building not an instant "Get Rich Scheme".

Hope that helps

Absolutely right - give your readers useful information. That also positions you as the Go-To Expert in their minds, making your recommendations to buy-this-now carry much more weight than if a stranger told them to buy-this.

The real trick is to give your members useful information - but stop short of a complete idea. This is called "teasing" and is a wonderful way to get them to your site for more information.

Here's an example: Brown Thrashers [a bird] fly south for the winter... so why is this particular Brown Thrasher still here in the middle of December?

Hope this helps,
Dot

[k0zm0zs0ul]

I would say a good rotation is for every 2 value laden emails, give them an offer email. The spacing of emails like mentioned can vary, and you have to figure that out by testing. I have some clients that touch their list every single day. The bulk of that is simply a quick informational email, just to keep them fresh in mind, with maybe 1 or 2 offers thrown in each week.

Other clients of mine send out only once a week, or once every 3 or 4 days. Keep in mind that most customers won't buy until you've touched them at least 7 times, so I would keep the bulk of those initial emails value laden, so that you are letting them get to know you, and trust you. Then start sending them offers, rotating as mentioned before.

Warm regards,
C

[Jay White]

Great questions. I've got some free videos in the Youtube link at the left that should help (plus some goodies in my sig).

[AllanJames]

Originally Posted by Jay White

Great questions. I've got some free videos in the Youtube link at the left that should help (plus some goodies in my sig).

Now that was subtle :-)

Lemme see if I can improve on it..

Hmm.............. ahhh ...

I was talking to one of my students the other day, and he was telling me how much the comprehensive video course I provided him, to his amazement without charge, when he picked up a copy of my FREE Make Your First Dollar Online Guide from, he said, my incredible (and I almost blushed when he said that) StartBusinessMentor affiliate training center had helped him establish a great! relationship with his, now, rapidly growing and, now, highly responsive list.

:-)


Don't mind me joshing you Jay, I'm in a playful mood this morning :-)

[Raydal]

Every market would need to be tested, but I've found a frequency that works
very well for my clients and it's based on the recentcy, frequency, impression
principle.

The whole idea is that you want to start sending right away, then send frequent
at first and then taper off towards the end of the series.

The timing I suggest in my autoresponder series writing manual is:



As I say you'll have to test your market but after over 7 years of writing
autoresponder series for my clients this is what I find that works.

-Ray Edwards

[k0zm0zs0ul]

Originally Posted by Raydal

Every market would need to be tested, but I've found a frequency that works
very well for my clients and it's based on the recentcy, frequency, impression
principle.

The whole idea is that you want to start sending right away, then send frequent
at first and then taper off towards the end of the series.

The timing I suggest in my autoresponder series writing manual is:



As I say you'll have to test your market but after over 7 years of writing
autoresponder series for my clients this is what I find that works.

-Ray Edwards

Good stuff, thanks Ray.

[KristiDaniels]

Every test I have done shows daily outperforming every frequency less than daily.

Put them in the right order. Figure that out by:

1. Do a small test and check the CTR.

2. Each email goes to a page. Calculate the conversion rate on that page.

3. Adjust the conversion rate by the CTR of the email.

4. Put the emails with the highest adjusted conversion rate up front.

5. For as you put new emails into test, get the above numbers and insert them in their proper place so you push the poor performing emails out into the future... eventually far enough in the future that they will never be sent.

[affiliate_marketer]

Thanks for the replies everyone. All the posts have been helpful. I'm considering taking the suggestion and posting some free content (plr ebooks or articles) and mix it with my product autoresponder series. My questions is:

If I follow the sequence in the table for the 7 day email series, how would the emails with the free content tie into this strategy? Should I send the emails with the free content in between the schedule suggested for the 7 email series or should all emails (free and commercial) follow the same sequence as in the table? Let's say I had 10 emails with free content and 7 emails for a specific product. How would this affect the email sequence? Would this still take 14 days to send all these emails, or would it take longer now because I threw in the free emails into the mix?

Also, should my free emails include any kind of affiliate links and should they strictly contain only my free content (articles posted within the body of the email) or links to free content (ebook download etc.)?

I would appreciate if anyone could help me clarify this as I'm pretty new to this.

Thank you.

