Archive | August, 2022

There is so much disinformation on this that I just have to weigh in. No doubt you’ve been told or read that you should create a fancy autoresponder sequence where each email builds upon the previous email. And that if you make it fancy enough, and complicated enough, you can get prospects to take any action you like, blah blah blah…

But guess what? You don’t know how people are going to respond to it. You can make a prediction, but your guess might be 180 degrees off. So now you’ve come up with an elaborate system that accomplishes nothing.

More importantly, building a sequential series like sections of a story might have worked 10 years ago, but these days I guarantee that even your best customers will not read and digest every one of your emails. Some of your emails won’t even get through, and many will be lost in a sea of OTHER emails from other marketers.

No matter who you are or how famous you might be, not every message of yours will get read. Remember that. Thus each email needs to stand on its own and not rely on the reader having read and remembered something in a previous email.

So what should you place in your autoresponder sequences? Here are some ideas that flat out work at getting a response…

1. Send people to your blog. If you’ve got a blog with great posts full of good information, write up an email for each blog post and place it in your autoresponder. This only works for evergreen information and blog posts that don’t display a date.

2. You can even tie each blog post to a product you’re promoting. For example, “Here’s a great product that teaches you exactly how to get traffic. And before you get that traffic pouring into your website, you’ll want to make sure your page is optimized for the highest conversion possible. Here’s a post on how to do that.”

3. Don’t send your readers to your blog every day – break those messages up with other messages.

4. Emails that convert well. You send a broadcast email to your list and the response is phenomenal, or just plain good. So what do you do? Most marketers forget about it. But the smart money says to copy and paste that email into your autoresponder series. And yes, it’s okay to send out repeat information. Some of your readers will never see it the first time, and others who did see it will appreciate the reminder.

5. Send them a question. Yes, in the autoresponder series, send them an email that asks an either/or type of question. For example, “Which do you value more – exciting new diet news or easier fat-burning exercise techniques? Reply back with one or the other in the subject line.”

6. Then follow up with both. “Are you one of those who wants the latest new diet news? Well check this out!” “Are you one of those who said you want exercise techniques that burn fat? Look at this!” You’re hitting both (in two separate emails) regardless of which they answered.

7. Personal stories. You’ve got a ton of stories to share with others, you just don’t realize it. And so long as you can relate those stories to the interests of your readers, by all means share those. Anytime you can show that you are a real person with a real life and real challenges, you’re that much closer to forging a bond with your customers. After all, just like you, they want to do business with people they KNOW, like and trust.

As you can see, building an autoresponder series isn’t a cookie-cutter science. Best developed, it’s an authentic and organically developed series of follow up messages that help you create deeper connections with your subscribers so that you can build meaningful business relationships through building trust and connecting the value that your products offer with the needs and aspirations that your subscribers actually have.

Are you up to the task of building a great autoresponder series? I hope so because once developed and refined, your autoresponder follow up emails can work on autopilot for years to come helping to tirelessly deliver more sales and profits for your online business.

Notice the headline doesn’t say, “How to Create a Product and Sell It.” Frankly, that’s exactly what most marketers do – they create a product without any thought to what the market wants, and then they try to figure out a way to sell it. Result? Most times: failure.

To create a product that sells, you want to first identify a niche that’s hungry, and then offer them whatever it is that they are hungry for. The hard work is in finding that target audience that is ready and eager to buy.

Once you’ve done that, creating the product is the easy part, as well as the fun part because you know in advance that you are about to make money.

So how do you identify a hungry niche?

Here are keys to look for when investigating a possible market:

Are they in pain? Are they seeking relief from that pain, and are they willing to pay for that relief?

Do they have a problem? If so, are they willing to pay to get the solution to that problem?

Are they seeking a specific pleasure? Are they willing to pay to receive that pleasure?

My advice is to focus as much as possible on the first two. While people are certainly willing to pay for pleasure, they will part with their money far faster to relieve pain or solve a pressing problem.

If you find competition in your prospective niche, it’s a good sign that there is money to be made, so don’t think you’ve got to find some great undiscovered niche – it’s not likely to happen. If there is no competition, realize that it’s probably because no one is buying.

Now then, you are going to allow your market niche to define your product. In other words, rather than creating the product and finding the market, you’ve now found your market and you’re going to create your product to satisfy the specific needs of that market.

Let’s say you’re targeting retirees who want to make extra income online. What do you know about your niche? You know that generally they’re not as computer savvy as teens and twenty-somethings, that they’re going to be more receptive to building long term income rather than something that’s supposed to make them rich overnight, that they’re likely to be more skeptical when it comes to making money from home, and so forth.

Thus you are going to target all of your marketing and your products using the information you gather from your research on this niche, and you’re going to always have your prospects in mind when you’re working on your business. You might even imagine a couple of your best prospects right there in the room with you as you’re creating your product and your marketing materials.

Let me give you a head start on finding a niche that’s just dying to purchase your product.

The three biggest, hottest and hungriest mega niches are…

1. Health, fitness and weight loss
2. Making money
3. Relationships, dating and personal development

These are excellent starting points, but of course you’re not going to target the ENTIRE health, fitness and weight loss market. If you’re trying to market to everyone, you are marketing to NO ONE.

Thus you’re going to drill down to find the specific group within these niches that you want to market to.

Examples: College women wanting to lose weight. Stay at home moms wanting to earn money. People married over 10 years wanting to put the spark back in their marriage.

And you could narrow it down from there. The point is, once you have a hungry niche, you extensively research and even interview that niche until you know exactly what they want, and then offer it to them.

Do you see the difference between guessing what people might want, and KNOWING in advance what they will pay for? It will save you time and frustration while growing your bank account 10 times faster than guessing ever would.

When someone asks what you do for a living – what do you tell them?

That you own a business? That you write a blog? That you create products or build websites, or that you’re a doctor or a lawyer or a plumber or a race car driver?

I hope not, because while all those things are professions – they’re still NOT what pays your bills.

The only real answer to the question of what you do, regardless of what your profession is, is that you are a marketer!

Your specialty is attracting new customers or clients, persuading existing customers to make larger and more frequent purchases, and ensuring that they continue to buy from you – forever.

Your answer to “What do you do?” says a great deal about how YOU think about your business or job. If you’re defining yourself by the service you provide or the products you sell, you’re setting yourself up to lose business that otherwise could have been yours simply because your head is in the wrong place.

Every business is first and foremost a marketing enterprise, even if it’s a non-profit. After all, without customers, you have no business. Getting those customers and then getting those customers to spend their money with you is how you stay in business, stay profitable and grow.

When your mindset is on marketing first, you will base your decisions on what creates business, thus eliminating many of the wrong turns and mistakes that the “business owners” make.

You are a marketer. Say it loudly, state it proudly, act accordingly and you cannot help but be successful.