How to
set up a simple site and let autoresponders work for you
Today, I am going to teach you on how
to set up a simple site to
increase your mailing list, how to
write simple, fast and effective
promotional email and how to
follow-up your subscribers.
To build your affiliate business
empire, the biggest asset is the mailing
list. The bigger list you have, the
more profit you can earn. However,
often times most of the marketers had
forgotten one important step,
which is to send the traffic to their
own landing page first.
It is highly recommended that you don’t
send traffic straight to the
vendor’s page through your affiliate
link just like that. If you do so, 96%-
98% of the traffic will be wasted.
The vendor will get all the emails while
you are gaining nothing more than a
few commissions. Why settle for
that when you can have more?
If you paid for the traffic, but the
vendor’s sales letter doesn’t sell, you
lose money! To solve this and make it
a win-win for both you and the
vendor, you send your traffic to your
own landing page to collect their
email first.
A landing page is a page to collect
the name and email of the visitors. It
is straightforward and usually
minimal with very little designs. Don’t put
any sales letter here. Your call to
action should be included in the
promotional emails, which I will
explain later in this chapter.
The format of a landing page as
follows:
1. Headline
2. Sub-headline
3. Graphics of the free report
4. Opt-in form
5. Download button for free report
Here is an example of how a landing
page should look like:
The headline in your landing page
should be either in dark red or black,
recommended to use dark red. The
headline is usually a call to action
teaser to the visitor. There are
three common fonts for headline, which
are Tahoma, Arial Black and
Helvetica.
In this example, the headline is “Grab This
Report & Brand Yourself
As An Expert In The *Hottest*
Wave In Social Media” in dark red
color with a phrase of call to action
as well!
Tip: If you have
noticed in more detail, the first alphabet in every word
is in capital form. This is proven to
be easier to read to the visitor, hence
increasing the chances of visitors to
finish the headline.
It is then followed by the graphics
of the product. As you already know
that graphics is really important in
a website. Put yourself in the shoes
of the visitor: Would you like to
read a page full of words? Or would you
love the website with some visual
aids in the middle? I don't need a
magic ball to know the answer must be
the latter one.
Notice that the next element at the
bottom of the graphics is the big red
arrow pointed down to the opt-in
form. This big red arrow was proven to
be eye attracting. The first thing
your visitor will be leading to is actually
the big arrow, and then they’ll
notice the opt-in form to fill in their email
address.
Below the red arrow is the most
important opt-in form with an orange or
yellow button to sign up. This orange
and yellow button was proven to
be an element that will increase the
conversion rate as well.
This is the main purpose of a landing
page, the other things are there as
a call to action to get the visitors
to opt-in their email addresses and
grow your mailing list.
When your mailing list is getting
bigger, I am not talking about few
hundreds here, but few thousands or
even more, you’ll needa software
to manage your mailing list for you!
We call it AutoResponder.
What AutoResponder will do for you is
essential. It makes your job
easier. With just a few clicks, you
can have your email list managed.
Here are some basic features that
what the AutoResponder can do for
you:
1. Autoresponder follow up
2. Email deliverability rate
3. Done for you sign up forms
4. Done for you email newsletters
5. Automatic emails from your blog
posts
6. Drag and drop editor
7. Manage subscribers
8. Subscriber segmenting
9. Email marketing tracking
These are the basic features in the
software. You can make things
automated with the software. The
suggested low-cost and effective
AutoResponder are GetResponse.com and
Aweber.com. With a low cost
of monthly fees, you can get these
amazing features.
After the opt-in of email address in
the landing page, redirect the traffic
to the vendor’s page through your
affiliate link. It is very important that
you redirect them through your
affiliate link. If you do not do this, you
will not get the commission even if
they purchase the product.
That is the first path you can
choose, the second option is to redirect the
traffic to your bonus or
review page. This is the most recommended
method, because you can build up your
credibility through the bonuses
and review pages you have showed
them. Hence, you keep the
subscribers with you.
If you are not a trust worthy source,
sooner or later, the subscribers will not
follow you anymore and click on the
unsubscribe button.
