That’s a great example of embracing multichannel marketing! It’s great that you give people so many avenues to interact with you.

Rob,

Funny, isn’t it? When we step back and look it’s obvious, but even the most well-intentioned business can find itself doing the same sort of thing. It’s tempting to go for the short-term gains, but as you’ve noted taking that trust and building further on it can ultimately yield much better results.

When I do follow up emails to my customers, I put the opt-in form after the sale.

In the confirmation mail, I first thank them, and then tell them to confirm their link so I can send them a bonus download.

Then in the first autoresponse message, I thank them again, and introduce themselves to me, my myspace page, my facebook page, and my blog. And I give them an email address to contact me if they need help.

But I wait to promote something else via email though, for at least a day or two.

Usually, those who do check out my pages that I list in the email, they buy other products from me, because they’re promoted on my site. And since all my products have my name and face on them, I’m instantly branding myself, and getting my face and name beaten into their heads.

So, the follow up email works great if you try to get your buyers to fall in love with YOU, instead of the next product.

If this were on a multiple choice, I don’t think too many merchant would choose "send more advertising" as the wise next step. Yet it can be a pitfall many fall victim too.

ALL of my autoresponder sequences used to be setup like this (further monetization attempts on the back-end). I’ve learned better and continue to work towards adding more content instead to take the customer-trust even further.

Thanks for posting this!

I totally agree - one of the things that we strongly recommend is a focus on providing value and building a relationship with your subscribers.

Lately I find myself telling people, "nobody ever woke up and said, ‘Gee, I’d sure like to sign up to an email list today!’"

People are looking for something of value from the first time they come to your website, to when they receive that first email from you, to when they become customers, and afterward. If you don’t provide that value, they’re not going to respond to you, and they’re not going to stay subscribed.

Fortunately there are many ways to provide value to customers, and like Mike says, it’s not hard to build them into your email marketing campaigns.

The way we learn to run our businesses better is to listen to what others say. You guys at Aweber are getting better every day at listening to your customers and you are doing what I was told to do from day one. Just help others to get what THEY want….and you won’t have to worry about what YOU want.

Once we’ve made a sale (created a customer) there is no rush to sell them something else right this minute.

I think at least couple of emails relating to their purchase with helpful information works absolute magic on the customer.

With Aweber (they’re not paying me to say this ;0))it takes no effort to add a couple of brief messages into the autoresponder saying "I hope you are doing ok with such and such product you purchased, you might be interested to know…..blah blah" or "other people have found ….blah blah"

A couple of emails like this and they are eating out of your hand. No pitch……just useful info/help/advice/assistance.

Keep up the good work Justin

I have to say that the company in the example did exactly what we did when we started out in affiliate marketing a few years ago, building a list and selling to it.

We made every rookie mistake in the book, and it probably cost us a small fortune. But, in our defense, we KNEW we should be marketing to our list, and marketing in context to the list, but we just didn’t know how pushy to be.

We attended one of Perry Marshall’s closed group seminars at his home in Chicago last year, and we were advised that we should sell into the list, and do it over and over with at least 100 to 200 pre-loaded messages, starting every day and tapering off to once a month near the end.

We understood that we needed to solicit them until they either left the list, or made additional purchases, but that the worst thing we could do was leave them siting there like an old file.

Where we did go wrong was the nature of the emails. We sent sales letters, and Perry corrected us on this to where we sent about 80% content and 20% sales in any given message.

HUGE impact on bottom line. Second only to the gains we had in sales after adding and split testing squeeze pages.

These tips in here are great. Keep ‘em coming!

Thanks for stopping by and letting us know! It’s good to know you guys are listening.

I’m sure your customers will be better served as a result.