Can Dreams Come True? How To Be An Info-Products Publisher
Build A Mailing List
Use An Autoresponder
You need to start building a mailing list of customers and prospects so that you can keep in touch with them regularly, if you are really serious about selling information products and creating a good income.
You want to make this task as easy as possible, so you shouldn't try using your own email account for it.
The best way to start building an email list is to set up an 'autoresponder'.
This has many advantages:
Emails are issued automatically so you don't need to send every email by hand.
The autoresponder personalizes the emails with the name and details of the person you are mailing.
A series of emails to an email list can be planned in advance and issued over several days and weeks.
When you have set it up once, the process is repeated automatically as each new person signs up.
As well as building in regular e-mails, you can usually 'broadcast' emails to your contacts whenever you like.
When you start collecting email addresses, you need to take care to ensure that you are getting specific permission to send emails, otherwise you will be accused of sending 'spam', which could lead to problems.
Many people recommend using a system of 'double opt-in' where people receive a confirmation email requesting that they click a link to confirm that they want to be subscribed.
There are many types of autoresponder, ranging from free ones you can host on your own server to professional accounts from large companies.
Once you have your autoresponder set up, the question is what to do with it. Here are three things you should consider.
Follow-up emails If someone has given you their email address but has not bought from you, it is worth building in a series of follow up messages to continue encouraging them to buy. It often takes several contacts before someone will decide to make a purchase. It is best to make sure these emails have some valuable content and are not just constant sales pitches.
Email newsletter A regular newsletter or ezine is one way of communicating with the people who have signed up to receive information from you. The purpose of the newsletter is to reach out to those people who did not buy, as well as those customers who did. A successful newsletter will be focused on providing valuable information and building relationships.
If you try too hard to sell, people will complain or simply unsubscribe. Your newsletter keeps your name and offer in front of people until they are ready to buy. Another advantage of building a newsletter list is that you can recommend other products to them and earn commission on sales.
Free e-classes An e-class is a series of emails providing information on a specific topic. Typically a free e-class would be from five to seven lessons of about 600 words each. These would be sent out by autoresponder following the schedule you choose - say every day for one week, or every other day for two weeks.
The e-class will help establish you as an expert in your subject.
While e-classes may be used as a free incentive to encourage people to join your mailing list, they can also be the basis for a product that you can sell.
Persuading people to join your list
These days people are increasingly reluctant to give away their email addresses so you will probably need to offer an incentive to encourage people to give you their details. That may be a free e-class or ebook or it could be a free sample of your main product.
Building an email list and using it to create a relationship with your customers and prospects is one of the most important elements in building a profitable and successful information products business.
Suggested resources for autoresponders
Aweber:www.aweber.com This is one of the leading autoresponder specialists and if you're not familiar with the uses of follow-up autoresponders, check out the site and read through their explanations.
phpList - Mailing list manager:www.phplist.com This is a lower cost option but is easy enough for a new list owner to handle. It's great for newsletters, announcement lists and the like. It doesn't have autoresponder capabilities, but it does allow your subscribers a lot of flexibility in managing their subscription preferences.
SendFree:www.sendfree.com Free follow-up autoresponder service. The downside is that they put ads in your messages. (Standard for free services.)
Abbey's Advice Building an email list - and a relationship with them - will be one of the key's to your success with information products.
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