PowerAutoResponder Articles

The biggest problem we as marketers face today is getting the attention of our prospects. We invest time, energy and cash to get prospects to stand up and identify themselves - either by responding to an ad, filling out an online form or any of the other ways they may contact us and say "Hey, I'm interested in what you are selling!"
 
That sounds great. Someone actually contacted you asking for more information. So, like a good marketer, you do your duty and send out an information package; perhaps by mail, perhaps by email or fax or web site or best of all in this online world - by autoresponder. I state this because only with an autoresponder can you truly reach your customer at his absolute peak of interest.
 
Let me explain. An autoresponder will get your information to your prospect within minutes of that prospect making the request. The prospect can read it online or easily print it out to study more seriously (something that can be difficult with web sites - especially if they are multi-page where the customer has to work hard to print all the information.) By getting the information to the prospect so quickly in such a friendly manner doesn't give the prospect time to forget about the request for the materials. With the typical attention span on the web and the volume of email so many people get, putting the information in front of the prospect within minutes allows the prospect to make the connection between the request and the reply - something that can be difficult to do if there is a separation of hours or even days between request and reply.
 
Here is where it gets interesting. Your prospect just received your autoresponse and you can be pretty sure it was at least looked at in a cursory manner...
 
But was this one contact by itself enough to make a sale?
 
Maybe. But if your prospect is like most people (busy), a decision will not be made right away, and if not made right away, it probably will not be made at all. Sure, the prospect may think about the offer a few days later but may not want to go to the effort to find the original offer to make the purchase. The end result for you is a lost sale. In fact, you have probably lost many sales as studies show that a customer rarely buys after just one contact.
 
How do you solve this problem?
 
Simple.... A systematic method of follow-ups. Lets say that you followed up this initial contact with an additional sales letter 3 days later extolling different virtures of your pruduct/service and then another in 4 more days with your sases pitch from a slightly different angle and so on until you complete a pre-determined number of timed contacts with your sales letter(s) to the prospect. In fact, traditional marketing studies have shown that 7 or more follow-ups to an initial sales letter is often profitable, and the same holds true on the internet, only more so. Because the cost of sending an email is so much less than the cost of mailing printed information. many more contacts can be made with your prospect and still be profitable. With email, it is quite possible that 10, 12 or even 15 contacts with your prospects will continue to generate cash for your business.
 
You need a systematic follow-up plan with each lead you have so painstakingly gathered if you are to maximize your profits! One that can run without your attention so that you know that your prospect is always getting the correct follow-up message at the right time.
 
How can you do that? 
 
Well, one way is to set up a database and do all the work by hand. But that is lots of hard work. An is prone to error or boredom, where you just don't feel like doing it that day or you have other obligations and let your marketing efforts slip for a few days.
The better way is to let your web site do all the work. It is already helping you collect your initial leads. Why not let it do all the work for you? The very best to for this purpose is PowerAutoResponder.com. It was designed to do all this work for you in an automated manner once you go through its simple configuration process. This amazing tool can be programmed to create as many follow-up autoresponders as you need for all your marketing campaigns (1 to 100 or more), each programmed to automatically deliver up to 20 unique timed follow-ups to each customer who sends an email to the original autoresponder email. Imagine, up tp 20 chances to make a sale without you lifting a finger to make it happen.
 
Truly, the smart marketer today makes use of powerful computer software to be more successful - software like databases to track demographics of sales and automated response systems like PowerAutoResponder.com to create truly auto-pilot marketing systems.
 
 
"Your Golden $$$ E-Names"
You feel pretty good. You survived the dot.com shakeout and make some good money in 2000. And the future looks bright. You have your online business running smoothly and you feel you can grow it this year and be even more successful. In fact, that was one of your New Year resolutions.
 
Yet, you feel that in some vital way you are missing some opportunity, some way of looking at your business and its operation that could be worth a great deal of additional income to you... if you only knew how to tap into it!
 
In fact, there is one place that all businesses can tap into to dramatically increase their sales and profits, often with very little change in their day to day business operations. And that area is making intelligent use of every potential customer that finds your web site.
 
How do you do that? You put in mechanisms that assist you in gathering information about the various interests of each email customer.
 
See, the typical web site experience is very non interactive. A visitor goes to a web site, perhaps looks at a few pages and then leaves. Except for a few additions to your monthly page count, you know nothing about that visitor. All the effort and expense of getting that visitor to come to your site is wasted as you will likely have no chance of ever getting to that person to visit again.
 
