Using an Autoresponder Will Make Your Life as a Marketer Easier

— because writing 10,000 emails by yourself is a pain.

You have a website. You even have a contact formula so you can build your email list of people interested in your content, product, or service. I want to ask, how are you collecting their email addresses?

The beginner’s way

The usual process I see when somebody tries to build an email list is with a contact form on a website.

This is not a bad idea. People come to your website. They are interested in what you are offering. They sign up for a course, information, or a newsletter.

What happens next?

In most cases, you have a contact form on a WordPress site. Maybe WPForms or Contact Form 7, two of the most popular plugins for building an email list. Once somebody gives you their contact information, you receive a notification.

After the notification, if you are the friendly type, you send them a thank you email. This email may even contain the content you promised.

When you are starting out, and getting only one or two subscribers a day, you can operate this way. What happens when you are receiving 10’s or 100’s of subscriptions a day? Do you think you have the time to reply to 1,000 new subscriptions a month?

Would your time be better spent producing content, services, or products?

The process is the same for every new subscriber. It is time to automate. This is where you use an autoresponder. It is also one of the five digital assets you should have for your business.

What is an autoresponder

An autoresponder is a process that automates email replies. In your case, automatically sending a thank you mail when somebody subscribes. The great thing, it can do a whole lot more. Even better, once you set it up, it runs automatically. Day or night, while you sleep or on a date if somebody subscribes, they are taken care of immediately.

There are many autoresponders out there. Google “what are the top 10 autoresponders” and you will find a plethora of offers.

Prices and services vary, so do your research. I use AWeber. There is a free and pro version.

How your business could use an autoresponder

I am going to stick with the example of a sign-up form on your website to show you how your autoresponder will make life easier and more profitable for you.

Let us say you have a website about Urban Farming dedicated to apartment dwellers wanting to grow their own healthy foods. On your website, you are offering a free pdf guide, if someone subscribes.

I use AWeber as my autoresponder. I will describe the process in an AWeber way. Most autoresponders are the same, so this process will work with other autoresponders as well.

The process starts in your autoresponder. First, you create a list for the free pdf guide you are offering. Everybody that submits their contact information will be added to this list. You can have as many lists in AWeber as you want. It makes sense to have multiple lists. You should separate people that signed up for a free guide from the people that buy something from you in the future.

Next, you connect AWeber to your sign-up form on your website. If you have WordPress, AWeber offers a plugin that makes the process easy.

Next, you start a campaign. A campaign is just a series of actions that will happen once somebody signs up for the free guide. It could be as simple as sending a thank you email with a link to the downloadable guide. This action will be carried out every time somebody signs up for the free pdf.

Set it up once and let the autoresponder work for you. Even when you are sleeping.

Or it could be turned into a marketing funnel.

How to really use an autoresponder

Same example as above, but let us expand on the possibilities. Somebody signs up for the free pdf guide. This time though, because you set this action in AWeber, as soon as the subscriber submits their contact information, instead of a thank you letter, they are rerouted to a thank you page with a thank you video and further information.

In your thank you video, not only do you thank them, you introduce yourself, and your company. If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a video worth? While they are listening to your video, in the background, your autoresponder is sending them an email with the download link to the free pdf guide. You can also include the link on your thank you page for the impatient people.

Since you set up a campaign for the free pdf guide, you can automatically send follow-up emails with wait actions between emails.

After one day, the next email could go out asking them if they enjoyed the guide. This email could also include information about a book they could purchase from your website if they want to really start Urban Farming. Ever heard of upselling?

If they do purchase the book, AWeber can automatically move them to a different list of customers that bought your book. For email marketing purposes a buyer should be handled differently than a subscriber.

After a day, you could send the subscriber another email that covers some of the products in your online store they could purchase if they want to start Urban Farming.

The next day, you could send them links to some of your content promoting the benefits of Urban Farming. As long as your emails provide value to your list, keep sending emails. The timings between the emails can also be varied. The possibilities are endless.

Even after the campaign is complete, you still have the list. You can send broadcasts to your list. Write an email once and send it to your list. Whether you have 10 or 10,000 people on your list, your effort is the same.

Isn’t automation great? Set it up once and let it run.

Originally published at https://pivottowardsfreedom.com on August 30, 2021.