How to Use Autoresponders to Drive Traffic and Profit

This mail is based on episode 70  of the ProBlogger podcast.

Final week I talked virtually creating an opt-in incentive to increment your electronic mail subscriber numbers. I also mentioned that one of those incentives could be a series you deliver over a number of weeks.

Well, this week I want to talk about how you can deliver that serial using an autoresponder.

What is an autoresponder?

In its simplest form, an autoresponder is a series of emails you fix for new subscribers. Then whenever someone subscribes, they receive the emails over time at predetermined intervals – in one case a calendar week, once a month, or even with specific delays between each email.

Setting upwards an autoresponder can take a flake of time and endeavor. You need to write all the emails, and then set up the queue that distributes them all. Only once you do, the emails get sent out automatically without you needing to lift a finger.

How you can use an autoresponder

An autoresponder is a not bad way to tell your new subscribers (who may not know much nearly y'all) who y'all are and what your weblog is near. It's as well an opportunity to show them yous've got something valuable to say, and to build some credibility with them.

You can also utilize one to keep your list warm. Equally I saida couple of weeks ago, at that place's no point having an electronic mail list unless you stay in touch on with your subscribers. If you don't, they may forget they subscribed and wonder why you're sending them emails. An autoresponder can take the pressure off needing to create regular emails.

Of course, what they're really expert for is driving traffic to your weblog, which in turn tin can drive sales. If you've got a product or service to sell, an autoresponder can help you make the sale and ultimately build your brand.

How to set up your autoresponder

So how should you prepare up your autoresponder? That will largely depend on your goals, and what you want to achieve with your web log. But here are some examples of what you lot can exercise with one.

For starters, yous could use one to transport subscribers a series of welcome emails that take them through unlike parts of your site. As I said before, y'all can use these emails to talk most who you are and what your blog is nigh, and bear witness that yous've got something valuable to say. Putting all this information in a single email could overwhelm some people But spreading the information out over a series of emails makes it easier to build a relationship with your readers.

Every bit an example, the autoresponder I use on Digital Photography School takes my readers through the site, introduces them to our forum and social media accounts, and talks about what they'll get for subscribing. You lot could create a similar one to let your subscribers know about the social media channels you use.

Information technology's worth letting them know nigh your e-mail schedule. Saying something similar, "You'll be hearing from us in one case a week" (or even so often you'll exist sending them emails) tells how oftentimes they'll be receiving them, and helps to build anticipation.

Yous might as well want to include some of your evergreen content. Our Digital Photography School autoresponder sends out a series of emails once a calendar month or that introduce our subscribers to some of our archive content they may take otherwise missed. This non but drives traffic to your site merely also demonstrates the wealth of information you've got in your archives.

Some other thing y'all can do is include one of your all-time posts somewhere in the sequence. Not a link, but rather the full post.

One of our autoresponder emails on DPS invites those subscribers who've been with us for a few months to participate in a survey. Likewise as demographic data, we employ it to find out where they are and what level of photography they're at. We as well enquire them what their problems are, what their questions are, and what they'd like united states of america to write about.

This information is gold for us. If we ever run out of things to write nigh nosotros can but look at everyone'due south answers to those questions to come upwardly with fresh topics.

Some other choice is to create some sort of community activity. Y'all tin straight your subscribers to a weblog post or forum topic that created a cracking discussion thread. It'southward a neat way to build social proof and show you have other readers.

Other types of emails that y'all might want to send would be more sales-related ones. If you accept a product that you sell, an ebook or a course, or a physical production, you could actually build into your autoresponder sequence an electronic mail that offers that product at a disbelieve or that promotes that product in some style. This is finer like doing a picayune mini launch of your product every day forever. Just say you have that set upwardly 60 days afterwards someone becomes a subscriber, it might exist the 5th electronic mail that they get in the sequence. They're warmed up, they've been seeing some of your evergreen content, they feel welcomed, they've engaged in the customs on your blog, and and then you transport them a coupon lawmaking to your ebook and they go that sort of 60 days in.

If you're getting subscribers every mean solar day to your newsletter, that means every day someone'south getting that offer made to them. You'll discover, over time, that the sales that you go from those types of sales emails actually practise add upwards quite a bit. I know that every 24-hour interval someone's getting an offering through an autoresponder email that I set up years ago on my blogs and it'south paying off today.

You could practice a like affair with an affiliate promotion. You might want to promote somebody else'southward product equally an chapter. You might want to do a deal with that particular person, say there's someone else, some other blogger in your niche who has an ebook. Ask them if they'd be willing for yous to send out a coupon code to your subscribers equally function of your autoresponder sequence. You just need to make sure that that coupon lawmaking is valid forever considering people are going to continue to go that email for a long time.