Arek

[wrcato2]

You definetly need to learn more about list building. Set up an ecourse for 5 days. One article per day. Then send a sales email to your product. Build trust with your list. Give and Give and Give some more. Then make an offer. Then repeat.
Keep in contact with your list at least once a week. Don't over do it or you will look like a spammer.

[RickDuris]

Hi Arek,

Autoresponder emails are GREAT tools.

In my experience, there is no one right answer. But here are a few strategic ideas to help guide you.

1. I have set up auto responders where there is only ONE autoresponder email. The rest are blasted out occasionally as needed.

It's one of our most successful campaigns. Why? Read on, and I'll share in a moment.

I have also set up autoresponders where there are as many as 365 emails. One for every day of the year.

That works well too. Drip, Drip, Drip.

Between the two scenarios, there is a world of opportunity.


2. The key thing and I think almost everybody would agree on this, the vast majority of your emails should be VALUABLE. I call them "keepers." Like when I get one, when I read one, I say to myself "Oh, that's a keeper!" There should be tremendous content conveyed.

Stated differently, kinda like Christmas, you want people to REALLY look forward to receiving your emails.


3. Now when I say "the vast majority should be valuable", it sounds stupid. Like why not all?

Because that would not have integrity. And psychologically speaking, people would lose respect for them.

It's kinda a like a winning pitcher in baseball. He has an amazing fast ball. But the batters are always looking for it.

So he does a change-up pitch.

In other words, it throws people off guard and keeps them guessing.


4. Your emails NO MATTER WHAT should TRAIN people to do the action you want them to do.

For most affiliate marketers, that means getting your subscribers to click the link embedded in the email.

Start right off the bat and train your subscribers to click, or call, or email or respond in whichever way you want.

5. Your emails should be laser targeted on one thing/offer at a time for a specific campaign. Do not be pinball bouncing from offer to offer. You will confuse your market and you'll lose whatever respect they had for you quickly.

Again, train your subscribers to do the action you want them to do. Repetition (with a bit of variety) matters.

I know all this might sound a bit contradictory the bouncing between repetition and variety. Again, you have to experiment with it and see what works best.


Now, let me share why the one autoresponder email campaign works so well.

Because one of the major points in the email is (and we tell people right up front) "We will never abuse the privilege of communicating with you. So when we do communicate with you, pay attention. It's important."

If you drip, drip, drip everyday and say that at the same time... that's inauthentic because timing plays a HUGE in terms of scarcity/value of the communication message.

Think about it this way: A girl gets roses or chocolates or a love letter from her boyfriend every day. In the beginning it's rather touching and it's appreciated. But after while... it becomes anticipated. It gets old quickly.

(Not to mention if she's eating the chocolates, she's going to resent him for getting her fat.)

That's doesn't mean you can't do a drip campaign and create huge value for people. YOU CAN. It just means you should ensure all your emails have integrity. And timing of your autoresponder emails is an important element to that integrity.

People look for "black and white" answers when it comes to stuff like this. The best marketers do not rest alone on "proven" principles. (That's what makes marketing and copywriting so challenging, fun and creative at the same time.) But the people on this forum thread who have contributed to you have given you some solid, actionable, consistently reliable advice.

- Rick Duris

[Jay White]

Originally Posted by AllanJames

Now that was subtle :-)

Lemme see if I can improve on it..

Hmm.............. ahhh ...

I was talking to one of my students the other day, and he was telling me how much the comprehensive video course I provided him, to his amazement without charge, when he picked up a copy of my FREE Make Your First Dollar Online Guide from, he said, my incredible (and I almost blushed when he said that) StartBusinessMentor affiliate training center had helped him establish a great! relationship with his, now, rapidly growing and, now, highly responsive list.

:-)


Don't mind me joshing you Jay, I'm in a playful mood this morning :-)

LOL! No worries Allan.

I know it's a short and sweet answer. But honestly, if I was to type out my autoresponder strategy in every one the threads that ask questions like these (and there's a LOT of them), I'd never get any work done.

So it's just easier for me to send them to a video series. There's no optin, they're completely free, and it's about 90 minutes of solid, usable info, if I say so myself.

[Jim Groninger]

you have to be careful not to over bother them.......and have great emails that gives them a reason to be excited........free info, free report, check out my video on the subject......I recommend no more than every 10 to 12 days for a email