An interested visitor who has been strolling through your site has finally come to just what she is looking for and is about to make a purchase. It's a sunny afternoon, and her cat, who happens to be sitting on the moss under the visitor's large fifty-year-old snow-rose bonsai tree, suddenly jumps down, and the priceless tree topples over.
In the blink of an eye, your visitor exits your site, and your sale is dust - unless you have had the foresight to utilize an autoresponder that has captured her email address. If you have installed an autoresponder, you can then follow-up with her, and in all probability, make the sale when the poor woman has finished repotting her precious bonsai.
Autoresponders are remarkable, versatile programs that do so much more than just automatically answer your email. Here are a few ideas that will help you to creatively and productively use your autoresponder to transform the casual visitor into a profitable customer. Use your autoresponder to:
1. Publish a newsletter. Certain quality autoresponders will manage subscriptions and follow-up with interested prospects. Your newsletter can keep your visitors informed about your services or products, while building your reputation as a credible expert in your particular business.
2. Publish a newsletter only for your affiliates. Inform them of current sales you are running and of promotional material that your affiliates can use themselves to increase their commissions. Include tips, advice, and
techniques that your affiliates can use to successfully go out and promote your business.
3. Write reviews. Cover books, software, music, eBooks, movies, etc., and put each review in an autoresponder. Review your affiliate programs, using a link to your affiliate's page in your autoresponder.
4. Distribute your articles. Writing and distributing targeted articles is a powerful tool to build your business credibility, bring traffic to your site, and increase your sales potential.
If your articles contain valuable information, many editors will print what is known as a 'resource box' for you. A resource box contains your bio and a brief description of your service or product. It can also contain your autoresponder address. Let's say you've written fifty articles. Put them
on separate autoresponder accounts and create a master list that contains the titles of each article, the autoresponder address, and a brief abstract. Then promote your master list. Additionally, include your publishing guidelines so your affiliates can add their articles to your list, increasing the number of writers who are represented in your article list.
5. Create mailing lists. Inform subscribers to your articles when you've written new ones that they may want to publish in their own newsletter or on their website.
6. Automate your sales process. Use an ad to insure repeated exposure of your message, which has been proven to effectively increase sales. In your ad, put your autoresponder address where a visitor will be exposed to numerous marketing materials. This multiplies the chances of converting visitors into customers. For example, if you're selling a particular product, put testimonials about how spectacular it is on your autoresponder, and add a detailed, enticing description of your product.
7. Distribute advertising. Let's say you sell advertising on your website or in your newsletter or eZine. Set your autoresponder to send the information about rates and how to place an ad automatically to all prospects' email addresses. Then have your autoresponder follow-up. It can also send notification of any special deals you are currently offering.
8. Distribute an email course. Each day, have your autoresponder send out another lesson. Just be sure that each lesson has quality content - not a sales pitch. Your content will do the selling for you, and will do it much
more effectively. You can include tips centered on a different topic for each lesson, illustrating how your product will benefit the reader. Include the tangible benefits the visitor will reap by purchasing your product.
Make sure to include a paragraph or two at the end of each lesson enticing your prospect to consider making a purchase.
9. Automate a reminder about your service or product after a visitor has completed your course. This will increase the possibility of sales from visitors who have taken your course but are dragging their feet about actually making a purchase. You can also use these reminders to promote new products or services, and the products and services of your
affiliate programs.
10. Distribute free reports. This gives your visitor an idea of the type of information you can provide and the quality of your product or service. Make sure these reports are not sales letters or you will more than likely lose a potential customer than gain a sale.
11. Create trivia quizzes on your site and place the answers in an autoresponder. Your visitor will then be motivated to request your autoresponder, and you will have a record of the visitors' email addresses who took your quiz. Or create a contest and have any visitors that enter
send their responses to your autoresponder. Your autoresponder can be set-up to send them a confirmation of their entry.
12. Offer a trial version of your product. Give your prospects a sample of your eBook, course, software, membership, etc. People who are exposed to a little taste often end up wanting the whole pie. You can also capture
their email addresses when you offer them a free trial from your website. Set up your autoresponder to give instructions on how to obtain their free trial, and then make sure to follow-up to try and close the sale.
13. Link to hidden pages on your autoresponder. For example, a hidden page could be your affiliate page that contains graphics, promotional articles, and text links that interested affiliates can make use of. Inform visitors that they may have free access to your affiliate page by simply requesting your autoresponder. You will then gather a list of visitors who may be interested in becoming your affiliates.
