Why Should You be using an Auto Responder?
The
8 Second Rule.
You may have already heard that the typical visitor leaves a website after
8 seconds.
So, the primary goal of your website is NOT TO SELL (immediately) but
to get contact details as fast as possible. This applies to sites with
online shops as well as lead-generation type websites.
This way, you can convert 8 seconds into 8 minutes, 8 hours, 8 days, 8 months, 8 years even.
(I have prospects
that have become clients after 5 years of being on my mailing list)
Permission
Marketing.
Studies have shown that 80% of people purchase after they have been contacted
7 or more times.(email, call, letter, fax, card, text etc.)
Yet 90% of businesses don't contact their leads/prospects more than 3
times.
It's why I decided
to make MKLINK the market leader in permission based web marketing because
it needs to be done and can get the biggest results the quickest.
Getting a 50% increase in sales via 'common sense' marketing at the 'back-end'
of the sales funnel is one thing. Getting 50% more visitor traffic - without
spending a lot more money - is another. (It's do-able - but that's another
story)
Once you have permission
to market to people that have expressed an interest in your products and
services, then you can really start to multiply your sales and profits.
Remember, you've already done the hard work (i.e. the expensive bit) of
acquiring a lead or a customer. Now all you need to do is communicate
more often and more effectively with them.
Note:
MKLINK quadrupled sales in 1 month back in 2005
when we implemented opt-in permission based marketing via email. We switched
INSTANTLY to training people and dropped web development as our primary
source of income.
Why
Does Permission based Marketing work SO well?
Because people go online for information, not to buy.
At any given time, only a small percentage of people want to buy straight
away. Typically one or two percent. These are
the people that know precisely what they want and they are ready to buy
immediately.
And yet this 2% is
what almost all websites are aiming for.
But this leaves 98% of the visitors who MIGHT buy - just now now. Yet
if you're not catching them for later - you're losing them forever.
Imagine if we can convert that 2% into 20%??? We can, if we market to
them correctly over time and play a slightly longer game than expecting
them to buy or signup within a couple of minutes of being on your website.
Would You buy £20,000 worth of double glazing instantly - on the first website you came across without doing some research? Of course not, you'd ask to take some information away. Which is exactly what you should be offering them - in exchange for their email address (at least).
Therefore, the sites that massively outperform the others are the ones that offer the most irresistible,compelling information in exchange for contact details.
10 times
more people will put their hand up and say "I'm interested"
than "I'll buy".
So - make them put their hand up - and give them something to take away.
Of course if the 2% want to buy straight away - great - you're not stopping
them!
Conclusion?
As many as 10 TIMES more people will buy from you a day, a week, a month
or a year down the road, if you have maintained a positive relationship
with them.
But that's just talking about prospects. How many companies bother to communicate, regularly, respectfully and usefully with their existing clients?
I
don't mean SPAM.
I'll keep it simple. If a recipient benefits from the email -
it's useful. If not - it's junk.
Example - "We're
offering a promotion on our new range of XXX". It's Spam. Don't
do it.
"6 Ways to double the life of your XXX" or "How You can
save time whilst YYY"
See the difference? You can't send too much information, only make it
not interesting or irrelevant.
Don't believe me?
OK - want me to email
you with details of where I've hidden a £50 note in your car park?
I could email you 100 times a day with different locations of different
amounts of cash and it still wouldn't be enough for you...because it's
useful and relevant and helpful to you.
Do you "Forget" your existing clients?
Existing clients well
will often spend much more with you if you simply stay in touch more often
and show that you value their business.
Ask them what they want. Ask them what's important to them. Ask them for
testimonials or referrals. Communication is a two way street. Most marketing
is one-way.
The answer? Regular communication and follow up. Using email, it's fast, can be personalised and virtually free. The only thing to remember is enable people to opt-out and ensure that all mailings are useful relevant and benefit the recipient somehow.
The
Method.
Step 1.
Have an extremely compelling offer, in return for a name and
email address.
On my website, I offer hundreds of killer marketing tips. Your offer could
be a free book, download, discount or even a guide on how not to get ripped
off by other companies. It needs to be specific and attractive to your
client market.
Once someone enters
their name and email address, they are added to your auto-responder.
This is a bit of software that sends emails to your clients at specific
intervals, on auto-pilot. My autoresponder sends a series of email to
signups at the rate of every 4 days until they buy something or signal
an interest as a lead. Your frequency can be typically a week, fortnight,
month or quarter.
The keyword here is automated. You can build a relationship,
communicate and stay in front of people without lifting a finger.
Every time one of these personalised, automated emails goes out, you are increasing your relationship with the client/prospect and a percentage will buy from you. This is how it multiplies your sales because without this mechanism of ongoing communication - you'll only get the initial 8 seconds to make a lead or sale on the website.
Step
2.
Once someone has typed in their name and email address, they
get sent to what's called the "Thank-You" Page. (This is where
most people miss a trick and do nothing else)
But not you, because you know better :-)
Once someone has supplied
their name and email address, they can be encouraged to supply more information.
