How to Use Autoresponders to Boost Revenue

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Though an email address may not seem like much–just one of hundreds of millions out there–it can be an extremely valuable asset. While many site owners spend a great deal of time trying to get new visitors to their sites, there generally isn’t much thought on how to get previous visitors to return to the site (and, ideally, engage at a deeper level). Today we’re going to dive into email autoresponders, a powerful tool for better monetizing your existing traffic base.

An autoresponder is a series of email messages that is delivered at pre-determined intervals. Generally, the clock starts when a visitor to your site signs up for a membership or newsletter; they’ll then start receiving a series of emails at times you determine.

For example, an autoresponder email sequence might look like this:

Immediately Upon Signup: Welcome email1 Day After Signup: Autoresponder email highlighting a free tool available on the site5 Days After Signup: Autoresponder email highlighting three pieces of great content10 Days After Signup: Autoresponder email highlighting another free tool14 Days After Signup: Autoresponder email pitching an upgrade to a paid membership

As we’ll discuss below, each of the bullet points above can potentially be broken down into its own autoresponder with a series of emails expanding upon the particular point.

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In order to set up an autoresponder, you need only to have an email service provider. (We use MailChimp; instructions for creating an autoresponder are pretty straightforward.) You’ll have to make a few decisions as you go through this process:

What is the primary goal or the autoresponder?How many emails are included in the autoresponder?How frequently are autoresponder emails sent?What is the call-to-action (or desired recipient action) for each email?

In addition, you’ll obviously need to write subject lines and copy for each email in the series.

To show how you may be able to use an autoresponder to better monetize your traffic, think of the problem we’re trying to solve.

Problem: Most visitors spend only a few minutes on your site, and aren’t able to discover or fully appreciate all of the content you’ve created there. Even if they give you their email addresses, they’ll likely only ever see a small fraction of your site.

Many sites focus on stuffing visitors full of all of their content while on the site. That’s like trying to get them to drink from a fire hose.

 

Solution: Think of autoresponders as a more measured, gradual approach to selling a product or exposing your audience to your site’s content. Instead of trying to close the deal immediately on-site, you get a chance to make the pitch over the course of several detailed emails. You’re letting them drink from the fountain instead of the fire hose.

There are a number of different approaches to setting up an autoresponder. Your strategy should be built around one primary goal–an action you’d like to see the recipients of the autoresponder email take. For example, your primary goal may be for recipients to:

Upgrade to a paid membership (generating premium revenue)Click through and spend time on your site (generating ad revenue and increasing loyalty)Forward to a friend (growing audience)Share socially or link (growing audience)

For sites that sell a paid product, autoresponders can be a great way to gradually familiarize potential customers with the value your product offers. If your paid membership product has a number of different features (like this one), each triggered email can highlight the benefits of a singular feature. If your product has one primary feature (like this one), an autoresponder can be used to show different ways the tool can be used or to highlight success stories.

Our autoresponder includes an email highlighting our free Media Kit Generator tool. This is a tool that many new members might not see during their initial visit, but that many want to check out once they’re aware it exists on our site:

In other words, think of an autoresponder as way to walk potential customers through your landing page. Except instead of letting them read (part of) it in one sitting, you get to explain your product in a series of emails.

If someone signed up for your newsletter (or gave you their email address for another reason), they clearly liked something about your site. But odds are that most subscribers have not seen the best content and tools you have to offer on your site.

If you have one killer tool or article, it’s easy enough to funnel visitors there (for example, by linking to it in the nav bar, using a Hello Bar, or various other techniques). But for any property with several great resources (a term that can include articles, tools, e-books, etc.), it is always a challenge to get visitors to focus where you would like them to focus.

In other words, it’s difficult to highlight the best content you have to offer and steer visitors when they’re on-site. But autoresponders are a great way to do this effectively. By highlighting the best content on your site, you can increase quality indicators such as time on site. There are also some direct monetization benefits for sites that monetize via display advertising: more pageviews translates directly to more revenue.

