The Art of Using Auto-Responders in Your Online Business

By Dan Grijzenhout  |   Submitted On April 16, 2016

  

Auto-responders are a tool built into most message management systems. Whether you are using Mail Chimp, AWeber, Constant Contact, IContact or almost any other quality messaging service, an auto-responder will be built into the product suite.

What they allow you to do is send out a series of messages to your e-mail subscriber customer at intervals without manually having to do any work beyond the original setup of your e-mail campaign series.

For example, when they first subscribe to you, it is customary to send them a welcome message that tells them a little more about you or your organization and possibly provides them with a gift they hopefully will value. Gifts can be created in many forms and it is entirely up to you as to what you decide to give them and by the way, it often transpires that the person is willing to sign up to you because you have advertised the gift beforehand, they have seen it and they want it - so give good thought to what you give out as it may be what gets them to sign up in the first place. A few guiding principles for your gift:

• To keep your costs down or at nil, make it something that can be electronically transferable to the person signing up.


• The gift most often should be educational or inspirational to them in some way - so they do remember it over time and treasure that you were willing to part with it


• It should be perceived as being a gift of high value to them - they will treasure it more and you don't want them to feel insulted by it - I recommend you think hard and give them something you would value if you were in their shoes.


• It should be something that stands out - is unique - you don't want to give them something that they can get anywhere on the Internet. Make them feel special.


• The gift should have relevance to your business. After all, it is your type of business they have expressed an interest in when they signed up in the first place.

So here are some gift ideas that I think may be useful to someone just signing up to your business.

• A checklist of good ideas that they can use to make money in some fashion if they apply themselves.


• A checklist of something relevant to your business. Are you in Travel? How about a checklist of things to pack when you go on a trip - etc.


• Are you an online trainer? Give them a coupon for a free course.


• Have you written and published anything? Give them a copy of it or let them download a free copy of it electronically.


• Give them an application or some software that could be useful to them.


• Give them a template or templates of something (Could be done in Excel, or PowerPoint, etc.)


• A free sample of something


• A plugin of some sort, custom ringtones, screensaver, free music access, etc. - you get my drift.

So this gets us past the first thing you do with your auto-responder. You can automate all of this so they can signup, get their gift and you don't need to manually do any additional work at all except for maybe view your signup statistics periodically.

Once they have signed up, start sending them periodical useful information such as a newsletter. Most marketers will get something out to their subscriber base about once a week or so. The newsletter really shouldn't be trying to sell them anything, just convey some more knowledge or insights to them to help them during their day. You want to send them content that they will want to see and that they will be looking forward to your next installment with a desire to open the next message from you when it arrives.

Pat Flynn, a well respected and successful online marketer says he only sends them a promotional message about every one in seven messages. A strategy like this is a good thing to keep in mind. As you set up your auto-responder campaign, it's a good idea to be thinking of setting up a series of 30 or more messages in a periodic sequence, carefully interspersing your promotional messages so that they don't feel inundated with pressures to purchase anything. You want them believing you are in a relationship with them - that you are not just a salesman.

And when they get to the end of your auto-responder series, hopefully they have purchased something by then. But in any case, keep the relationship going - you can have multiple campaigns built into your messaging platforms over time. A second series of e-mails can start after the first one concludes. These cost you nothing but a bit of time to setup - and they are well worth it as you never know when your prospect will choose to buy or who he or she will tell about you if they like you - which helps you grow.

So use auto-responders in your business and give them careful thought when setting up. You may find that over time, they become the heart and soul of the marketing side of your business venture. Good luck in your marketing activities.

About Dan Grijzenhout: Dan has lived a successful entrepreneurial career for over 30 years. He has been a consultant, entrepreneur, systems architect and developer, investor, business owner and is now an author, online course creator and teacher, sharing his years of experience and knowledge with others. Search for the name - Dan Grijzenhout - on Amazon to see his available books and e-books.

You can find Dan's available online courses at https://www.udemy.com/user/dan-grijzenhout/
And Dan's articles and blog posts at http://howto-guru.com/Home.php/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Dan_Grijzenhout/2147833

Top 5 WordPress Plugins For E-Mail Marketing

 Gunjan Singh  |   Submitted On April 19, 2016

  

Even though many marketers consider e-mail as being obsolete, it is still an effective way to promote your business and connect with new audiences. According to a survey around 60% marketers believe that email marketing is 4 times more effective than any other technique. It is the best way of gaining trust, building a brand and retaining customers from all around the globe. For this, you don't need to spend a huge amount to manage this campaign. Here is the list of the top 5 WordPress plugins that helps you to complete this task in the easy and quick manner.

OptinMonster: This will give you an opportunity to easily customize the form you want to display on your site. You just need to install it and start customizing slide in, footer bar, a light box, etc. The reason behind its popularity is its exit intent pop-up. This pop-up helps to catch the attention of customers and ask them for subscribing to your mailing list before they leave your website.

LeadPages: Another outstanding plugin offer by WordPress is LeadPages, it allows you to create custom landing pages for your website by using templates and joining them to your e-mail list. Moreover, it also offers various modules that allow you to create custom opt-ins that allow the visitor to directly subscribe to your email list.

MailChimp: This is one of the most popular and highly appreciated e-mail marketing platforms, which just now connects with WordPress website. It is very easy to install and after installation, it allows you to create simple forms for your website and also design e-mail newsletters by using ready-made templates.

