Lesson #6: Create Your Follow Up Sequence

Once you have products to promote and a report to give away, it’s time to load your autoresponder with a series of email messages that will be sent automatically to your new subscribers. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to get your email content.

Many marketers with affiliate programs have an affiliate center with solo ads that you can send to your list. They’ll also typically give you some email templates to use.

If you use those templates, you should re-write them in your own words or outsource the work. Not doing that means you’ll run the risk of sending out exactly the same promotional email another marketer does, which could hurt your credibility with your list.

But you’ll probably want to include your promotions inside emails that help you build your relationship with your list. That means you’ll need an autoresponder series that offers some good content.

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Here is a simple model you can follow when you setup your autoresponder.

The message number is what number email it is, the day is how many days that email message will go out after they subscribe. So if somebody subscribes to your squeeze page today, then "Message 2 - Day 3" will be the second message in the series, and they will get it 3 days from now.

Message 1 - Day 1: (delivered right after they subscribe via your squeeze page) - A simple thank you for visiting your site. The first message should be sent immediately after their subscription is verified. This is a good time to start building a relationship with your new subscriber and establish yourself as an authority on the topics related to your market. First, thank them for requesting your free report and let them know where to download it. Next, remind them why they should download it. If you’ve had success with the product you are promoting, let them know by telling your story. Hint: Personal stories with actual results that prove a product is good are very powerful marketing tools. Next, share a little information about yourself and how you got started. Tell them what they can expect from you. Be honest. Let them know you’ll be sending good quality content and from time to time, you’ll recommend products that you have personally used and recommend. Finally, include a short endorsement for the affiliate product and end with a friendly close. Message 2 - The next message should be queued for the following day. This message should be short and friendly. Ask if they got a chance to download the report and what they thought of it. Include a link to download the report and your endorsement for your front-end product at the close of the message. To get my messages opened, I use short subject lines that create curiosity, like this: Subject: [[firstname]], what did you think? Message 3 - Day 4: Follow up for initial product (remind them about it and the main benefits) Message 4 - Day 8: A "frequently asked questions" email for your initial product (I always include these as they generate orders.. You wouldn't believe how many people just won't order because they have a question they don't want to ask) Message 5 - Day 13: Tell about a new product you just found that solves their problem, link to with your affiliate link Message 6 - Day 17: Give more information on the Day 14 product and F.A.Q. Message 7 - Day 21: An article or tip about something (content), link to your main product Message 8 - Day 25: Promote another affiliate product Message 9 - Day 29: Follow up for Day 25 product and F.A.Q. Message 10 - Day 33: Article or tip (content)- link wherever.

Now you just keep repeating the process of 2 emails for an affiliate product, then an email with free content about the topic of interest.

Don't worry about the content, I don't write any of it and I don't suggest you do either. I either use PLR content that I buy (tons of these PLR sites popping up selling you 500 articles on 50 different topics, etc..) or just go to a free article directory as most of the publishers encourage you to use their content!

And to tell you the truth, this system will work without any content added. So you could just forget about that all together. I have found that content does help with subscriber retention rates and it can make your list more reponsive, so with a little extra work you can reap extra benefits.
But, if you don't want to bother with that, you will still pull in affiliate sales without content.

After that, whenever you find a new product, or do a joint venture, or want to run a subscriber discount for one of your products, you send a broadcast email to your entire list and rake in the cash!

Whichever way you choose, either content or just all ads for affiliate programs, you don't have to set the whole autoresponder up all at once.

I like to set up the autoresponder with as many good affiliate program products that I can, sometimes my messages will go out for a year straight without me lifting a finger. BUT, I never do them all at once.

What I mean is, to start your autoresponder message, all you need is about 3¬5 affiliate products to load into your messages.

Then a week later, search around, find 2-3 more affiliate products to promote and add those, and the next week do the same thing, etc..

This makes it much easier doing it each week rather than trying to find 20+ different affiliate products to promote and writing an ad for each one of them all at once.

Also note that a lot of affiliate programs will have articles you can use to promote their products. You can load these articles in your autoresponder messages as Free Reports (subscribers love good content).

As for the ads, I like to use short teaser ads in the follow up emails as oppose to long sales ads. The point of your email follow up messages is to get them to visit your affiliate link.

So focus your ads on generating curiosity.

Doing the short teaser ads are also very quick and easy to write as well as generating visitors to your affiliate products.

"Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else's hands, but not you."
Jim Rohn