Email Marketing AutoResponse Emails

Previously, we discussed how to create landing pages that convert visitors into autoresponse sales funnel leads. This post continues the discussion on email marketing by listing ideal content for autoresponder emails. When someone opts in to a mailing list (at time 0), their email address goes to an autoresponse email database.

An example of an advertisement from an external source. The lead magnet is promised. In this case, value is delivered with a tip in a Youtube video. At the end of the video, one of the calls to action (CTAs) is to a link to 'download our case studies'. This link leads to a lead generating landing page on this company's website that collects only the new lead's email address.

Time 0 Purpose: Thank you / Welcome / Congratulations with instructions

This refers to the automatic confirmation page your audience sees immediately after successfully opting in. NEVER provide the lead magnet (like a PDF or other content) within this note. From this point forward, train your audience to become used to receiving your emails with instructions for getting what they want ... even though this means instructing them away from the confirmation page on your website to their email, only to have them return again to your website later.

• CTA: Invite your target to view content that is posted on social media so they can share it there. I really loved the way in which the Trademark Factory thanked leads for booking a qualification meeting and then directed leads to a page on their website with video content that helped to leads to self-qualify and answer pertinent questions, all the while allowing persons to cancel if they realized that they do not actually qualify.
• Social network links at the bottom of the email. Social media provides additional touch points for engaging with your target market. (Use it in general for getting more email addresses).

Thank you page Example: 

Thanks! [social media buttons] Check your email to find free resources. Email from your personal account representative will display as '[His/her first name] at [business name]' If you don't see a message from us, check your Spam / Bulk folder and white list our email address. All of our free resources are listed below. Don't forget to follow us on [large social media buttons].

Email 1 - Provide a link to the Lead Magnet (value) on your website

We live in a world in which instant gratification is expected. It is therefore necessary to provide the lead magnet as soon as possible before your audience forgets about you or moves on. Again, train your audience to 1) look for your emails and then 2) to go to your website for the lead magnet. To clarify, do not send the lead magnet as an email attachment because your audience will not have any incentive to visit your website otherwise. 

• CTA: Give your audience a link to access the lead magnet on your website.
• Examples of lead magnets include the following
• 2-3 page how-to PDF document
• video instructions
• Messages: Stay tuned for __ content / webinar, etc on __[date and time]. You may even provide a list of the upcoming content in list format (especially if you prefer to set expectations to avoid surprises and even frustration of receiving your emails.) Please be sure to white-list my email address / domain name.
• Only when the volume of potential responses is manageable, encourage your leads to respond to your email. Your two-way communication will be considered normal and not spam. Examples include the following.

• Actively encourage replies with a PS that says, 'I personally read and reply to your email responses.' 

•  Encourage your leads to help you to send more targeted messages by replying to your email with a changed subject line that reflects their segment like 'MALE CLOTHING', 'FEMALE CLOTHING' or 'BOTH'.

• Personal introduction of yourself as the dedicated customer service person, showing how you add value, even if that means telling a concise particular stories, etc.

• "I am your personal customer representative. I dedicate my time to only a maximum of 15 customers whose profit margins I help to increase. In fact, last year, 5 of those customers achieved ___"

• [FOR DOUBLE OPT-IN] If you received this email by mistake, simply delete it. You won't be subscribed if you don't click the confirmation link above. For questions about this list, please contact: admin@domain.com

• Trouble integrating a third party app with MailChimp to accomplish this? Seek instructions from the customer support of the third party app. See how to integrate and sync Privvy with MailChimp. Unfortunately, integration is not a simple one-click process. Otherwise, allow the new subscriber to unsubscribe. Do this by sending a replica of the subscription confirmation content from emails and or webpages they would have received from the service provider (example MailChimp). Include buttons and links not only to unsubscribe but also update profile. 

                 

Copy all of the text. Right click on the buttons to capture the links for manage preferences (which will send the user to the page immediately below. (where you could find the URL to unsubscribe.

Get this link by either right clicking to get the option to copy it or clicking this link to the the unsubscribe webpage whose URL you can copy from the URL box

           

This is the email you can create in your lead generating service confirmation letter editor. Notice the unsubscribe link. Unfortunately, the link to 'manage personal profile preferences' in your test email  can not be used to personalize this email because the link is specific to each member of your list. Remember to place text 'Please click here to visit our website' in the ALT="" for the image.so that that text will show if the person's HTML is turned off. 