14. Use an autoresponder on your order page. Post a request form for visitors to be notified of special offers or discounts in the future. This creates a very effective mailing list that contains the names of people who are already your customers.
15. Put your links page on your autoresponder. It should contain up to fifty links that would be of particular interest to your visitors. Make sure to add your own promotional copy at the top or bottom of this page.
Now that you have proof that autoresponders can be used creatively, see if you can come up with some brilliant ideas of your own!
About the author:
Jim Boere is an online marketer and publisher, who's articles have featured in many dozens of the most popular eZines and directories online. Discover how he successfully implements the 15 techniques described in this article, at
http://www.onlinebizpromotion.com/getresponse.htm
http://www.cbmall.com/?storefront=kaboom1131
http://www.cblinkus.com/index.php
http://cbglobe.com/x.cgi?id=downloadc1
Sunday, March 16, 2008
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4 comments:
was running out of patience and the hatred of it all was setting in. Whirling around the net searching for that one piece of gold that was going to set everything in motion and bring a windfall of cash was just a big waste of time. Thousands of dollars wasted and countless hours wasted with not one single return of investment.
That was the way that I started my business. As you can imagine I was getting nowhere fast. Setting up running and profiting from an Internet business takes more than just a web site, an e-mail account, and a computer. You need a plan of action, what direction are you going to go with your web site, what products will you promote, what other sources of revenue will you have, and many other factors will determine your success.
Affiliate Game Plan
I can give you a quick glimpse or taste of a simple plan that you can put in effect. This plane is going to focus on affiliate marketing in the arena of Internet marketing.
OK, here is a simple little plan but at least it's a plan.
The first thing you need to consider is the products or services that you will be promoting. There is a ton of different products and services available for you to promote. Finding the right one that pays is the most important part. When considering what you will promote you need to look at a few different areas.
1. What percentage does that product pay
2. How well does the sales page convert
3. Does the sales page have cookies and how long does the cookie last
4. What is the minimum payout and how often do they pay
5. How long has the Company been in business
6. What type of reputation and customer service does the company have
These are a few things that I consider when looking at a product to promote. Always try and test a product before you put your name on a recommendation for that product. Just as this you are going to open a brick and mortar business your reputation is very important.
Web Site and Hosting
Next you need to consider the type of site you will build and the hosting company you will use. Your web site will be your virtual real estate and you need to assure that is in a good location. You can find many hosting options by just going to Google and doing a search for hosting company. When choosing a hosting company here is a few things that I consider.
1. How much bandwidth do they offer
2. How much disk space do they offer
3. How many mysql databases do they offer
4. Can I host multiple web sites from one account
As a beginner those four things should be the only things you really need to worry about. As you become more experienced and building web sites and programming there'll be a few other options you will consider, but for now I think that should do.
The type of web site you build is going to be very important. Don't worry if you are a complete moron when it comes to HTML there are plenty of what you see is what you get (wysiwyg) web site builders available just go to Google and search for web site builders.
A simple direct response web site should be your goal. You do not need to worry about building a fancy web site with a ton of graphics and fancy navigation bars. That piece of information alone should take your fear out of trying to build a site. Remember keep it simple stupid.
A direct response web site is just what it sounds like. Your main goal should be to capture your visitors’ name and e-mail address. You can do this by giving away a free report that you produced or by getting a report that has giveaway rights.
Build a List
You are going to want to build an opt in e-mail list so you can keep in constant contact with all of your leads. To do this you will need an autoresponder to make your life a whole easier.
Your goal with your opt in e-mail list should be to build a relationship so you can offer products that you recommend. Once you have a list that trust you making money is very simple.
The Process of Profit Maximization
Now there is a process you are going to want to take your visitors through in order to maximize your profits, here it is in a short description.
From your opt in page you will want to lead your visitor to a thank you page that should offer some sort of up sell. Your thank you page should exit to the product sales page. Even will need to follow up with your new lead on consistent basis and offer information to help your new customer and occasionally recommend a product that you believe in.
That is a short version because I'm not trying to make this book just a quick little plan for you to follow.
That is a real quick plan of action that definitely need some more consideration, but hopefully it will get your wheels turning so you can expand on this idea to fit your business. There are many different things to consider like traffic generation and support but that is a whole new subject.
Do some research and try to expand on the ideas listed above. Your business should have goals and your goal should have plans of action. Put your mind to work, work up plan, and work your plan and success will be right around the corner.
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I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
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I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
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I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first
comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this
blog very often.
Betty
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