In that location'due south a whole heap of other things that you could do equally part of an email sequence. You could prepare emails that are case studies that are results of research that you've washed, all kinds of stuff. Pretty much any kind of blog postal service that you've written you could repurpose that into an autoresponder electronic mail.

A few other tips that you might want to think through as you think about the types of content to put into your autoresponder sequence. Firstly, the content really needs to exist evergreen. People are going to continue to get that e-mail for as long as you keep it in your sequence. If you've got something that's more news-related or more than timely that something is going to appointment, yous probably don't want to include that every bit an autoresponder e-mail. You might desire to ship that out as a single one-off email to your whole list or a segment of your list.

Get in Evergreen

Ultimately, your autoresponder needs to be evergreen and information technology needs to focus upon your reader and their needs. While y'all might want to take lots of sales emails as part of your autoresponder, people aren't going to respond very well to those sales emails if they don't feel like they're getting some value from y'all and the other emails that you ship. You want to become the balance right between selling and delivering existent value to your particular readers. This really comes down to agreement who your readers are, what their issues are, and delivering content in your email that's going to have people on a journey and bring nigh modify in their life in some ways.

Take Your Readers on a Journeying

A simple exercise that yous might desire to exercise is to actually identify the change that you're trying to bring to your subscribers and actually intermission down how to bring that change. I've used this instance before but the change I'm trying to bring on Digital Photography School is I desire to requite my readers creative control of their cameras. I want to become them out of automatic mode and to take total control of their cameras. The emails that we send equally role of our autoresponder try to assist our readers to achieve that outcome. We send them emails on limerick, we send them emails on how to get creative control of their cameras and how to understand exposure, how to hold their camera.

Nosotros actually accept our readers on a journey, so hopefully, by the end of them beingness subscribed to our newsletter, they're actually going to acquire photography. If they practice that, they're going to be much more open to those sales-type emails that we will send from time to time in the mix. Call back about the change you lot're trying to bring and map out a sequence of emails that are going to help to bring that about.

The other thing that you might want to think almost is the country that your readers are in equally they view yous. How do they really see you when they subscribe to your email? The chances are that when someone subscribes to your email list, they might be kind of interested in your topic but they may not know who you are. They might exist even suspicious virtually your intentions, they might exist unsure virtually whether y'all're someone that they should exist listening to. They might exist unsure about how to use your site, they may exist unaware of your past history, the past content that you've created.

Actually put yourself in the shoes of a subscriber and the type of suspicions or the type of questions, the type of view that they have of you. Actually, try and move people along not only in the topic that yous're writing about but the country and their view of you. You want to take people from beingness maybe a bit suspicious and collision-ish of you to beingness someone who actually knows who you are. Someone who likes you, someone who trusts you, someone who's a customer of you, someone who'southward an evangelist for you.

That'south ultimately where we want to accept people. How could you pattern a sequence of emails that actually helps them forth in that journey of feeling closer to you? If people do business concern with people that they know, like, and trust, how could your e-mail sequence motility people along that?

What I'm trying to get you to retrieve through hither is your first e-mail, probably you don't want to come across as too salesy. Y'all want it to be something more most building trust, building credibility. Then your next emails, mayhap it's more introducing them to the type of things that you've got on your site. Helping them to understand how to use the site.

Again, this builds trust and likeability. Information technology'south about simply trying to lead your readers along that journey and non going as well fast with the emails that you ship. At present, at that place are unlike approaches to this and I've heard other people say that they just start with the sales email and it works for them. I'm a fiddling bit more gentle with the type of emails that I send.

What Frequency?

The concluding matter I want to briefly affect is how often should you schedule emails. I get that question a lot and what other emails should you exist sending. I've already mentioned that autoresponders are merely i blazon of electronic mail that you can send. The other type again gets called different things with dissimilar email service providers, but AWeber calls them broadcasts. These are where you manually set up an electronic mail to get to your full list or a segment of information technology. You may just want to target particular types of people who may be subscribed at a certain time or that have clicked on previous links, but that's getting a little fleck more complicated. Here, these are emails that y'all send out to your whole list, allow's only say.

For me at Digital Photography School, once we take an autoresponder prepare, we besides transport out a weekly newsletter. These are things that I manually fix every Thursday and send to our whole list. These have our latest blog posts and other timely updates. Once more, sometimes information technology's got evergreen content in it but this is non an electronic mail that I want to send out over again and over again and again, I but want to transport it out once to my list.

Now I also send out other emails when we launch a product. This is some other type of email that I ship out to my list. Y'all tin already see here, I've got our newsletter, I've got production launches when we do a new product, and then I've got autoresponders. Y'all desire to get the residue correct here betwixt keeping your listing warm, sending out regular emails, and non overwhelming your list with as well many emails. Here'south how I use e-mail newsletters to drive traffic and make money.