Email 2 - Unexpected Bonus

Give your audience the opportunity to feel relieved for having reached out to you ... because they keep getting things of value. Examples include the following. Ideally, the bonus should relate to the lead magnet since the will be more likely to open it. 

• how-to video. Free content should surpass the lead magnet. For instance, if the lead magnet gave bullet point instructions, this content is more involved with images, case studies and so on. Perhaps the bonus is the 2nd of several paid volumes
• Resource guide (involving the various tools on the website)

Email 3 - Find out Personal Pain Points

This provides valuable market insight, especially if you are new to a niche. Responses will help you to better understand your audience and their needs. It helps you to know what and how you can sell to your audience. It is important to stress your interest in 2-way communication to understand their needs. As before, train your audience to follow a link back to your website to respond. Discourage responses to that email address.

• Message: 'How can I help you?'; 'What are you struggling with?'; 
• PS. I will personally review your survey responses
• Give your audience as many opportunities to get answers to their questions:
• Link to contact form on your website. The form may involve a survey with an incentive
• Link to FAQs based on their main questions
• Do a 'Q&A' video 

Email 4 - Introductory Sale Offer with Scarcity ... and value

Aim to sell something small. Make subscribers feel special and deserving of the offer because of its exclusivity because they are on the mailing list.

• Message: 'Here is a solution to your problem'; 'This product is suitable'
• 'One-time only offer'
• Extra motivations: Discounts

As a twist to this, I will also include a hyperlink to a webpage that stresses how the company seeks to keep online credit card purchases secure.

Email 5 - Reminder of Sale Offer in email 4. Stress Scarcity

Do not be discouraged if not many people buy. Conversion generally does not exceed 5% to 10% at this stage.

• Message: 'The offer x mentioned previously ends today'; 'Last reminder: ...'

Email 6 - Unexpected 'Wow' Bonus

This should definitely provide considerable value that essentially shows the bigger product. For instance, if you sell a course, you provide some of the content for free, not simple bullet points but the actual content. The audience should be left wondering, 'If this is free, what else is offered in the paid content?'

Email 7 - Sales Pitch for Main Product, No More Freebies

The main product should be the natural progression from what people have already received in your earlier emails. BTW, do not become discouraged by a limited number of sales. Expect to sell to more than 5% to 10% of your subscribers within the first week or two. Some of those subscribers who do not buy may pass your information on to others. It is worthwhile leaving those subscribers on the list so they can see how your business works. They might eventually buy, especially since their ostensible disinterest may be due to temporary life circumstances. 

• Message: Here is some more information about that problem

Email 8 - Begin Long Term Nurture (exceed expectations)

The purpose of this email is to exceed the expectations of your audience. To do this, check in on how well they are managing (some people may have bought the splinter product), give more value about the problem just solved, get a review, other related product sale

• Message: Here is some more information about that problem 
• Message: Do you have any questions? 

Broadcast Emails

Broadcasts are one-off emails that you send out to all members within a segment or entire group. 

The sequence above was aimed at establishing the relationship. Afterwards, send general broadcast emails with frequency that is appropriate to your niche. The frequency of broadcasts should depend on your niche. However, it is common to establish a specific day when your audience can expect to hear from you and leave another day for non-routine, more random broadcasts.

Examples include the following.

• Coupon Code raffles. See how to create free coupon codes that can be used by a limited number of people.
• Deals. See how Amazon uses Christmas-themed pre-buzz tent poling to broadcast 12 days of deals from December 4th to 15th in 2016. 

Whatever you do, remember the following

• Timing is critical! Do not schedule emails at times when your target market does not check or are not in the mindset for receiving messages. This requires you to consider some of their habits around which you can plan. For instance, church on Sunday morning, Summer vacation, Christmas day, Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday and so on. Also consider the time zones. You might need to consider sending different versions of the same email according to geographic location. In short, you should aim to send email when the email will be at the top of the inbox, ie rather than accumulate with a lot of other marketing noise. The significance of this may be likened to that of the position of Google search results. Furthermore, if Google realizes your market is not opening the emails, they begin to mark the email as 'spam' or place the emails into the 'promotions' folder. You can tell your target's best day by testing and analyzing your target's open rates over time. Don't beat yourself up for not getting this perfectly all at once. This could take the average person roughly one year to figure out.

