Did you know that more than 50% of adults check their emails, first thing in the morning? To anyone who thinks the era of email marketing is coming to an end, think again. One of the best programs in email marketing is email autoresponders because of their ability to automate responses to your mailing list subscribers.
An autoresponder is a pre-programmed email that is scheduled to send automatic responses to your subscribers based on specific actions.
Here are a few tips to keep in mind while crafting your email autoresponders.
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Step 1: Be clear about your goal
Before sending out an email, decide your main motive for doing so. Do you want to sell your product? Or do you want to sell a service? Or are trying to build a relationship. The approach to both these goals is different. Answering these four simple questions will help you clarify your goal.
- Do you want to create a long-term relationship?
- Do you want to launch a product?
- Do you want to dominate the industry you are working in?
- Do you want to effectively market your business?
Once you are clear about your goal, it is easier to create a strategy that guarantees an evergreen funnel.
Step 2: Determine your strategy
Different goals will have different strategies. For example, if you were selling a product, you would be required to communicate less with a prospective customer as compared to a person selling a service. If you are providing any kind of service, you will need to be in constant touch with the customer. There are five basic courses of action that can help shape your strategy:
Leadership:
In today’s world, there is strong competition in almost every industry. Hence, it is necessary to portray your organization as the leader in your industry. Cite examples of how your business made a difference in the industry and how innovation is your primary goal in order to effectively run your business. This will build trust with your customers.
Personality:
Always be proactive and enthusiastic in your emails. Nobody wants to do business with a laid-back, boring individual. You can develop a deeper connection with the customer if you showcase charisma in your emails.
Trust:
Trust is the most important aspect among the 5. If your customer doesn’t trust you, he/she wouldn’t want to do business with you. It is the most fundamental principle of any business.
You can show that you are trustworthy by not being too pushy. Do not make tall claims either; put it forward in a subtle manner. You can also cite examples of the malpractices done by your competitors (again, in a subtle manner). Once the customer trusts you, you can introduce your products/services elaborately.
Consistency:
Consistency is the key to success in every field. If you send emails consistently to a prospective/existing customer, it builds trust. But, do not send emails too frequently as this could annoy a few of them. Just make sure you send quality emails once every few days depending on your product/service.
Proof and Credibility:
In most cases, customers do not want to deal with amateurs (Unless you are providing huge discounts on a popular product). Hence, it is mandatory to back up your services and claims with proof. You could send examples of testimonials, anecdotes, media mentions in your emails. Make sure you provide at least one form of proof in all your emails.
Step 3: Sequence of sending emails
Once you form your strategy, you should start implementing it. First, determine the sequence of your emails. Your welcome email is probably your first email where you introduce yourself to your subscribers.
Here is a simple trick to increase sales using your welcome email, your next email could be the benefits of doing business with your firm, send a testimonial, and then an opinion from an expert from the industry.
Also, before identifying the sequence, decide how long your sequence should be (the sequence in the above example is 4). Depending on the product/service you can expand the sequence to a number that suits you best.
Step 4: Composing the email
Now that you have fixed your goal decide your strategy and have a sequence, start typing! Make sure you stay focused while writing these emails. Proofread them a few times before sending them to the customer because any typo or grammatical error could leave a bad impression on the customer, which could ultimately cost you their business. Therefore, verify your ideas with your colleague before scheduling the autoresponder.
Step 5: Frequent Analysis
It is always important to analyze the response to your emails. This will help you compose better emails and also acquire a higher number of prospective leads. There are three factors that can help you utilize the analysis in the finest manner:
Unsubscribe rate:
If you get a high number of unsubscribes after a particular mail, It could mean that many people found the content of the mail not very helpful, or it could also be that they don’t like emails.
Another way to look at this situation is that the people who unsubscribed weren’t going to purchase your product/service and the ones who are still subscribed are prospective customers who might do business with you in the near future.
Low CTR:
CTR stands for Click-Through Rates. It is the ratio of users who click on a particular link to the total number of users who view the mail. First, fix an average CTR after collecting the data from all your emails.
Next, identify the emails, which have a CTR below the average. Once such emails are identified, find innovative methods such as embedding a promo video in your email in order to increase the CTR.
Low Open rates:
The same strategies used in the Low CTR section can be used here also. In order to increase the open rates, write a catchy subject line, which will grab the user’s attention.
Email autoresponders are one of the simplest and fundamental ways to market your product and increase your sales immensely. The biggest advantage of autoresponders is that it works for you 24×7, 365 days a year. Once you set it up, you can shift your focus completely on other aspects of your business.
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