subject: Writing For Autoresponders and Keeping a Flow of Information Directed to Your Customers [print this page] Writing For Autoresponders and Keeping a Flow of Information Directed to Your Customers
My first contact with autoresponders came when I worked for a large global company and colleagues would set automatic email messages to inform others when they were "out of the office."I remember thinking how clever these out of office replies were and couldn't wait to learn how to tweak my own email settings to do the same!
Now, as an internet marketer, I use autoresponders not to tell people I am away from my desk but to communicate with my customers in an ordered and structured manner.This communication takes the form of the series of pre-programmed messages which are written once and then set to be automatically sent out in a timed sequence. Such a system is all very well and good but just what do you include in your messages?
What you decide to write will obviously depend on your own business and what you want to say to your clients but there are a few pointers which can be applied to any business when it comes to setting up an autoresponder message series.Your customer will have had the welcome' email when they signed up to the list but what should you tell them next? Well the first general rule is not to bombard them with a series of "hard sell" emails where the message is "buy, buy, buy."
Studies have shown that it often takes seven separate interactions with a person before they feel comfortable enough to buy from a website so use your initial messages to develop a relationship with your customer.Explain a little bit about yourself, about your website and about why you are doing what you are doing. Remember that people buy from other people so set about quietly selling yourself first before you attempt to sell your products.
Then introduce some of your products in your emails and you might do this by talking about one of the benefits of one product you want to sell. Go into some detail about one key benefit your product contains and also include a link to your sales page.
In your next email you may go on to talk about the next best feature of the product as a way of reinforcing the buying decision of the customer reading your email. But don't sell in every email and use some of your messages just to pass on tips and information your clients will find helpful.
Sophisticated autoresponder systems will be able to detect when a customer buys one of your products and will then move them to another list where the benefits of a follow up product are explained in the next series of emails.
Whatever autoresponder system you use you will want to give a lot of thought to the headline you use as the subject field of the message. This has one purpose, and one purpose only; to get the viewer to open your email. To do this the headline must grab the person's attention and make them excited about the message it contains. The headline can really make all the difference between your message being read or not. Test this out for yourself by sending one message to half your list with one headline and exactly the same message to the other half but with a different headline and see how response rates compare.
Autoresponders also allow you to personalise the email by adding the name of the person you are sending it to. A message which starts "Dear Patrick," is clearly far better than one which starts "Dear Prospective Customer."Don't overdo it on the personalisation though. I sometimes get emails where my name has been inserted into every other sentence and I find this tactic totally counter-productive. (I find myself reading the message to check how many times my name has been used while completely overlooking the underlying sales message it contains!)
Finally I often like to repeat the main message of the email in a P.S. at the end, maybe repeating both the main benefit or the product I am selling and the link to the web page.
It is amazing how many people will read the first paragraph and then skip straight to the P.S. at the end. I know for a fact this happens because I often do it myself when I want to read a message but am tight on time.
