Helpful Tips for Email Marketing: Unsubscribe and Recycle
As a business owner, there’s absolutely nothing to say, “you’re on the wrong end” like using an autoresponder for your ezine marketing. There are a few different things you can do to get it set up correctly so that you can send messages to your list, but they’re all self-explanatory.
The real challenge for autoresponder, in my opinion, is the number of people who get disillusioned by the word “autoresponder.” Now why the hell would you want an automated response? I mean, come on, isn’t that supposed to be a feature of your website? Now, there are people who have their autoresponders set up to send email, but for the most part, when people use that term, they think, “I’m going to spam you.”
But it’s not spam if you give them the option to participate. And in this case, people thought so, because it was a double opt-in process. So the autoresponder was just asking them if they wanted to receive messages from you. The problem is that this is not a long-term solution for your business, as it won’t actually get you any sales in the long run, because people will forget who you are, get irritated, and unsubscribe. And when they unsubscribe, there’s literally nothing you can do about it.
So what are you doing now? But you can have an autoresponder, so your customers can go in and opt out of your autoresponder, and have them message you as if you were still subscribed. But when that happens, your subscriber list will explode. And the thing is, they’ll do it because they’re actually signing up and they want to be on your list. So don’t be fooled by that, and be careful who you trust with your marketing.
Now, I’m assuming you’re using a WordPress blog, but the concept is the same for any blog. You can get an autoresponder that will automatically follow up on your blog. Now, obviously, if one of your readers clicked on that and went to your Facebook fan page, then you won’t be on your autoresponder list anymore. So be careful not to spam people when using autoresponders.
The best way to set up auto responder lists is to have a simple web page so that when someone goes to your website, if they subscribe and sign up, then a single web page would send that person an automated sequence of emails. Now there are a variety of ways to implement this. And I like this one which is actually quite good.
Basically what this does is send them four emails, then wait for them to click on one of the four things. If you’re a good friend, then they don’t click on emails, then you get some Facebook friends, then they click on one of your articles (you can write and submit articles to article directories), then they subscribe to maybe your list of mail. If they then go to my space and sign up for something, they will be sent directly to the newsletters. And if they like an article I’ve written, they’ll unsubscribe and then I’ll stop emailing them.
The best thing I find is that if someone subscribes to my mailing list, but doesn’t immediately download some of the articles I’ve written, then I won’t send them a newsletter. And the reason is, if they don’t like my stuff, they’ll either unsubscribe or click the “Don’t send me anything” link. And if I then email them, then they won’t know they like my stuff, which is fine, because I won’t be emailing them at all. But if they just subscribe but like my stuff, and don’t immediately download some of my stuff, then they’re going to download some of my stuff, like it, and then unsubscribe from my mailing. list. I’ve had this happen to me twice, so this is definitely the best way to set it up. And it’s very similar, at first it may seem a bit strange, but you’ll get used to it fast.
And this is really useful if you are selling a product. Because suppose you have a product. And you have a web page that talks about the product. And give away this free report. And all the people who get the free newspaper, but don’t buy the product, will be automatically unsubscribed from your list. But they will be subscribed to your newsletter forever, and that way they can get the product every time you add it.
So you can do that. This will save you email addresses.