Robert Cialdini in his great book "Influence" states that people
are much more likely to say "yes" to big things after they've
said "yes" to small things first.
(A.K.A. Softly, softly catchy monkey)
Here, you can offer
to POST something to them of value. An instruction DVD or a brochure or
some vouchers or whatever is appropriate and has high perceived value
to your client. In return for which, you now know their mailing address,
postcode and phone number.
It doesn't even have to stop there. You can have as many stages as you
like to solicit more information and the most eager, willing prospects
will come through the other end of the process and tell you what they
want, what their budget is, what they're currently spending and more which
is gold dust!
All you need to do is offer the right incentive and treat them with respect.
And of course the ones that don't go through the whole multi-step process
(most won't) are still prospects that you can "warm market"
to for months and convert them further down the line.
Step
3.
Send out regular, useful content. The autoresponder should be
set to send a sequence of pre-written emails containing great content,
each with a call to action at the bottom - offering a hyperlink to more
information or a place an order, submit an enquiry etc.
(Tip: The emails can be hidden deep in your website for SEO benefit)
Emails should always have a call to action - otherwise it's a wasted opportunity.
Even a link to a survey form is better than nothing.
And that's it! Prepare
to make a LOT more sales.Once people have received several emails from
you over time, they will have a very different reaction to speaking with
you than when they are 'cold'.
That's not to say you shouldn't send out other regular communications
as well such as mailshots, promotional emails, calls, faxes etc, it's
just that the majority of your communications(in this case automated ones)
are drip-feed useful information that makes your prospects associate you
with being a helpful, reliable and diligent company.
Some
Things to consider.
No matter what business you’re in, effective email marketing is
a vital part of your business success. Indeed, the value of many businesses
is in the email list they develop and is an asset on the company balance
sheet.
SPAM
vs Wanted, Useful Emails.
If you email people for marketing purposes that you have never had any
dealings with in the past or that haven’t agreed to receive your
email, then it’s spam – pure and simple.
Email marketing to individual subscribers requires the following:
1. Prior consent (opt-in), or an existing customer relationship 2. Clear identification of the sender 3. The provision of an address that the recipient can contact to withdraw their consent.
There are issues about data protection as well and it basically involves having a duty of care not to pass on peoples’ details to third parties without their permission and ensuring that any records are kept safe.
The
Rule Of 7 Contacts
As stated just now, experts agree that it takes 7 contacts or more before
a person will become a customer. But... two out of every three
marketing mails (even from you - a known source) are ignored.
So, Sending nine emails means you've only sent three! The upshot - email
regularly!
Email Etiquette
- Use Formatting
to make the email easily readable and attractive.
- Reply to unsubscribers, thanking them for their interest and enquiring (gently) why they are unsubscribing.
- Spellcheck your emails before you send it!(I'm guilty!)
- Don’t send large attachments – I’d say no more than 2 MegaBytes.
- Recommend other peoples services as well as your own so that you’re seen as offering balanced information.
- Consistency. Be consistent and drip feed email (consistently!) at a suitable frequency dependent on your circumstances.
MKLINK
Autoresponders
There are lots of ways to send emails to prospects and clients.
If you send emails from your machine's client side software (e.g. Outlook,
Sage etc) then you might very well be blocked by your ESP or ISP. Even
quite a small volume of emails from a single IP address look like spam.
The next option is to buy software and run it on your own server but then you have to ensure that it's running properly, that you don't get your IP address blacklisted and you need to know what you are doing.
All the companies that take emailing seriously use a mailing house (like MKLINK!). This is because being specialist, they can guarantee deliverability from white listed IP addresses, offer statistics on how many were opened, track through rates etc and can handle all the unsubscribe requests, as well the functionality of setting delay times, MIME types and automation with linking directly to your website(not particularly easy to do it client side).
Thus with an MKLINK autoresponder, you can :
- Enter prospects one by one via direct input
- Link your Autoresponder to your CRM
- Link your autoresponder to your website for automatic signup
- Enter prospects via uploading a spreadsheet
- Fully personalise your campaigns
- Manage all your future emails, response & tracking rates via a password protected dashboard style control panel.
- Have unlimited follow up emails, each set to be sent at pre-determined time intervals after signup.
- Send an unscheduled boradcasr to everyone - at any time - either as text or HTML.
- Have multiple pre-set templates for different campaigns & promotions
- Have multiple lists for different segments of your prospect/client base
- Search for individual contacts
- Run SPLIT-TESTS to optimise which campaigns are most effective
- Fully Can Spam Compliant, enables unsubscribes etc
- In-depth statistics
to measure your ROI (Return On Investment).
Our emailing software is used by :
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The Investment?
The
investment is just £295 setup then
£29.95 per month for up to 5,000 emails (0.5p per email thereafter)
Interested? - Organise
a call - click here
Testimonials
- Click Here
All prices subject to VAT.