How to Write Autoresponder Messages

As they say in internet marketing, "The money is in the list." It's as true today as it has ever been, but having a list is only half the battle. You actually have to know what to do with it if you really want to profit from your list!

Building a list is a long process, and you want to do it the right way from the beginning. Building up a list of opt-in subscribers is a way of developing a life-long relationship with customers, so you want to treat them well from the moment they sign up to your list.

The first thing to do is to have people sign up for the right reason. If you promise the moon in exchange for someone's email and then don't deliver, don't expect too many of your subscribers to hang around! Building up trust in your brand requires delivering on your promise, and ideally over delivering. There are any number of things you can offer to get people to sign up to your list, including a free report, an ebook chapter, a free screen saver, a special discount, or a monthly newsletter. Let your imagination run wild!

Once you have people signed up, you want the to stay signed up! You do this by developing a relationship with them, rather than sending out promotion after promotion with no real value added. You should include some emails in your autoresponder sequence that only add value and don't promote any product, so that your readers know you have their best interest in mind. This will actually increase the profitability of your promotional messages, because your readers will be more open to your recommendations.

That being said, you shouldn't be afraid of selling to your list. After all, you're building it up to make money! You can do this in a positive way by recommending products you use yourself or have personally reviewed and have confidence in. It is an accepted fact that most consumers need several exposures to a product or offer before they will act on it, so make sure you put your offer in front of them a number of times. In short, follow up!

There are several formatting tricks you can use to maximize your list profits. Make sure to keep your lines to 60 characters or less, and use a hard return to mark your line breaks so that you message has a uniform appearance for all recipients. This will give you the kind of professional look you want.

You should definitely invest in a quality autoresponder service if you're serious about building a list. Two of the most feature-rich and reliable options are Aweber and GetResponse, both of which allow you to track your email campaigns with laser-like precision.

To make sure you steer clear of spam complaints, try putting your unsubscribe information at the top of your emails rather than at the bottom (or, even better, both!) This idea is to make it as easy as possible for someone who wants to unsubscribe to do so, in order to avoid them clicking the spam button.

To make your links look professional as well, consider using a service like Power Link Generator, which protects your affiliate links and makes them look great. This can save you a significant amount of sales when promoting products in the internet marketing arena.

Finally, consider using a fixed-width font like Courier so that your emails line up in a way that is favorable to the eye. Just a small change like that can make your emails more attractive, and encourage your visitors to open up emails from you long into the future.

The money truly is in the list, so put these tips to good use and get started!