Autoresponders and Affiliate Marketing – How does it work?

Autoresponders and Affiliate Marketing – How does it work?

If you’re into affiliate marketing then you probably already know how this marketing method generally works. You offer something to your potential customer for free in exchange for their opt-in to your email distribution network. Once you have their name, email address and permission to send them mail, you provide free information and marketing offers, i.e., you try to sell them something.

Essential Email Marketing Features

The following features form the core of an effective email marketing campaign.

Publish a Signup Form on Your Website

Looking to start or grow your email list? Most visitors who come to your website will never return, not because your website isn’t engaging but because there are so many websites and so little time. A priority task, if you’re going to create an email list, is to start converting visitors to your website into subscribers immediately.

• Publish a sign-up form on your website, but remember, you need to give in order to receive. Give a FREE ebook or other offer as an incentive in exchange for their name and email address. The more perceived value you are giving the faster your email list will grow.

To really grab a visitors’ attention some websites use “unblockable” hover forms. I don’t know about you, but this turns me off immediately. I regard unblockable hover forms as nothing more than pop-up windows and make it a point never to click on such forms. Moral of the story, be careful with the methods you use. Get it wrong and you will definitely loose your potential customer forever.

Create Autoresponders

Start building relationships with subscribers the moment they sign-up. Autoresponders such as those provided on my top recommended email marketing service providers can welcome new subscribers, educate them about your products and entice them back to your website without any intervention needed from you. You will of course need to write the necessary emails which will be distributed to those on your email list, but once this is done, everything happens automatically.

New Subscribers Require Special Attention

New subscribers are eager to hear from you, that’s why they subscribed, but as they don’t know you as well as established subscribers they require special attention.

You need to contact your new subscribers immediately and regularly, say every three to four days, to build profitable relationships with them using a sequence of automatically delivered emails.

• Welcome new subscribers with a brief greeting.
• Guide them back to your website with follow up messages.
• Answer questions they may have.
• Deliver FREE downloads.
• Provide FREE product information.
• Build subscriber confidence and trust.
• Finally, sell your product or service.

Remember, if you want to keep them on your email list, you first have to give before you can receive.

Send Email Newsletters

Providing the content is engaging and relevant, sending email newsletters to your opt-in subscribers is an excellent way of keeping in touch.

Create your newsletter issues in advance. Scheduled them to be automatically sent at a specified number of days after sign-up. If you have the email response rate analysis (provided by your email marketing service provider), you can even segment subscribers based on who clicked and who didn’t click on your previous mailings, so potentially increasing your conversion rates.

Managing Email Lists

Without an autoresponder, managing email lists can be quite a task. If you only have a few people you can manually write the emails to each person, however, as your email list grows to hundred or thousands of subscribers this would take far too much time, but, as you still want to connect with your subscribers a new method has to be used. After all, everyone on your list is a potential paying customer, so you don’t want to miss anyone.

So how do you talk to all of these potential customers and still have time left to run your business? Use a bulk mail autoresponder. A bulk mail autoresponder will help you talk to your customers after they leave your website. Start with a message to welcome new subscribers, deliver it to them when they sign-up. Then build customer loyalty by delivering follow-up emails. Use these emails to teach your readers about you and your product. Get them interested in doing business with you. Send as many of these email as you want, as often as you want, at the time your want, on the days of your choosing, automatically.

• But don’t spam your readers. If you have nothing interesting to say. Keep quiet.

After the emails have been delivered you’ll need to analyse who opened the emails and clicked your links so you can create more relevant, targeted emails in the future. Simply knowing who responded to your email isn’t always helpful so advanced tools like detailed email analytics, activity based segmentation, geographical targeting and broadcast split-testing analytics can really make a difference in making email marketing work for you.

Autoresponders and Affiliate Marketing Conclusion

Selling online is no different to the techniques used a thousand years ago, only the technology has changed. Find a customer, persuade them you have the ideal product for them. Show them they are getting a really good deal. Finally, but most important if you want repeat business, build a trustful relationship.

Should you require more information on email marketing services (autoresponders), then you will find my article, Top Recommended Email Marketing Service Providers valuable.

Well, I hope you found something useful and enjoyed this article, Autoresponders and Affiliate Marketing.