Attention Grabber Plugin: This is one of the most effective ways to attract the attention of your visitor toward your e-mail subscription when they visit your site. The best part about this platform is that it offers numerous features to you and also gives you an opportunity to easily track sign-ups on your website.

SumoMe's List Builder: Last but not the least plugin offer by WordPress is SumoMe's List Builder. It helps you to grab the attention of your customer at the time when they are about to leave your website. Most of the people confuse it with OptinMonster, but it is totally different. It is very flexible and allows you to share your content, image, video or any other media easily to social media channels. It also integrates with e-mail marketing channels easily to reach a huge number of audiences.

Web Click India is an ISO certified website designing company in Delhi provides cost effective ecommerce website designing services in India. Contact us now.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Gunjan_Singh/2184428

How Facebook Ads Can Improve Your Businesses

By Hugh Benjamin  |   Submitted On March 31, 2016

  

There are over one billion people using Facebook (as of Nov. 2015), showing a great potential for marketers, SEO agency professionals and brands to reach their target audience. The great thing about Facebook is that it's very large and active. People log into their accounts daily to check messages, like and share posts and communicate with people and brands.

What really sets Facebook apart from the other platforms is its high-tech capabilities. One area that is worth looking into is the Facebook ads platform. This is a rich and powerful tool that can be used to get your content in front of people who are most likely to engage and convert. Paid advertising is still a thriving business, especially for brands that are serious about promoting their products and services.

But as with any PPC campaign, you need to have a strategy in place. A lot of businesses give up on Facebook ads too soon. An SEO agency that offers social media management services can help develop a strategy and implement it for you.

Companies determined to launch a successful social media marketing campaign can use the following tips.

Get to Know Your Audience

Facebook ads come with a cool feature called "audience insights", and what this allows you to do is fine tune your target audience. You select an interest your prospects have and then data will be collected, which can be used to enhance your campaign. The criteria is quite extensive, allowing you to choose demographics, gender, age, location and so on.

Create Multiple Campaigns

You have a better chance of converting prospects by targeting specific interests than grouping together multiple interests. Mass marketing rarely works, especially in today's world where consumers want to feel connected with the brands they shop with. Separating your campaigns will also give invaluable insights into who is converting.

Don't Make Too Many Changes

Keep each change to a minimal. If you change too much too quickly, then you won't be able to determine what exactly caused your campaign to improve or decline. It also takes time for the Facebook algorithm to adjust to changes, so patience is key.

Watch, Analyze and Adjust

Keep a close eye on the analytics to see what needs to be changed. Pay attention to the age, gender, devices and regions of conversions. Also, there is an ad relevance score provided which tells you on a scale of 1 to 10 how relevant your ad is to the target audience you've selected.SEO agency professionals are fairly familiar with Facebook ads and can help you with learning the algorithm and A/B testing your ads.

I Think an Idea is a leading, full service internet marketing agency. I Think an Idea works with serious business owners small to large alike. Based out of Los Angeles, CA providing great results for services such as SEO, social media marketing, Online reputation management and PPC management. I Think an Idea can maximize your search engine presence and amplify your brand across social media channels, and help safeguard your reputation.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Hugh_Benjamin/2237016

Podcasting: The Riches Are in the Niches

By Liz A Marais  |   Submitted On July 23, 2015

  

Niche down until it hurts, niche down some more until you think there are no customers that are interested in that niche. However, this is the ideal place for you, to start making money on your mini market.

Many marketers present themselves everywhere on the Internet, trying to do everything for everybody. The bad news is you will not make an impact anywhere, you will get lost in the noise. As soon as these marketers realize the Web is too big and intricate, and there is not enough time being everybody's friend, they start to gear down.

Envision a gold mine. There is a little hole on the surface of the big world with a few gears and a few outbuildings. That is not where they profit. Mine dumps mushroom everywhere and that is the result of the profits the magnets make. The diggers delve down into the earth, get set on a gold reef until there is no more gold, dig down some more in search of another gold reef and the miners go deeper and deeper to get more gold. In conclusion, the geologist focuses on where the gold is, which is deep down in the earth.

This is the same principle of a small niche, but then you delve down into the core of the earth, deeper and deeper until you think there is no more business. You are wrong, this is where you will find your gold. You will have focused on this little niche and deep down you are starting to find success.

All of a sudden, you are the master in this mini market. A very well-known Internet Marketer's father has such a niche where he takes videos at shows of walking horses. Nevertheless, normally the horses are running, not walking. Needless to say, he has a flourishing Internet Business.

You are never going to get a customer if you are going to do everything for everyone. Look at your business. Do you currently experiencing the traction that you like to have. If not, sit down, niche your own idea down, gear down some more and gear down until it hurts. You are in this minute space, in your mind clients are scarce. Guess what! You got to the right place. Remember one thing, you can always expand outwards afterwards, but you need to get the momentum going.

Fitness coaches are very nice people and we cannot do without them, but they try to get everybody thin and fit. Let us gear down on a fitness coach. He wants to help women, but not all women. A Woman who just gave birth to a baby wants her figure back in shape as she was before the birth. The coach can help her in getting fit, thin and eat the correct diet. She will certainly be a satisfied customer, especially if he gives her a good program. Whenever she has any questions, the coach will be able to aid her with all her problems, because he is the guru in the field.

Liz Marais introduces new Entrepreneur Start-ups and other interesting parties to Podcasting. Podcasting is exploding and many people would like to generate an income from it, but do not know where to start. Visit A Niche should be One Mile Deep WhatIsEntrepreneurDotCom

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Liz_A_Marais/1568447