This is how it should be. Step 1 to
send the traffic to the landing page
first, and then to
the vendor’s page or your bonus or review page.
A bonus page is basically an extra
page where you give away one or
more of your products as a bonus for
them in return of their subscription
to your newsletters. On the other
hand, a review page is where you
write reviews about the product you
are promoting at that time.
To write a review article on the
product, you need to understand and
know what the product is all about.
You can either get the review
access from the vendor or you buy it
from the vendor, of course,
through your affiliate link, as
mention in the Review Writing Technique
part - 3, yesterday.
Now, I will reveal to you how to
write follow-up emails as promised
earlier. There are only two parts in
an email, which are the headline and
the body. The headline of the email
is the subject line that will show up
in the subscribers’ mailbox.
Headline indeed is the most vital
part, because it decides the fate of
your email, whether to be read by
subscribers or be deleted without
even being read by the subscribers.
So, what is the important thing you
need to take care of to write a
headline that attracts people to open it?
First technique is to use numbers,
statistics or scarcity factor. When
there is a numbers or statistic that
proves you as not a scam, the
possibility that people will click on
it and check out what’s in it will be
higher.
Scarcity factor is like the ‘limited
sales’ technique, it is a common
marketing technique to cause people
feel the sense of urgency to buy
this, because it is limited. For
instance, a headline with Bonus! Only
limits to 50… or something
similar. People love “limited edition”. They’d
jump into action more quickly.
Second technique is to give a teaser
in your headline, remain
suspended until they open the email.
This is what we call a cliffhanger
technique. You do not tell them what
the email is about in the subject
line. For example, Reasons
why I hate MLM… or Is this the last
software you ever needed? They will not
know what this email is all
about until they click to open the
email.
Tip: Use sentence
case in your headline, it is easier to read this way.
Compare these two:
my review for optimizepress
My review for OptimizePress
Which one is easier to read? Of
course, the second one.
Tip #2: Keep your
subject line within 35-50 characters only. The reason
why you need to limit your subject
line characters is because 50
characters are the longest the
mailbox will show. Anything longer than
this will not be shown. So, your
subject line will be cut off in the midsentence
if it were too long.
Here come to the second part of an
email – the body. Straightforward
and precise is the key for the body.
You don’t need to write a longwinded
email but there are only one or two
important points you need
them to know. They might not be able
to read the entire email if it is too
long.
Don’t waste the opportunities to make
a sale because of the long
emails. Keep it short within 200-300
words will do. Straight to the point
to the “what’s in
it for me” and call to action in the email.
Insert your
URL link to the same site every time
after the call to action.
The ideal way in putting URL link
will be 3 times in an email – in the
beginning, middle and at the end.
Too many times of call to action
leaves bad impression to them as well,
3 will be the ideal numbers. The URL
can be linked to your affiliate link
or bonus or review page. As
mentioned, link to the bonus or review
page is the most recommended way.
Tip:Keep the body of
your email with 55 characters per line. Why?
People feel easier to read with the
shorter length per line. Imagine you
is to read an email from beginning to
the other end, will it be easier to
read half of the page and move
forward to the next line? This is a time tested
method proven to be useful in email
marketing.
Now, how often should you send the
follow-up emails to your
subscribers? My answer to you will be
at least 4 follow-up emails with
the interval of 1 email per
day.
The emails that you are going to send
should be as following:
1st day: First Promotional Email
2nd day: Reminder Email
3rd day: Q & A Email
Last day: Last Call Email
Tip: Remember to use
AutoResponder to send all these emails to your
subscribers. A small cheat to send
the emails on the day you want
automated, AutoResponder does it all
for you!
Tip: Use link tracker
or link cloaker to keep track on the people that are
clicking on the link in your emails.
With this, you can improve your email
writing skills by conducting some
split test in the elements of your
emails.
Change one element at one time and
see which one contribute more
traffic to the website you’ve linked.
No worries on this, it is one of the
services in AutoResponder.
What if your link is a complicated
long link? People usually will not click
into long links with some
indecipherable words, because it looks like a
virus link. You can simplify your
link with YoURLs.org, get more clicks
with a much simpler link! The best part is it
is free!