How to Use Autoresponders to Drive Traffic and Profit

The different tools will assistance you in spreading your emails out a picayune bit, so AWeber, who we use on Digital Photography Schoolhouse, I transport out our broadcasts, our newsletters on Thursdays. It goes out the aforementioned fourth dimension every week. I send out product announcement type emails always on Tuesdays, then I know there'due south a couple of days. Then our autoresponders, AWeber allows you to cull which day of the week that they can be delivered on.

I cake out Tuesday, Wed, Thursday because I don't desire to be sending out emails three days in a row. I don't want my readers going, "This guy just keeps sending me emails." Typically, those autoresponder emails commonly go out sometimes on Mondays but usually Sabbatum, Lord's day, or Friday. Just to spread them out a trivial fleck. Apply those types of tools and think about how often am I going to be sending out the extra emails that are not part of the autoresponder.

I would encourage you to endeavour and transport out emails at least every xxx days just to keep your list warm, simply not as well much more than twice a week. You probably really don't want to become more than twice a week. It may exist that if you're doing a large product launch, y'all may actually desire to pause your autoresponder and some of the tools volition allow you to do that if you feel like yous're going to be sending out a couple of emails in a week about a product launch. Yous probably don't want to be sending out autoresponders during that week likewise. The different tools will allow y'all to exercise that.

The other thing that you might want to consider is using an autoresponder as part of an opt-in. Yesterday, in the last episode, we talked nigh using opt-ins, and so getting people to subscribe to your list by giving them a free ebook. One of the alternatives that you lot could give them is a free 7-twenty-four hour period course that you evangelize via an autoresponder. This is a actually constructive fashion of getting people not simply onto your list but getting them engaged with your emails which is something I talked about in the last episode.

If y'all're a photography site like us, you might set an opt-in where readers who subscribe to you get the seven days of emails. Only curt seven emails that are just really good basic tips on how to utilise a camera. This is actually something we're considering doing for Digital Photography School. Then at the stop of the seven days, they don't get daily emails after that considering they might merely be a bit overwhelming but you lot might and then set upwards every xxx days they go just an extra tip that continues to keep them engaged in some fashion.

#todaynotsomeday

My challenge today is for you to set up an autoresponder, to get it off your someday list, and to actually get it on to your today listing. If you don't have an autoresponder yet, map out a sequence of emails. Yous may only desire to map out the first 5 or 10 emails; don't get besides far. Y'all can add to your autoresponder afterwards by adding in extra emails to it and I would encourage you to practise that.

If y'all've already got an autoresponder, my claiming to you today is to practise a bit of an inspect of it. Is it up to date? Are you sending out emails that are dated, that await bad, or that have out of date of information? Are those emails converting? Maybe dig into your stats and actually work out which are the ones that get all the clicks, which are the ones that generate sales, and which are the ones that mayhap people are unsubscribing after they get it. That'south a really good i to bank check out. If you lot've already got an autoresponder, should y'all exist adding some new emails into it? Should you be extending that in some manner?

These are the types of things that are often on people's someday list. Whether you're sending out for the first time or whether yous are doing an audit of your existing autoresponder, I challenge yous, today yous spend on your autoresponder.

Just let me finish this story. A few years ago, I was out on a walk and I realized I'd let my autoresponder list. I hadn't really looked at it for a while. I'd set upwards about 12 emails in my list and those 12 emails went out over about a nine-calendar month period. New subscribers were getting these autoresponders for virtually ix months and then there were no more autoresponders going out. They were just then, at that point, getting newsletters.

I was like, "That's okay on some levels, I send out newsletters every calendar week and then my readers will be feeling engaged but maybe I should be adding in a few more emails." I came dwelling house for my listing and I decided to add to my autoresponder list by only but doing an offer to my readers on one of my ebooks. I added that actress email to my autoresponder. Over the side by side calendar week that email began to go out to my readers.

I actually looked at the results of that one email that I sent. It took me an hour, peradventure an hr-and-a-half to write the email and to add together information technology to the autoresponder. That i e-mail generated tens of thousands of dollars over the next 12 months. It was a small matter that I did today, or I did on that day, that continued to pay off over the long booty.

What are you going to exercise today that'due south going to get something off your someday list and on to your today list? I would dearest to hear what y'all are going to practice as a upshot of this podcast. You can permit united states know on Twitter or on Instagram if you desire to do information technology visually using the hashtag #TodayNotSomeday. This is the hashtag we're using for this serial of podcasts and there's been some great engagement on it already,