Hey Guys,

if you’ve been following my last blog posts, then you know that I had a bit of trouble with my autoresponder and that I’ve finally moved my lists to 2 new autoresponders, one is GVO and the other one is Traffic Wave. I’m not sure why but I got the feeling that I should go deeper into the topic “autoresponders” and therefore I write this blog post today.

I can still remember how it was when I first started out trying to make money online. There were all these new tools and new terms of language… and one of these was the autoresponder. First I thought an autoresponder is a very simple tool that just answers your emails automatically with a standard reply… but then I found out it’s alot more than just that.

First of all, an autoresponder is also the host of your list. Your list is basically just data consisting of the names, email addresses and maybe additional data of all the people who have signed up on your list. Yes, people need to sign up, you can’t just enter them on your list… that would be considered “spamming”.

Alright, so the process that we have so far is that people signup on your list… and they do that in most cases by entering their name and email address into a signup form on your website. They hit the submit button and then the signup form processes their data (name and email) to your autoresponder into your list.

There are basically 3 forms of autoresponders that you could use: Desktop Based Autoresponder, Self-Hosted Autoresponder, Hosted Autoresponder.

Here we only want to talk about the Hosted Autoresponder because the other two are not an option for beginners.

Hosted Autoresponders are programs that a company hosts on their servers. These companies (the good ones) have not just 1 server, they have huge server-clusters so that they are able to send out millions of emails per day (as they have many customers). These companies also have people who take care of the delivery rate of the emails. They do this by keeping their server ip’s off from the spam-blacklists, by switching ip’s and with some other methods. They do this for their customers, so you don’t have to take care of that.

The Hosted Autoresponders have a monthly membership fee. Some have a Flat Fee… for example at Traffic Wave you always pay $17,95 monthly no matter how many autoresponders you setup in your acccount and no matter how many subscribers you have. Other Hosted Autoresponders like Aweber or GetResponse will increase your monthly fee depending on how many subscribers you have in your autoresponders. Personally I had to pay over $400 monthly at Aweber… so if you plan to build big lists, then consider that this increasing membership fee can grow to a significant price factor in your business. You’ll be forced to promote stuff to “finance” your autoresponder costs.  Is that the reason why some “Gurus” send out so much crap?

All Hosted Autoresponders have 2 ways of sending out emails. You can use the Follow-Up feature and the Broadcast feature.

The Follow Up emails are the emails that get delivered automatically. You set them up once and then every new subscriber will receive your Follow Up Email. You can time those emails, for example you can send out the first email instantly as a person subscribes to your list. Then you can send out the second email a day later… or two days later if you like. Some marketers setup 50 or more Follow Up emails to automate their email marketing.

The Broadcast emails are the emails that you send out manually, in most cases just once on a certain date. For example, you want to announce the opening of your new membershipsite to your list, then you would send out a Broadcast email to your subscribers.

The Follow Up vs. Broadcast features is something that is not really easy to setup properly. For example: Will you send out your Broadcast to your whole list, even to the people who have just signed up 10 minutes ago? I mean, they signup and get the welcome email and then 10 minutes later they get your Broadcast email which might be a promotional email… not good if you ask me.

What if you have setup 10 Follow Up emails all going out one day after the other… wouldn’t it then be wise to send out the Broadcasts only to the people who are already on your autoresponder for 11 days or longer?

There are several things that you need to think about when setting up your autoresponders. The Broadcast and Follow Up Emails are just one part… but in fact a very important one!

That’s because the whole power of a good email marketing campaign comes from the Follow Up and Broadcast emails. Your success basically depends on what you send out and when you send it out. For example: When you setup 10 Follow Up emails… will you try to sell something already in the second email or will you give only free information and tips in the first couple of emails and start selling in the fifth email?

Personally I think your email marketing strategy must fit to the Offer that gets people on your list.

People don’t just signup for your list because you are a nice person… they signup because you offer them something in return for signing up to your list.

And right there in this Offer is the key for your email marketing strategy!

Let me give you 2 examples:

1.) When people signup for a Free Membershipsite… like a Traffic Exchange or a Safelist or a Free Download Site… then the email marketing strategy should be targeted towards building up trust and a community within the membershipsite. All you need to do to make sales is to get people logging in to your membershipsite. There you can have Login Offers, Special Offers and Backend Offers.

2.) You have a very simple Free To Signup Page where people signup to get a free ebook… then the email marketing strategy can be very different… you could do hard-selling by pushing a product that is related to the first product that you gave away for free. I mean… people signup to get the free ebook, not to join a community. They want to download their ebook and then they want to either read it or download more ebooks from somewhere else. Isn’t that what most of us do?
So in this case I personally think it would be better to hit them right then when they care about the topic… if they just downloaded a free ebook about “How to use Twitter”… then they might be interested in buying an ebook about “How to make money with Twitter”… am I right?

No matter what strategy you think is better… best is always if you test and track different strategies. Try different things and see what works best… if you keep doing this for a while you’ll end up with the best possible conversions.

Alright… this is already a very long blog post… so I must come to an end. I could keep writing about this topic. The thing is, that setting up an autoresponder… the technical part… that’s easy if you take some time to learn how to do it. The hard part is the email marketing itself and that is setting up a good Offer that people will signup for and having good Follow Up and Broadcast emails that lead people towards taking certain actions.

OK, let me guess… now you want to know how you can setup a Killer Email Marketing Campaign… correct?

Believe me, if I’d know a formula that works everytime, then I would show it to you right here on the blog. Fact is that there are certain marketing strategies and techniques that can do wonders… if used properly and if used in the right situation and content. I would recommend you study successful marketers. Signup to their lists and analyse what they do… what do they offer for the free signup… what do they offer after the free signup… what kind of emails do they send you… etc.

Also, I think you should start small. For example, if you are just starting out with internet marketing, then don’t try to open up a huge membershipsite or starting a huge product launch. These things require skills, good contacts and a couple thousand dollars to start. You need a big server, referral contest prizes, a support team, programmers or technical people for bug fixes, big jv partners who promote etc. Way too much for a total beginner!

If you are just starting out, then build up Simple Systems like a Squeeze Page (the signup page) with a free ebook offer. Learn how to get visitors to your Squeeze Page and how to increase the number of people who signup to your list (the conversion rate). Setup different offers… compare the conversion rates for different free products… test different One Time Offers that you show after the free signup to make your first money. Once you are able to get 10 and more signups per day and a couple of One Time Offer sales, then you can move on to the next bigger systems with alot of knowledge in your hands.

The next step could be starting your own Giveaway Event. Your own Giveaway Event is like a little test before starting your own Membershipsite. A Giveaway Event runs for about 4 weeks including the pre-launch. So, you can experience how it is to do Support, how to do proper email communications with your members and other things that you can later use for starting your own Membershipsite. Your own Membershipsite with a free to signup offer and monthly recurring upgrade options plus included affiliate program is the Pro Level of Listbuilding.

Alright, enough for now… Please let me know your questions and let me know what part of the whole Email Marketing and Listbuilding topic you want to know more about.

Post your comments below!

Thanks,

Guido Nussbaum