It's true! Autoresponders are essential to your web site. They are the automated customer-relations team of your online business. Notice I wrote "customer-relations" and not "sales". Every Tom, Dick and Harry, not to mention Juan and Dimitri, are into luring their site visitors into giving away their e-mail address for supposedly some hot information contained in autoresponders. A good percentage of these are pure hype and give away the sizzle but not the steak. Heck, you don't even get the sizzle but a peck and pop!
No substance. Typically they come in 7 installments:
The first 2 merely excite you to anticipate the next messages. The third message gives away a free gift of an e-book that some "guru" throws away because it didn't make any money and is rehashed for this purpose (they even have a term for it: viral advertising).
Then the 4th responder hints at the product the author is selling to try to excite you some more. The 5th gives away some outdated report of some marketing activity that everybody is doing, including you. Then the rest of this supposedly breakthrough autoresponder e-course tells you how great their product is and why it's essential you buy it.
Receiving an autoresponder such as this only compels me to unsubscribe right away. And I'm quite sure so do countless of others. As a result, credibility and potential customers are lost.
In analyzing auto-responders that kept me a long-time subscriber, here's what I discovered:
1. They were written in an easy-going, personal style. So many e-books and reports are published about writing sales copy that the tendency is to employ every trick they teach --from hypnotic phrases to subtle commands-- that your messages look more as if they were written by a well-polished mannequin than a real person.
2. They offered new ideas, not some rehashed, reworded activity that no longer works yet made to seem like it was the best-kept marketing secret. What I mean is readers can actually use the tip, tool or resource you offer and see results. Don't give your least-workable idea. Give your best! When your subscribers perceive this, they won't easily let you go.
3. They are not afraid to cite other resources and without referral links! Many autoresponder messages are merely a sorry excuse to post affiliate links in the hope the reader will click on one and eventually buy off of that linked site. An affliate link or two is tolerable if the linked resources are really of value. But to splatter your messages with affiliate links tells me you're desperate and not sincere. Point to valuable resources without affiliate links and you build trust. That trust will allow you to later add affiliate links to your recommendations without your subscribers even raising an eyebrow.
4. They were designed to build a relationship and not make a quick sale. It's all about value. You have to ask yourself, are my autoresponder messages giving something of value or are they mere sales copy out to comple me to reach for my credit card?
According to studies, the number one reason why people come into the Internet is to look for information. Give them valuable information through your autoresponder and they'll come back to you. Don't excite them with the sizzle and then come to them empty-handed.
Serve the steak and let them know there's more where it came from.
Keywords: autoresponders, sales letter, marketing
developerWorks - FREE Tools!
