Email Marketing – Ideas For Follow Up Sequences
Today, I’m going to give you an example of a follow up sequence you can send out after someone subscribes to your newsletter or buys a product from you.
Since I don’t know what you’re selling I can’t produce a specific template here, but I’ll give you a broad overview.
[BLATANT PLUG: If you'd like me to create a custom autoresponder sequence for your product or service, use the Contact Nick form on this site giving me as much information as possible and I'll let you know if I have space in my schedule and my fee.]
Message 1 (Instant) – Send them a download link to the product, thank them for their purchase or signup and give them a way to contact you for help, support or questions. This can be simply saying “reply to this e-mail for assistance” or a link to a support desk.
Message 2 (3 Days After First Message) – Ask them if they were able to download the product okay and let them know that you are available for any questions they may have and let them know how to get in contact with you again.
Message 3 – (10 Days After First Message) – Point to a great benefit/feature of the product that they just got from you and tell them specifically how to enjoy that benefit. If it’s an electronic or physical book, tell them the page number and where to read the information they can use. If it’s a physical product, describe how to do something specifically that helps them.
Message 4 – (20 Days After First Message) – This message is meant to cover common questions that someone might have about your product. If you don’t have any questions or if your product is still new, you will want to go through your product and think what a customer may ask and write these down.
Another option is to check out the websites of competing products and see if they have an common questions listed that you can use to mold your own. On the other hand, if you have questions that people have sent you regarding your product that you have answers, simply gather the questions and answers and arrange them into a message.
This message is meant to address any blocks that the customer may be having regarding the use or consumption of the product that they just haven’t had the time to ask.
Message 5 – (30 Days After First Message) – This message should contain a bonus. Now, whatever you are selling, whether it be a digital or physical product, I always recommend the bonus be digital. Why? You can offer some information that enriches the use of their product and helps them get more out of it while delivering it in a way that costs nothing to product or deliver.
The best part is that they get this instantly. I also recommend that you setup a sales page that shows that you are really selling the bonus so that they get the feeling of “getting something paid for free” rather than just getting something that someone specifically created to be a freebie.
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This month long sequence of messages is what I like to call “nurturing the customer”. In the first month you don’t try to sell them anything. You help them by making sure that they got their product, helping them consume it or use it and also answer any questions or concerns that they may have. You cap it all off with a bonus that further increases the value that they received out of your and makes them an even more satisfied customer.
So what’s the next step? It’s to get them to buy an additional product, service or offer.
Once you’ve gone through the process of helping your customer get every bit of value out of the product or service that they purchased through you, it’s time to move them further down the sales highway.
How do you do this?
Simple, offer products and services to them every two weeks. And the most important point that you need to understand here is that you will not be just sending them canned ads that try to cram a new product down their throats every two weeks.
Here are the two main points that I use when crafting messages that I send out after the initial month of taking care of my customer.
- The advertisement must not actually be an advertisement but an honest “review” of the product or service being recommended. You want to make sure that you don’t come across as a “slimy salesman” that will say anything for the sale.Keep the hype down to a minimum and focus on benefit rich features of the product or service that you are recommending with a big emphasis on the “benefits” that come with owning or using the product or service.
- Find a product that is at least 50% more expensive than the last product you sold them. So for example, if you sold them a widget for £67, you are going to want to find something that is around £100 for the next offer. Why?They have already shown trust by making the purchase of the £67 product so it’s only natural to move them up to a product that costs more and offers more value. You want to make sure that you show them the extra value that they get for the extra money that they are spending as mentioned in tip 1.
So using those two points to create your messages and select products that move your customer up in the price range of product, create reviews.
A Note On Reviews
There are many different ways to structure product recommendations that allow you to present your sales message without seeming “salesy”. This is actually pretty easy. You just have to name them right and structure your review right.
Here’s what I mean…
- Review – This is your standard review. You want to explain the product and why it’s worth buying from the perspective of a “buyer” who found this product and enjoyed it.Talk about how it helped you and why you think that it will help them. Let them know that you have tried it and personally recommend it to them. It’s all about seeming personal yet professional.
- Case Study – The case study is a pretty cool way to structure a review type of e-mail message. They way that you do this is find someone that has used the product that you want to promote and create a case study around their experience and story.This can be as easy as going to the salesletter for the website, finding a testimonial that has some good product specifics in it and using that information along with visiting their website (if they have one listed) to create a case study. A case study is a third party (you) analyzing the results that an average person got from using the product that you want to promote.
Of course, if you want to go all out, you could hunt the person down that you want to do the case study on and ask them questions and do a real case study based on your questions.
- Researcher – This is a great way (probably the best) to appear like you are not selling anything or at least not hard selling. What you do is write up a review but instead of just your standard review, you find information on the product your promoting on sites like YouTube, Squidoo, Google Groups, etc.You want to find information, videos and content that is based on user opinions on your product. If you can add this to your review and also point to YouTube videos and other unbiased links that help your message and recommendation, this will make you look like the “honest reviewer” rather than the “compensated affiliate”.
This strategy is also great for keeping people interested an on your mailing list for as long as possible because they think that you are the “consumer advocate” for products that are related to their interests so they definitely want to hear what it is that you have to say.
This is probably the single best way to keep people listening to you although, through testing, I have found that the more direct review approach will close more sales initially which will mean more upfront profit for you. I do believe that over time, you could make more money from people through the “Researcher” approach though.
These are a few simple ways that you can send people advertisements without them actually appearing as advertisements. The truth is, most people who see a “pitch” for a product will delete the message immediately so if you can get under their “radar”, you have the power to present your message in a less direct, although just as direct approach.
In the next article, I’ll talk in detail about how you can automate this entire procedure so all you (or a staff member) has to do is set it up once, forget about it and watch the additional sales come in.
See you then!
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I like how you have your auto responder set up. It doesn’t just spam a ton. I have done them one a day and it seems like people unsubscribe easily.