Email autoresponders - They’re awesome tools that keep email marketing alive. Not to mention that one of the major benefits for the sender is “Money”.
That’s why they say “the money is in the list”. That’s not wrong. But that’s not the sole purpose.
From my point of you, list building should be done primarily for building relationship with your customers/readers and then you should also be making money out of your list by offering quality.
Now the biggest question here is which comes first - building relationships or making money?
The answer of course is something similar to that of the famous question: Chicken or Egg?
But, the best practice is building relationships, providing value and THEN make money from your list. I am sure it also won’t work the other way now-a-days, given that people are fed up with sales emails and can easily smell you if you’re a sales person.
If people find that they can get value from you and if they come to know that you treat them in a special way, sure you won’t have problems in recommending stuff to them and making sales.
So it all comes down to a point where you should think about using email autoresponders for your subscribers’ benefit, instead of yours.
The basics
Interacting with your subscribers is important if you want to keep yourself and your blog updated to suit their preferences.
However, if you are aspiring to reach a significant subscribers’ figure within a short time, then the temptation to exchange emails with the others can become a serious issue.
Email marketing is also a very important part of your promotional campaign.
Effective email marketing requires a competent email autoresponder to work on the various aspects like list building, leads collection and email distribution. It is actually sheer intelligence to use the various developed technological tools to ease these essential labors of blogging.
The shiny effective email autoresponder that I use is Aweber. I’m so glad I’m using it. You can try Aweber for $1 for the first month (fully functional account), by the way.
Email autoresponder can handle this work within a fraction of the time it will take to attempt it manually and in a more organized way, too. You simply have to know of the simple ways that you can incorporate this efficient tool in your work process. Here is a brief list of four simple ways for this task.
Designing courses or product services that you can distribute via an effective email autoresponder
When your subscribers register for your email list, you must make it worthwhile for them. It is true that this opportunity is primarily to market your product. However, try to send in some extra nudge in their direction. Designing an exclusive course related to your niche is a great idea to send out with your emails.
You can also send in product referrals as well as suggestions with these messages. You do not have to review these new products but refer the products related to niches that you think your subscribers might find interesting.
Using your autoresponder for conducting surveys and polls for effective list building
Use your autoresponder to build a competent survey that your subscribers can take. You can also arrange for contests and have your subscribers enlist through the autoresponder.
This is an amazing way to build an effective customer list and encourage lead collection since there is a lot of room for receiving feedback from your customers.
Attractive offers via the email autoresponders
You can use your email autoresponder to send out service offers for your product. You can preferably offer free trial subscriptions so that people can use the product for a few days without any charges.
The best part is that the emails are a part of lead generation and you can build on your consumer relationship with future offers and subscription plans.
Important point - Effective list building is a very important tool but the effectiveness depends upon the proper utilization of this information.
Researching about your consumers, to analyze the product developments and services that they might be more interested in, is a good way to help evolve your blog.
Reports with grouped parts and text excerpts
Use your autoresponder to distribute promotional reports about your product and services. However, make sure to create a multi-part analysis of the product and services information. The idea is to encourage the subscribers’ interest in the product and instigate the subscribers to seek more information about the brand.
Best email responder will keep the interaction with the subscribers automated and as frequent as you want it to be. Build the anticipation for the product or the service with each presented layer of the report. However, moving too slow in the updating process can create a gap in the interest hype.
Here is where the autoresponders come in to rescue. Piece together excerpts of the articles or informational texts regarding the product or service details and release it to the subscribers so that the feel compelled to check out the full article or text.
Takeaway
Email marketing requires careful strategizing. The technique is much more direct since it gives you a reach to the subscribers’ inbox. However, the theme and design of the newsletters, response emails and the reports should be arranged to relate to the blog design as well as the product theme. This maintains the continuity and appropriate credibility of the emails for the subscribers.
Fortunately, there are many email marketing autoresponder software tools available in the market. Best email autoresponder will give you options to create multiple templates for your responses. This way you can categorize the responses as business and social.
There are times when subscribers do not have the necessary time required to scope out your website or blog fully. To avoid losing subscribers over this little gap, you can reformat and publish your site or blog in the autoresponder format.
How do you use email autoresponsders?
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Article by JaneSheeba
+Jane is the founder of Problogging Success. She is an expert blogger, consultant, freelance writer and blog designer. Don't forget to get your hands on two FREE Ebooks she offers.
Jane has written 286 awesome posts for Problogging Success.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Jane,
Never got down to emailing nor email autoresponder, as I never knew about them so much in detail earlier. Your post does explain things in detail, which is a great reason to visit it each time
I had heard about Aweber, but there were others like Mailchimp etc also in the market, which makes it tough again to decide which one should we go for, though one is paid and Mailchimp is free I guess.
Thanks for sharing
Harleena Singh recently posted..How Freelance Writers can Use Google+
Harleena, thanks for the kind words. Yes there’s a lot of debate as to which one to choose between Aweber and Mailchimp. And there’s a post coming up
Jane Sheeba recently posted..Effective Link Building Strategy: Did You Miss This?
Hi there. Thanks for sharing this. Email autoresponder is a good thing since people will at least know that their emails have reached us.
Andrew Walker recently posted..Great hotel spas
Yes that’s right Andrew! Thanks for your comment.
Thanks for this post, the issue of autoresponder in blogging or any other online marketing cannot be over emphasized.
Please, how can i get this type of your comment box? Pls help me, i need it seriously.
Bless recently posted..Don’t Make The Mistake That Cost This Blogger Over $2,000 Per Month in Income.
I’m using the default comment system from Wordpress. And, I’ve customized the design of my blog (Thesis Theme), which also takes care of the comment box. I can help you with that if you want. Just contact me.
Jane Sheeba recently posted..Effective Content Marketing Via Web Content Syndication
Even newsletter do need proper strategy to promote the stuff. I guess it’s all the same like how you mentioned in this article.
Ricardus recently posted..How to trigger ideas to write new article
Ric, yes this applies for both autoresponders and newsletters. Thanks for your comment.
what is your opinion on having some native system to function as email auto-responders, it will save you few bucks as well..
Raj recently posted..Google Ads To Get +1 Touch
What kind of native systems Raj? Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks for the in-depth post. I’ve been taking a look at auto-responders and keep hearing good things about Aweber. I think I’ll sign-up within a week, as the Christmas season is going to start, and I would like to start building a list soon. Thanks.
Lionel, indeed. Aweber is worth the salt. I will be doing a review post quite shortly that compares both Aweber and Mailchimp. Since I used both of them I now can tell my readers what I know
I never thought ofhaving an email responder earlier and as well I didn’t think seriously about having an email list but after reading it, it seems I should have one.
Thanks for this excellent and exhaustive article Jane, which has clears my many doubts.
Lalit recently posted..Samsung Tablet PC – New Samsung Series 7 Slate PC Review and Price
I LEARNED MANY THIGS IN THE POST. I DONT KNOW DETAILS ABOUT HOW TO WORK THIS PLUGIN .NOW I KNOW AVERTHING THIS PLUGIN .THANKS SHER YOUR GREAT POST.