It’s not uncommon for Internet marketers to have some hesitation when it comes to email marketing and autoresponder sequences. After all, they have to spend hours developing the content that can be sent out just one time.
Surely, there’s got to be a better way, right? Isn’t there a way to send the same email out many times without looking weird doing it? It’s a waste to do a one-off email marketing campaign. It’s because the open rates on these emails run around 13 to 20 percent, which means between 80 and 87 percent of your subscribers are not going to spend any time reading your newsletter.
Enter Email Marketing Automation and Autoresponders…
When autoresponder sequences are set up quickly, it can be used to send one-off emails that will boost your effectiveness. It lets you continuously use the material to increase your readership rather than just showing 20 percent of the audience the information just one time.
How can you use autoresponders effectively? How can you come up with a balance between a direct one-off email campaign and an automated email campaign?
Before you can answer these questions, you need to know what an autoresponder sequence is. It’s just a brief look at it, so you understand what’s going on. When it comes to a one-off campaign (standard email campaign), you send emails to people who sign up for your content and then forget about it altogether. It’s something you don’t use later on.
This is regarded as being time-dependent content.
For instance, your newsletter has a new edition to it, which notes the things happenings in your area for the month of July 2016. Do you really think you’d be sending it again in a month?
No one wants to hear about last month’s news.
With an automated email, the information is sent after a certain action has been carried out or the event is related to a person’s activity. It’s known as evergreen content.
What’s the most basic autoresponder sequence that a company sends? It’s the “Thank You” message that subscribers get. It’s often send when people confirm through their email they want to subscribe to your list.
What Are The Positive Advantages To Using Autoresponders?
There is a multitude of benefits to using autoresponders, and it’s not just in terms of reusability (ability to send items over and over again). They are ideal for your marketing campaign because it automates parts of it.
According to Gartner Research, businesses with automation tend to see a 10 percent increase within six to nine months’ time. Businesses who use all kinds of marketing automation to engage with prospects tend to have a 451 percent boost in qualified leads.
Autoresponders are a part of marketing automation, as they let you communicate with your audience, customers, and prospects, ensure your communications are regular and consistent and don’t take up a lot of your time.
There are two things autoresponders can do for you:
- Let you use your time effectively by developing messages that can be used over and over
- Provide you with results when it comes to revenue and lead management
Businesses that use email marketing automation receive a 10% increase in revenue within 6 to 9 months
5 Concepts Behind Autoresponder Sequences
Now that the why has been explained, it’s time to come up with strategies that work for you. It sounds ideal, but they’re not good for everything. And, that’s something you need to understand.
Autoresponders are great for bringing people into your marketing funnel and look at their needs based on what actions they take from your emails. There are a number of reasons this is so useful such as:
You Can Sell Your Services/Products
Spend some time coming up with a sequence of messages that will begin right after someone subscribes to your list. With these emails, you familiarize your new subscribers with the material while you also get an idea of their needs. And, once you understand what their needs are, you can tailor your material to products that will help them.
Begin by offering genuine content in the body of the automated emails. Offer advice on material that relates to your niche or develop a short guide to follow.
So, depending on what your subscribers are doing – opening emails or clicking links – you can send them additional emails that direct them to your material and other offers.
For example, you could send a person an email about Problem 1. They open the email, read it and hit the link you’ve embedded into it. You can safely assume their interest is high. With this information, the email automation sequence is triggered, and another related email is sent.
If there is no action taken, you can assume they’ve got no interest in your product/service. However, you can send them another message about something else entirely.
After several of these messages, you’ll know what they are and are not interested in. This will help you to craft offers that are ideal for them.
Encourage Them To Follow Your Social Media Page
When you have your subscribers follow you on social media, you don’t have to do a lot of interaction with them. Just ask them to follow you after two or three emails you have sent. By this point, they should have some familiarity with you and your service/product and want to follow you on Facebook, Twitter or any other social media platform.
How do you get them to follow? Use the direct approach. You can just tell them, “If you like what you see, don’t forget to follow us on our social media page.” Have a link for them to go to. You don’t want them to search for it because they’re likely never to do it.