Regardless of your usual time interval, the first contact email (ie the first email after opt-in) should be soon after, roughly 1 day afterwards. This ensures that they 1) remember who you are and 2) decide whether they are sufficiently good fit by remaining or opting out. The subsequent emails should go out quick succession with roughly 2-3 emails weekly for about 2 weeks before slowing down.
Calculate the timing so that the email and big sale coincide with the period around pay day. Essentially, pay day should be treated like a tent pole. See how Amazon's Christmas email broadcast is well timed before Christmas and shortly after the November payday. 

Image by Shane Sams (of FlippedLifeStyle.com)

Do not worry that you are bombarding your audience during the first few weeks. They will remain if they are truly engaged.
Figure the frequency for autoresponse emails that your target market will appreciate. Time 0 (below) refers to the time of opt-in.

• Time 0  -  Day 1  -  Day 2  -  Day 3   -  etc

• Time 0 -   Day 3  -  Day 5  -  Day 7

• Time 0 -  Week 1  -  Week 2  -  Week 3

• Time 0 -  Month 1  -  Month 2  -  Month 3

• Use engaging subject lines. Email subject lines have considerable influence on open rate. Here are a few tips.
• Short subject lines for most forms of marketing, preferably under 50 characters. Use longer subject lines for awareness campaigns.
• Use words that explain the benefit (like 'lose x lbs in 3 days') over words that describe the email type (like 'newsletter', 'update'). 
• Use recipient's first name in the subject (line like 'Jane, this might help you cut costs)
• Highly targeted subject lines. Segment your market so that the subject lines apply to recipients
• Start with action verbs that transform email subject lines into Calls to Action (CTAs). Example 'Earn passive income' (rather than 'how to ~), 'Win a __'
• Give recipients the sense of being part of something exclusive. Example 'Exclusive Member offer', 'You are invited'
• Include urgency in subject lines. Example 'Only for today'
• Use regular title or sentence format. This therefore means avoiding the abrasive, even spam-like approaches all caps like this 'OPEN THIS EMAIL' or overuse of exclamation marks like this 'Open this email !!!!!!!'
• Use preview text (which, although not the subject line, is relevant). Set you Be mindful of the first few
• See more tips in this Adestra research project
• Do have only 1 clear purpose and CTA per email. Even if there are multiple CTA links, they should all serve the single, clear purpose (with the exception of the first email includes multiple links to social media also)
• Do use the PS to concisely repeat the gist of the email. Research shows that many people skim past the body of an email but read the PS section.
• Be clear about the purpose of each email. 
• Do not bombard subscribers with sales pitch. Instead, combine your sales pitch with perceived value (usually content). It has been estimated that an acceptable ratio is roughly 1 part sales pitch : 5 parts delivered value. As shown above in the email sequence, it is best to present value upfront.
• If the bonus content is ever in a public location, wherever possible, reserve part of the content as a printed document that people can access only if they are subscribers. Make this detail clear in the public content and encourage non-subscribers to opt-in. An element of scarcity may be useful in converting them.
• Managing inactive users. Sending emails to inactive users can be detrimental to the way in which Google perceives you. For this reason, strive to master the earlier points regarding timing to increase the potential open rate. Yes, Google analytics in people's gmail accounts are monitoring open rates to decide which emails should be considered 'spam' and or 'promotional'. Besides, depending on your emailing provider, each of those people add to your costs. Consequently, if testing the timing does not improve the open rate, remove inactive users from the main list and save them in their own segment like 'Inactive People' using a CSV file. Some people may never see your mail if you were unable to get your timing right. Regarding the unsubscribed audience, delete their addresses since you no longer have permission to contact them. Test the residual interest of still subscribed, inactive people who in the following ways.  

• Put them through a Webinar sales funnel to capture revenue you could not in earlier stages of your autoresponder email marketing sequence 

• Send a note asking whether they are still interested in hearing from you. Many will not respond, especially since their inactivity may be due to inability to receive our emails. BlueHost's email says, 'We miss you!'

• Ask whether they prefer that you correspond with them via a different email address (since some people may have submitted their work email address but can not find sufficient time at work to follow through)

• Transfer them to other media like Facebook advertising campaigns with 'reach awareness' objectives. Facebook allows you to create a 'custom audience' group to whom you can advertise. This has been known to be highly effective in reviving these otherwise inactive subscribers.

RELATED CONTENT

• Creating a landing page to convert traffic to autoresponse sales funnel leads 
• Create free coupon codes that can be used by a limited number of people
• Set up a webinar sales funnel to convert inactive leads
• Broadcast email marketing - an Amazon case study: '12 Days of Deals' before Christmas
• Some of the content found in this post was inspired by FlippedLifeStyle.com Shane Sams