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Autoresponders work well when marketing online because they allow you to communicate with your opt-in subscribers several times. This allows you to build a relationship and it takes you out of the "one chance to make a good impression (sale)" arena which has many advantages.

One of the main advantages is that you don't need to make ludicrous over-hyped claims – just establish rapport with your subscribers and give them the actual facts they need to make a decision.

A lot of research has been done into this field and it has been found that people rarely buy anything at the first time of asking. You will often hear that 7 autoresponder messages is the ideal number – but it will vary depending on the product or service that you're promoting.

One of the key things to remember is that you don't need to dive straight in and push your product in the very first message. In fact this is a bad thing to do.

Perhaps you've heard of AIDA? It stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Action and is an often quoted mnemonic in the field of advertising. It can be used as an aid for most advertising and marketing campaigns and it can certainly be applied to autoresponder messages.

Attention
Thankfully we can skip this one – you already got the prospect's attention when they signed up on your website! Onwards!

Interest
To a certain extent you also have your subscriber's interest – but don't rest on your laurels. Your first autoresponder message should be a fuller explanation of what you're offering your subscribers. By which I mean the benefits that you're offering them – not the details of the product or service itself. Ask yourself what problems your target audience may have – then provide the answer to those problems – in general terms.

At this stage you don't have to tell them exactly how you will solve their problems, it's enough that you know what their problems are and that you have some proven method of addressing them. Because of some standard pleasantries that need to go in the first email, this "interest" phase will probably need 2 messages to cover it.

Use bullet points and lists to list the problems as these are easy for people to read quickly.

Desire
Having built some empathy with your prospect by demonstrating that you understand their problems, you now need to generate some desire for your product by providing some more detail of exactly how it will solve these.

No doubt your product has many desirable features which pick off your prospect's problems one at a time. Don't try to address them all in one e-mail, you'll just confuse your subscriber (and quite possibly yourself).

Focus on one or two key points (problems) in each message and show how your product will make their problems disappear. Focus on benefits - not the technical aspects of your product/service. This will take 3 or 4 messages for most products.

Action
Finally you need to tell the prospect what you want them to do. It's not enough to provide your name, phone number and a link to your website. Tell them exactly what you want them to do, e.g.:

Click here to visit the website and place your order
Phone me now to discuss your needs
Send an email to sales@yourwebaddress for a full quotation
Fill in the form and send it to …

This should come in by message 7 at the latest. You could probably introduce it at the end of message 5 or 6 if you like.

Whenever you decide to issue your call to action, always follow up a week later with a gentle reminder – just in case they meant to take action and forgot, or life got in the way, or they lost their internet connection, or their mother-in-law visited or any of the other reasons that could have put your offer out of their mind for just long enough for it to become overlooked.

Most people will go through your series of messages, come out the other side and not buy. That's life – it's just a numbers game. However, you can skew the odds in your favour by using the "broadcast" function of your autoresponder to follow up whenever you have a product update, a new product, a special offer etc.

Follow up with your list at least once every 3 months (a weekly newsletter is better) – it's the follow up that makes autoresponders such powerful sales machines.

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