Ask Precise Questions While You Do Research For Additional Products
After you’ve established your relationship with subscribers, ask them specific questions that relate to things they’re having problems with or goals they have a desire to meet. And, make sure to keep it simple. Send several messages first before you send the question you want to ask. If you do this too early, they may not answer you or feel they should answer you. From your responses, you have three actions you can take:
- Personally write to them
- Publish an article on the topic
- Use it for research to develop your next product
Reconnect With Those People Who Are Not Reading Your Emails
Here’s a sobering reality: there are many people who are not going to open your emails. They’ll just hit the delete button and move on. But, they decided to subscribe in the first place, so there’s a reason they wanted your emails. A way to combat their not opening your emails is to develop an autoresponder sequence that’s geared toward reconnecting with them. Of course, they may not open these emails, but some people may.
Use these emails to ask them how things are going, the challenges they’re facing and how you can assist them. Just one response is a win since you’ve reconnected with one of your subscribers.
Offer Them An Infinite Flow Of Free Content
How are you going to be successful if you’re giving away free content and don’t ask them for anything? Believe it or not, it’s a powerful business tactic, and the results can be a bit unpredictable. Therefore, you need to test it out and see what happens. You can send them the best material you have in an email without asking them to do anything.
Since many email lists are loaded with promotions, your subscribers will feel some relief that you’re not promoting your products over and over.
How Do You Set Up An Autoresponder Campaign
Believe it or not, it’s not hard to get an autoresponder campaign set up. We use Converkit to setup our email marketing campaigns and I can tell you it's breeze. You just have to develop and build emails within a user-friendly text editor interface. or you can drag each email copy into the interface to create an automated sequence.
It may be safe to assume that a majority of superior-quality email marketing tools have autoresponder functionality in their plans. The only issue you have is how much are you willing to invest to get the word out.
Does This Mean One-Off Email Campaigns Should Be Avoided?
Not at all! As noted, autoresponders are not an all-in-one tool. And, one-off email campaigns have their uses and effectiveness for numerous reasons. Some of these reasons include:
Like News Updates – News-centered messages are ideal for standard email campaigns because nobody wants to read last week’s news.
Present Promotions – If there’s a promotion you’re promoting, a single email campaign is far better than an autoresponder sequence.
Letting People Know About New Blog Posts – If there’s a new blog post on your website, a one-off email will let them know about it immediately.
Interviews, Community Updates, and Events – If there are things happening in the community, let your subscribers know about it. There’s no reason to repeat yourself an autoresponder sequence, which is why you still need to do a one-off campaign along with the autoresponder sequence campaign.
Successful Email Marketing Campaigns Entail Both Content and Promotion
For your email marketing campaign to be successful, you need to come up with a mixture of both promotion and content whether it’s for your automated emails or your one-off ones.
And, even though it sounds easy, people tend to get it wrong…like really wrong!
Why? People don’t like being promoted to. And, people want to feel their emails are nothing more than offering content to subscribers. But, what happens is that even sending an individual message, businesses can’t help but add a link to it, thinking it won’t hurt them.
However, it does hurt them because it can ruin your image.
It doesn’t matter what you put into your email, if it ends with some kind of promotional tactic, it’s going to read as being promotional. And, the only surefire way to avoid it, is to not include any links of any kind. Therefore, you need to promise yourself not to add in links. If you want to create a pure content email, make it so. Don’t add things that will gear it to something else.
When you create a promotional email, be sure it’s promotional – as obvious as you can. Subscribers respect the honesty you give them.
What You Should Remember About Autoresponders and One-Off Campaigns…
It’s important that you remember what autoresponders are and how to effectively use them so that your business will experience the benefits.
Autoresponders
- Useful for distribution of evergreen information
- Ideal for research, asking subscribers questions at the right time
- Delivery of content
- Useful to reconnect with inactive subscribers
One-Off Email Campaigns
- Ideal for distribution of time-dependent information
- Allows you to let subscribers know about current happenings, events, news and other things that are important today, not two days or more from now
Do you feel autoresponder sequences are an important email marketing tool for your business? Do you have an interest in using them for your company? If so, then it’s time to get started with autoresponders today.
