E-mail marketing and building a list of subscribers

Den Lennie

Author: Den Lennie

Published 1st April 2015

by Den Lennie Issue 99 - March 2015

Email marketing is still by far the single most effective way to build long term prospective clients relationships with clients.
In my own business www.fstopacademy.com, we offer free reports to get you started and then we follow up with email. Only after a two-month period do we begin to offer products for sale. Nobody likes the hard sell without a bit of understanding in advance of who you\'re dealing with, and what knowledge and experience you have to offer.
Once you\'ve created a report and it\'s on your website, what happens next? Well, now you have to create a series of emails and an \'opt in\' form so that you can capture the data (contact details) and follow up with that customer regularly via email.
So, you may be asking, what exactly is an email auto responder?
In simple terms, an email auto responder is a piece of software that allows you to automatically send emails to multiple subscribers at the same time.
Your group of subscribers is often known as your \'list\', and in some cases, these lists can grow to many thousands of people.
The beauty of this style of marketing is that it\'s very efficient because you can send one email to 10,000 people with the click of a mouse.
There are numerous companies offering this service. Popular email auto responders include:
- A weber
- Mailchimp
- Constant Contact
- Get Response
- Infusion Soft
- Ontraport

There are two key aspects to working with auto responders. The first part is called an \'opt in\' form. This is the little box which asks for your name and email address, and you need to add this to your web page.
This webpage is often known as a landing page and will typically have a headline, a sub headline and a call to action (CTA). The headline is designed to grab the attention of the web visitor, and the sub headline generally offers the information that person might be looking for.
The call to action is simply instructions telling the person that if they want the information (free report) they just need to fill in their name and email address in the box and the report will be sent to them immediately.

The second key element is the emails themselves. Once the person has done this, the auto responder goes to work. Firstly the auto responder will send an email confirming that they want to receive the information they\'ve just requested. This is known as a \'double opt in\' process and it\'s very important that you get this second permission before sending them the report and further emails. (By getting this secondary confirmation, it means that this person is absolutely sure they want to receive your emails, and that they didn\'t just \'accidentally\' gave you their name and email address.)
Once this step has been completed, the auto responder will then automatically send the report and all subsequent follow up emails! Magic!
There is some work involved in setting up the auto responder sequence explained above, plus you now need to write a number of emails which will be sent at regular intervals once the report has been sent. But once you\'ve done it, every time a new subscriber fills out their details on your landing page, the auto responder kicks in and will send out these emails automatically. This means that while you are filming jobs or on holiday, this system communicates with that prospective customer with no additional work from you.
I have no idea why more businesses do not use this method, because it\'s simple, cheap and a very effective way of nurturing customers, and all of it\'s done automatically.
These emails then nurture the relationship, leading to, and maybe offering the prospect a chance to give you a call or better still, you contact them at an appropriate time to discuss their project and how you might be able to help them. The advantage of this method of lead nurture is that you get an opportunity to show your personality to the prospect before the point at which you need to get on the phone.
Of course, there is no reason why at the end of every email, you have an offer for them to give you a call. For example, you could have a P.S. that says, "if you\'re ready to discuss a project, please call and see how I can help you further\" and insert your phone number. Identifying what works best for your market is something that you can only develop over time and don\'t forget to test.
Only send relevant information that directly relates to the initial enquiry. That way you have a greater chance of succeeding in winning the business.
Excerpt taken from Den Lennie\'s book "Business for Filmmakers, the Quick, Dirty and Uncensored SECRETS to a Six-Figure Video Business from the World\'s Ballsiest Filmmaker"
To read more and download a free chapter at
www.businessforfilmmakers.com

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