Creative and Profitable Ways to Use Email Marketing Software

An interested visitor who has been surfing through your site has finally come to just what she is looking for and is about to make a purchase. The telephone rings, it’s her mother-in-law and she wants to discuss the upcoming holiday plans.

In the blink of an eye, your visitor exits your site, and your sale is dust – unless, of course, you’ve got an autoresponder that has captured her email address. If you have installed the email marketing software known as an autoresponder, you can then follow-up with her, and in all probability, make the sale sometime between now and the upcoming holiday.

Autoresponders are remarkable, versatile software 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 your visitor into a profitable customer. Use your email marketing software to:

1. Publish a newsletter. A quality autoresponder program like Infusionsoft 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 unique business.

2. 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.  As a way of providing value for your prospects and customers, send one of your articles periodically.  It provides great information for your audience and proves to them your expertise.

3. Create a master mailing list. Your software can automatically send notification of any special deals you are currently offering.

4.  Automate your sales process. Design your sales funnel and utilize your marketing software to implement each step of that funnel.  Every business person knows how hard it is to stay in touch with a handful of prospects and customers.  Your autoresponder software can handle hundreds if not thousands on your behalf.  No sick days.  No call reluctance.  No commission checks.  Once you’ve got it in place, it becomes your perfect employee.

5.  Offer an email training program. Each day, have your autoresponder send out another lesson.  Just be sure that each lesson has quality content – not just a sales pitch.  Your content will do the selling for you, and will do a much better job of  it.  You can include tips centered on a different subject for each lesson, illustrating how your product or service will benefit your 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 reader to make a purchase.

6.  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 making an actual purchase.  You can also use these reminders to promote new products or services.

7. 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 get a sale.

8. Create trivia quizzes on your site and place the answers in an autoresponder. Your visitor will then be motivated to want your autoresponder, and you will have acquired your visitors’ email addresses in the process.   You can also 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.

9. 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 pizza. OK, maybe that’s just me but you know what I mean.  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 you have an automated follow-up process in place to close the sale.

10. 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.

Now that you have proof that autoresponders can be used creatively, please share any additional ideas you have.