Cheap Effective & Automatic! The Instant Sales Force for Your Business

Don’t you wish you could just go out  and hire a team of savvy sales people to stay in touch with your prospective customers and encourage them to buy? Surely all your sales would flow in and you could then focus your time on delivering your service.

Besides the fact that any staff can be expensive if not fully utilised – especially in your early days, when you put a few simple systems in place, you can easily replace that expensive sales force with automated tools that allow you to keep your products and services in front of potential clients. You’ll not only make more money, but you’ll do it completely hands free. All that’s required is a little forethought.

Your first must-have tool? An autoresponder. Simply put, an autoresponder is a series of emails that go out on a pre-determined schedule. They’re written to engage your audience and pull readers further into your sales funnel. With so much business being conducted online nowadays, the auto-responder allows prospective customers to get to know you and most importantly, to trust you.

Typically, an autoresponder series will have at least seven emails in it, and is used as a lead generating tool. It is a well researched fact, that it will generally take a minimum of 7 points of contact before your prospect is ready to buy from you. The more expensive the product, the more “touches” it may take too.

You offer an opt-in on your website with (for example) “weekly tips to stay productive during the long hot days of summer” (we wish!) or “daily motivation for busy mompreneurs.” When your reader fills out the form, she’s automatically added to your autoresponder list, and you have her attention with every email.

The key though, is to write your series with specific calls to action. It’s not enough to just give her tips for being more productive. How many times have you received emails and you are desperate to buy but the links just aren’t there. You’ve no time to go searching for them! You have to clearly provide the opportunity to buy your products or services.

Done right, your autoresponder can help keep your cash flowing, even when business is down.

The fastest way to get your autoresponder up and running is to use a tried and true email provider such as AWeber. It’s simple to set up, and extremely affordable. Plus, you’ll find many VAs who are experienced with it and can help you out if you get stuck. If you are in the early stages of business and do not want to splash the cash, there are cheaper and even free options from the likes of Mailchimp and BenchmarkEmail.

For the content, look back over your most popular blog posts and products. Posts can be repurposed to provide valuable content to your subscribers, with a natural upsell to matching products or services.

In addition, think about the questions you’re most frequently asked, what conversations pop up again and again, and what your social connections and competitors are discussing. These nuggets are the building blocks of a compelling autoresponder series that your readers will not only look for, but actually read. And if they’re reading, they will eventually buy.

As they move through your series, you want to keep in mind that subsequent offers should be more and more valuable, with the occasional low-priced offer thrown in.

In fact, if you’re using a more sophisticated system such as Infusionsoft or AWeber with the AW Pro Tools add-on, you can easily move people between autoresponders based on the actions they take. That means they’ll see exactly the offers they want and need, and nothing else. It can make selling via email super productive, and best of all, completely automated!

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