For sites that already have a deep library, this approach allows publishers to leverage existing work. There’s no need to create new content; simply highlight the best parts of your site already in place.

We also have an email in our autoresponder sequence that simply highlights an article on our site. We’ve identified what we think is one of our most in-depth and useful guides, and crafted an email designed to get our subscribers to check it out. Success here is a simple social share or even a click-thru to the article:

Though we don’t focus much on linkbuilding or other aspects of SEO, it’s worth noting that there is a potentially significant (and positive) side effect. If you’re able to gradually highlight high quality pieces of content to the right people, you’ll probably be able to attribute some new inbound links to your autoresponder.

If you’re taking this approach, your autoresponder should include a series of emails highlighting what you think are the most “linkable” pieces of content you’ve produced.

For sites that monetize via affiliate marketing, an autoresponder can put several different affiliate offerings in front of subscribers over the course of a few weeks. There’s a fine line to walk in terms of being overly promotional here; if you’re shamelessly hawking products that you make a fee on, you’ll see some pretty high unsubscribe rates. But if done tastefully and in an informative way, an autoresponder can be a great way to showcase products and services that cut you in for a portion of the total sale.

Perhaps a better use of this technique would be to work an affiliate marketing-focused email into the autoresponder sequence. For example, after you’ve sent a few emails highlighting some of your best content you may send one that highlights some of your favorite tools and resources.

Most autoresponders (including a few of the examples below) borrow from a number of different strategies and thus seek to accomplish a number of different goals. For example, an autoresponder may focus primarily on highlighting or explaining free content and resources, with occasional plugs for paid membership upgrades or affiliate offers.

While we’re at it, here are some other ideas to include in an autoresponder:

Social: Invite subscribers to like you on Facebook, follow on Twitter, subscribe on YouTube, or connect on LinkedIn.Sister Sites: If you publish more than one site, let subscribers know about what the other properties have to offer.Coupons: If your site is set up to run sales where you offer paid products at a discount, an autoresponder can be a great way to encourage subscribers to take advantage.

When evaluating the success of an autoresponder, you’ll want to consider some of the obvious metrics such as open rates. In addition, there are some other stats that can give you a feel for how well you’re doing:

Completion Rate: Ideally, everyone who signs up for your subscription will receive the entire autoresponder chain. In reality, you’ll probably see some drop off along the way. If there is a big increase in unsubscribes at a certain point in the chain, you may need to tweak your strategy there.Click Rate: The goal of most autoresponder emails involves getting the reader to click through from their inbox back to your site. The percentage of opened emails that end up on the site is a good indicator of the success in this initiative.Conversion Rate: Ultimately, an autoresponder’s success is measured by the number of email recipients who convert to s specified goal. Detailed tracking can be set up here using Google Analytics so you’ll know exactly how efficient your email sequence is.

If you’re more of a visual learner, the image below might help to clarify the nuances of an autoresponder. This first one is from SmartPassiveIncome.com; it demonstrates a mix of free content with a regular “upsell” email designed to get subscribers to pay for a product:

Below is another example, this time of a more detailed autoresponder sequence used by Digital-Photography-School.com. This one also sprinkles in promotional emails with regular updates (i.e., free content):

If you want to learn more about autoresponder tactics, the best thing to do is to experience them firsthand. Start by signing up for these:

ProBloggerCopyBloggerKISSMetricsCrazy Egg

We’ve spent a considerable amount of time setting up an autoresponder for MonetizePros subscribers. We’ve created a great suite of tools to help with Web monetization, and we’re using our a series of triggered emails to explain to subscribers exactly what’s available to them. Our primary goal here is to get subscribers to come back to the site frequently and hopefully pass along our site to a friend or colleague. If you sign up for free MonetizePros membership, you can see exactly how the sequencing works and the emails are structured.

Autoresponders take quite a bit of thought and work to set up, but can be an effective way to accomplish a number of goals. Whether you’re looking to build links, grow your audience, generate additional display ads, or convert visitors and subscribers into paying customers, autoresponders can be an effective way to market your product.