Hellooooo? Anyone out there?

You’ve heard the statistics and advice: If you want to make big money on the internet you’ve got to set up a great autoresponder series.

Multiple studies have shown that most consumers need to get a product in front of them more than once before they will buy. While many argue the perfect number of messages to be sent in the campaign many agree that anything over seven is often overkill.

The research showing how many messages people typically see before they buy:
• One or two messages: 16%
• Three or four messages: 34%
• Five or six messages: 34%
• Seven or Eight: 16%

No wonder it can seem like your autoresponders are launching off into a black hole the first, second, and even third time you click the “send” button.

Most of your buyers are going to come after receiving several messages.

But you can also see that too many is too much. Besides, the last thing you want to do is get a reputation as a spammer. This is the shortest path to online death that I can think of.

Looking at the statistics you are probably best to have an autoresponder series that includes about six different messages. This gives you a wide range of topics to cover about your specific product.

It will be up to you to decide what you think is most important about your product but each topic must be equally as strong. You have to approach the series thinking if the first one doesn’t get them the second one will….or the third….or the fourth.

You will also need to determine the frequency of your messages. While you may not want to bombard the potential customers with multiple e-mails in one day, you should not wait any longer than one week to send a fresh e-mail. Any longer and you risk the consumer forgetting why they were even considering you in the first place.

When it comes to your messages make sure that you speak in a casual manner. If you make it too much of a sales pitch it will be obvious and this will turn people off. Focus on a strong opening sentence. Give the reader a little, but make them want more.

Make sure that you remind the reader that they are receiving the information on their request. Otherwise you risk them hitting the “spam” button and sending your polished pitch to the recycle bin. Also let the readers know that you will be following up in the future with more information.

Don’t forget to include an unsubscribe link. This is very important as it lets the reader know you are for real and not all about spam. Most autoresponder services provide the link you just need to make sure it is included.

There are several different autoresponder services available that are designed to make your autoresponder series easy. You have to make it effective. By having a strong autoresponder series in place you will ensure yourself of a hassle-free way of putting your product in front of potential customers time and time again. Do it properly and watch those potential sales turn into realized sales.

If nothing else does it, getting into Internet Marketing should be enough to make you gain some appreciation for the whole concept of cloning yourself. You could get so much more done, move further in your business building process, and never hit the “wall” from running out of steam.

The first place you’d probably put your cloned self to work would be in sales, contacting every prospect who comes to your site, and answering their questions and objections. With the internet “open all night” and your customers expecting service no matter what time they roll in to check out your goods, your clone could handle the taskmaster workload and merciless schedule without getting exhausted.

And what a relief, because today, if you make the consumer wait any amount of time a sale could easily be lost. In these days of instant everything, if you make a potential customer wait, they will begin to click other web sites to look for the information they crave. But you can’t monitor your web site at all times, so what’s the solution… short of cloning yourself, anyway?

Meet the autoresponder.

Here’s how an autoresponder works for you. A potential customer is on your web site and decides they want more information.

You set up a series of emails to go out, in sequence, at set intervals – kind of like a multi-step booby trap. Your site visitor triggers the series by requesting more info or signing up for your newsletter.

You load your autoresponder with your messages, and they automatically go out every few days, answering your prospects’ questions, reminding them of the pain that sent them looking at your product in the first place, reminding them they can get what they want by buying what you’re offering.

Every couple of days, your prospects read a bit more about your product, one more angle about how their lives will be easier and better, how their problems will be solved. This nudging is enough to keep your product in their minds long enough that they can make the decision to buy. Because you’ve got several opportunities to present the product to them this way, you can focus on a different benefit each time – and before long they’ll feel like there’s an overwhelming landslide of reasons to buy.

The other great thing with setting up an autoresponder series is that you can set it up once and then work to improve it. As always, you’ve got to track your results. Are people buying after the first message? the third? Your original series serves as your control – the standard to beat. It’s a process of tweaking and polishing, of making the buying process easy, making the sales message more compelling.

The important thing is to get started. Writing autoresponders probably isn’t anyone’s favorite thing to do – but it’s one of the best ways you can duplicate your effectiveness and systematize your efforts at the same time.