Instead, suppose you made some efforts to get the customer interacting with your web site. For instance, when a potential customer comes to your site, you let the visitor take a survey that marks out that person's interests or perhaps make a selection from a list of free reports or you just ask several questions "to better serve the visitor" while on your site. There are any number of ways to attract a visitor's attention and to get the visitor to give you valuable information in exchange for something of value to that person. Also, you may choose to make this an "in your face" experience with a pop-up box when the customer arrives at your site and/or leaves. You have probably seen many examples of pop-up boxes when you visit web sites and you can use them too to increase attention on certain important details, like subscribing to an e-zine or adding your name to your special promotions list.
 
For the rest of this article, we will assume that you make efforts to get a person's email address as opposed to giving a free report with no information collection attempted (although you may decided to use the free report as a sales letter and want everyone, even folks who are uncomfortable leaving an email address, to get the report as it helps you generate sales.)
 
Once you get that information (email and demographics data), you can use it immediately by sending a "thank you for visiting" email which also contains a summary of the important things on your site and perhaps a special offer given to people who have been courteous enough to stay on your site a while (perhaps a special 10% discount on an order or an additional free report that matches the person's interests.) Additionally, if adding the person to an email list, you should offer a way allow the visitor to unsubscribe from the email list if he or she so desires.
 
Most business owners who get an email address stop right there (one contact) and never contact that potential customer again. There are several reasons for this but the most common reason is a lack of tools. For instance, does that program running on your web site to collect the email address to send out a report archive the email address for your later use or does it throw it out? In most cases, these types of programs are one shot affairs and do not save any information. And if you are lucky enough to have a tool saves the email, does it collect and save other information that may be useful to you down the road when you want to contact that customer again? Does it have a way to contact the list again or do you need another tool to do this?
 
As the above shows, there are two places where the business owner usually fails in getting maximum use out of every visit. First, information on the visitor is not collected at all. Second, if it is collected, it is collected in a throw away manner or if it is saved, only the most basic of details (the email address) is saved.
 
To be successful, you need to build into your web operation a set of automated contact tools. They should be sophisticated so that they can do everything you need or anticipate in the future and they should work well together.
 
You should consider a tool or set of tools that can capture a visitor's email address as well as name, address and any demographics (i.e. interests) data you can collect and all this data should be automatically saved in a database for immediate and future use. The tool suite should also allow you to contact these visitors on a periodic basic (with proper email list etiquette - ability to unsubscribe, etc.) both as a mass mailing of a generic offer or as a demographically tuned mailing of a special offer.
 
This allows for several types of actions. You can do general follow-ups to your visitors, reminding them about all the good things at your web site or some limited time special you are running. You can do periodic, timed follow-ups to them based on specific interests that they have expressed when visiting your site. And, you can contact subsets of your list with specific offers that would be of interest to that visitor based on one or more demographics selections. This last item allows you to build several very targeted special interest lists out of your larger, general purpose contact list.
 
By doing the demographics targeting, you can write a very detailed letter to that particular interest and only send it to the people most likely to respond to an offer. For instance, if you were selling stereo systems and you had the ability to sell just 5 really top of the line ($50K) systems to your customer list at 20% off, who would most appreciate being contacted with this information?
 
Obviously, the people who indicated they buy high end equipment would most appreciate the letter and you would probably very quickly sell out your inventory. But what would happen if you sent that letter to your entire list, which includes people who think $500 is an expensive stereo system? You would probably get a large number of unsubscribes as many people would think they were on a list that was of no value to them. This means that when you run a special on the $500 equipment, you will have a much smaller list of contacts.
 
Making the most of every contact is what makes your business grow and the very best way to do that is to be sensitive to every individuals particular needs and desires. By having the right data collection and analysis tools for your website, this process becomes a reality and will greatly improve your bottom line in any business, whether it be retail, a service business, MLM, business to business sales or any other endeavors.
 
 
"How To Use Autoresponders For More Than Sales Letters" 
E-Marketers have known for a long time that autoresponders are a powerful tool for their promotional campaigns. Autoresponders are especially useful for sending out sales letters to customers who express an interest in your product or service.
 
However, sales letters are not the only way to use autoresponders. As with any new technology or marketing tool, a little creative thinking can lead to new, profitable ways of using your autoresponder to promote your business. Here are just a few ideas on how to use your autoresponders for maximum effect: 
 
Use your PowerAutoResponder for training and reinforcement programs. One of the best incentives you can offer your customers is your own knowledge and experience -- especially if you are promoting a business opportunity. Autoresponders are a great way to provide a series of lessons over an extended period of time. Sending a series of reports or lessons can also help build your credibility as an expert in your field (always a nice benefit!).
 
Use your PowerAutoResponder to fight "buyer's remorse." After a large purchase, almost everyone has a period where they think about whether they should have spent the money -- if this goes unchecked, it can lead to "buyer's remorse," a sense of regret or even anger about the purchase. One way to keep this from happening is to follow up on your sales with an autoresponder message (or series of messages) that reinforces the benefits that your customers have gained by purchasing your product or service.
 
