How To Wave Your Magic Wand With Auto Responders For Increased Sales and Customer Retention
By: Sandi Krakowski
One of the most enjoyable things for me about writing sales copy, email campaigns and auto responders is when a client replies to an email I have written and says
“Ok Sandi, I’ve been following you for quite sometime now and I still can’t tell if this was written to me personally (because it made me feel great!) or if it was an auto responder!”
These emails tickle me because it means they are written well and my clients love to interact with me.
Do you love to hear from your clients? Here’s a secret- if you do they’ll love to ‘talk back’ to you!
A recent email I sent out to my entire list triggered 47 replies in just 2 days. Notes of appreciation, kindness, fun comments and more from people I’ve never met but who have relationships with me online.
Who says owning your own company can’t be fun?
But as is the case with everything else in business not all auto responder messages are created equal. I’ve seen some that are down right silly, outdated and inappropriate. I bet you have as well.
Auto response messages, which are emails that are prewritten & sent automatically at a predetermined time can build rapport, increase trust & give more credibility with your audience. Or…. It can make you look like very unprofessional and out of date.
Years ago when Majo Domo email newsletters and interactive bulletin boards wer the way to connect with massive amounts of people online auto messages sent in a series were the normal way of doing business. In a world of social media, regular blogging, newsletters and live chats however there are a few key points you must remember whenever communicating with your audience.
Grab a pen and write this your monitor. It will serve you as a guideline" for communicating with people online:
1- how long has this person known my company
2- when did we first connect
3- have they ever ordered from our company
4- have we intereacted thru social media, emails or our website
When you ask yourself these questions you’ll see that the standard method for sending autoresponders years ago just won't work in today's new economy online.
To send an email automatically introducing your self to people who opted in for an event but have known you for awhile through Social Media would appear almost rude or cold.
But before you get discouraged remember that using autoresponders can make you more money and cause a flood of sales without ever speaking to one person live, if done correctly.
Here is a right way to communicate through auto messages:
- Invite someone to Facebook. Every person who opts in for your newsletter, your event or offer should be invited to join you through Facebook, Twitter or both. I personally prefer Facebook because it’s a closer connection with face to face interaction. When someone opts in for my free report I send out an autoresponder a few days later asking them to connect with me. This makes it really fun to get to know people more personally.
- Introduce one ( ONE!) of your products. Don’t go overboard, just serve, don’t sell. People buy from someone who serves more often than someone who hard sells. Give a few tips on something you offer and a link ( NOT a sales pitch) to that page on your site.
- Invite to an event, webinar or some other form of connection that can help the relationship with your customers grow. People love to connect with others online. They love relationships that are real, even if it's with a company! Starbucks has over 1 million friends on Facebook- this should give all of us a clue to pay attention.
- Give a discount to something on your site that they can’t get anywhere else. I’d wait till about day 4-5 to do this, after you’ve invited them to Facebook and even invited them to a free event.
- Post a link to an article that relates to the original reason they opted in. Link to your WordPress blog. This not only brings your prospective customer to your site again but it also helps with your organic click thrus. The more people clicking thru to your website the better! So steer those who opted in back to your website and give excellent content and make it worth their while.
Autoresponders are not the place to send your offers out repeatedly. We’ve all seen them, “Hi, thanks for stopping by, did you see this on my site, buy it now here!”.. “But wait, day two, there’s more!”… “I bet you missed me, but don’t you worry I have an offer for you that you can’t refuse!”… LIMITED TIME OFFER”… “Just this once!”…. “We’ll never do this again!”……..”It’s the last time!
Emails like this sent as autorespondres are pretty sad but they happen far too often.
Remember- relationships are key. Your customers are the focus (not your company or your product) and making happy customers who love you is the ticket to long lasting wealth building online.
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Sandi Krakowski spent 6 years in the Direct Sales industry building a $ 4 million dollar company that was run 100% online through eCommerce, building large sales forces in network marketing and home business industries. Expanding her skill set and offerings to her clients she invested over $ 200,000 to gain the powerful knowledge and wealth of skill her clients paid dearly for to earn millions for their companies. She went onto build a 7-figure marketing and copywriting firm in just 20 months.
Currently she runs one of the fastest growing training venues teaching beginners to experts how to really use the internet to it's fullest capacity. Clients such as EarlyToRise.com, Gina Alexander and Bob Bly have referred their own customers to Sandi for her WordPress Training.
She teaches with a style that is passionate, intense and fun! Her students say that they get more value from Sandi in one hour than they've paid months for from other online 'experts' who can craft great headlines but don't deliver results.
Sandi has a free report entitled, “The Biggest Mistake People Make With A WordPress Site” 95% of people make a single mistake with WordPress that costs them huge losses in their business! Don't let this be YOU! Grab this report now!!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Sandi,
I couldn't agree more with this article. From the beginning of entering the social media realm, Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc…I was overwhelmed and had a designer who built my website, too. Although he encouraged me to learn and take part in the process I was overwhelmed by the language, battled the thought of spending even more time that I didn't have to spend and frankly, I just didn't want to be involved.
Thank goodness for Face Book and finding you! By dipping my toe in the icy waters of “websites” i.e. blogging, I found that I could learn. I didn't need to be overwhelmed or intimidated by the language…WordPress did it for me!
By plugging into your easy to understand classes, step by step I learned that I could build an SEO compliant site, that had all the bells and whistles (plus more I later learned) and I could do it myself. No offense to my designer…but I won't be needing that site much longer, sorry!
Onward and upward…next comes the list building class and autoresponder. But first…I'm not a perpetual student. I'm implementing and working on my file full of notes and recordings to get good at what I've learned first…then, I'll be back.
Carla J Gardiner
http://CarlaJGardiner.com
Sandi awesome content. Simple and easy to follow.. Thank you. I re-tweeted it and use the cute facebook button.. Love simplicity and common sense stuff you share..
Tatyana
Thanks Tatyana! Thanks for the sharing as well!
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