Using your PowerAutoResponder to fight buyer's remorse not only makes your customers feel better; it also makes them more likely to recommend your product to their friends, or to make purchases in the future.
 
Use your PowerAutoResponder to maintain client relationships. One of the most important lessons that entrepreneurs learn is the fact that you should treat your customers like valued friends. One of the ways you can do this is to keep in touch with your past customers. Unfortunately, this is hard to do, especially if you have a large business. Autoresponders can be a valuable tool for sending out periodic greetings and updates on your business. While not as personal as, say, a phone call, these kind of messages can still go a long way towards building a long-term relationship between you and your clients.
 
These suggestions are all tried-and-true ways of using your autoresponder to help promote your business. Keep in mind that this list is by no means exhaustive -- in fact, I'm sure there are probably hundreds of other ways that you can use an autoresponder program as a marketing tool. Use your creativity and think how you can incorporate it into YOUR strategy -- and if you come up with something REALLY good, by all means let us know about it!
 
 
"Unwravelling the Data Mining Mystery -
The Key to Dramatically Higher Profits"
Data mining is the art of extracting nuggets of gold from a set of seeminngly meaningless and random data. For the web, this data can be in the form of your server hit log, a database of visitors to your website or customers that have actually purchased from your web site at one time or another.
 
Today, we will look at how examining customer purchases can give you big clues to revising/improving your product selection, offering style and packaging of products for much greater profits from both your existing customers and an increased visitor to customer ratio.
 
To get a feel for this, lets take a look at John, a seller of vitamins and nutritional products on the internet. He has been online for two years and has made a fairly good living at selling vitamins and such online but knows he can do better but isn't sure how.
 
John was smart enough to keep all customer sales data in a database which was a good idea because it is now available for analysis. The first step is for John to run several reports from his database.
 
In this instance, these reports include: repeat customers, repeat customer frequency, most popular items, least popular items, item groups, item popularity by season, item popularity by geographic region and repeat orders for the same products. Lets take a brief look at each report and how it could guide John to greater profits.
Repeat Customers - If I know who my repeat customers are, I can make special offers to them via email or offer them incentive coupons (if automated) surprise discounts at the checkout stand for being such a good customer.
Repeat Customer Frequency - By knowing how often your customer buys from you, you can start tailoring automatic ship programs for that customer where every so many weeks, you will automatically ship the products the customer needs without the hassle of reordering. It shows the customer that you really value his time and appreciate his business.
Repeat Orders - By knowing what a customer repeatedly buys and by knowing about your other products, you can make suggestions for additional complimentaty products for the customer to add to the order. You could even throw in free samples for the customer to try. And of course, you should try to get the customer on an auto-ship program.
Most Popular Items - By knowing what items are purchased the most, you will know what items to highlight in your web site and what items would best be used as a loss-leader in a sale or packaged with other less popular items. If a popular product costs $20 and it is bundled with another $20 product and sold for $35, people will buy the bundle for the savings provided they perceive a need of some sort for the other product.
Least Popular Items - This fact is useful for inventory control and for bundling (described above.) It is also useful for possible special sales to liquidate unpopular merchandise.
Item Groups - Understanding item groups is very important in a retail environment. By understanding how customer's typically buy groups of products, you can redesign your display and packaging of items for sale to take advantage of this trend. For instance, if lots of people buy both Vitamin A and Vitamin C, it might make sense to bundle the two together at a small discount to move more product or at least put a hint on their respective web pages that they go great together.
Item Popularity by season - Some items sell better in certain seasons than others. For instance, Vitamin C may sell better in winter than summer. By knowing the seasonability of the products, you will gain insight into what should be featured on your website and when.
Item Popularity by Geographic Region - If you can find regional buying patterns in your customer base, you have a great opportunity for personalized, targeted mailings of specific products and product groups to each geographic region. Any time you can be more specific in your offering, your close percentage increases.
 
As you can see, each of these elements gives very valuable information that can help shape the future of this business and how it conducts itself on the web. It will dictate what new tools are needed, how data should be presented, whether or not a personal experience is justified (i.e. one that remembers you and presents itself based on your past interactions), how and when special sales should be run, what are good loss leaders, etc.
 
Although it can be quite a bit of work, data mining is a truly powerful way to dramatically increase your profit without incurring the cost of capturing new customers. The cost of being more responsive to an existing customer, making that customer feel welcome and selling that customer more product more often is far less costly than the cost of constantly getting new customers in a haphazard fashion.
 
Even applying the basic principles shared in this article, you will see a dramatic increase in your profits this coming year. And if you don't have good records, perhaps this is the time to start a system to track all this information. After all, you really don't want to be throwing all that extra money away, do you?