The Ultimate Guide To Creating An Email Autoresponder Course

The Ultimate Guide To Creating An Email Autoresponder Course The coveted email list, that perfect tool for building audience growth and traffic–it has the highest conversion rate in the industry (more than social media, even), but how in the heck do you get lots of email addresses in it? You can beg and plead for people to sign up for you list.  You can offer people a free ebookbut theyll have to give you their email list to get it even if they dont want to be on your email list. Or, you could create an email autoresponder course that people gladly give you an email for, and eagerly await the arrival of your emails. Yep. An email autoresponder course can do that. It makes sense for both you and your reader. It actually works. 5 Reasons You Need An Email Autoresponder Course An email autoresponder course is a true workhorse for your blog. It helps establish your expertise, it creates trust, and frankly, its a fantastic exchange between you and your readers. Both of you get what you want. 1. You’ve already created the content. The apprehension for most bloggers, when it comes to finding something to trade for an email address, is that they don’t have the time or know-how to create a comprehensive ebook or report. They feel like they have to create some brand-new, never-before-seen content. An email autoresponder easily makes use of the blog content you’ve already created. Most readers haven’t read everything you’ve written, nor have they read it in sequential order. Your email autoresponder groups related topics together and packages it neatly for the convenience of your readers, delivering it right to them. You don’t have to create new content in order to make this happen. You can use what youve already written for your blog. People dont always like giving an email address for things that shouldnt require them. 2. You’re trading an email for an email. When you ask readers for their email in order to sign up for an autoresponder, it makes sense. You need their email in order to deliver the information, and it’s a transaction that doesn’t have a hint of hucksterism. Downloading an ebook or a report doesn’t require an email, but that’s the trade they have to make in order to get it. Readers aren’t dumb. They know they could get an ebook if you provided a direct link to it. They know you’re after their email. Their email address is your prize. Signing up for an email autoresponder course doesn’t seem like they have to trade anything at all. Its an email course. The only way they can get it delivered to them is to give you an email address. For readers, it feels like youre being pretty generous and giving them some great free stuff without asking for anything in return. Your email course is their prize. Email courses are a fair trade for readers. You need their address to deliver the content.3. Readers sign up understanding that they will be receiving your email. Some readers give you their email to get that report or ebook or infographic and don’t understand that they’ll be added to your regular email list. Perhaps you didn’t make it clear or they are new to how these things work. After all, they just wanted an ebook, not to be added to an email list. Those readers unsubscribe. Sometimes they love to tell you why they unsubscribed in no uncertain terms. Sometimes they report you as spam. This reaction is rare with an email autoresponder course. Even though they’ll be added to your general email list, they still expect to get emails from you and are more receptive to all of the email you send. They get used to seeing your emails come in through your email autoresponder course; your other emails arriving to their inbox are no big deal. Readers who signed up for an email course understand; they asked you to email your content to them, and they don’t mind when you do. 4. Readers get to know you gradually, and you aren’t forgotten. How many times have you gone and grabbed an ebook and then not read it? I have an impressive library of free ebooks I’ve downloaded and never read. An email autoresponder is a bit different. It’s not the full deluge, its not a 42-page PDF. It’s your best information, fed out in a steady drip, like an information IV. And, even better, it arrives in their inbox, the place they spend most of their day anyway. You meet them on their turf on their time. An email autoresponder keeps you on your reader’s mind. An ebook is downloaded once, and is a one-time connection. An email autoresponder is repetitive, and your content can become a habit. Your emails constantly remind your readers that you still exist, and they grow comfortable hearing your voice in your emails. 5. Email is good place to mention your latest projects. Maybe you finally have something to promote. An online learning course, or a webinar. When it comes to selling or promotion, single solitary landing pages are powerful, particularly if you understand the art of creating copy and graphics that get readers to do what you want them to do on your landing pages.  But maybe you’re not up to landing pages just yet, though you still have something to promote. Where do you do the promotion at? Start with the email autoresponder course. Get some motion going with that first; youll eventually get to the landing page. Dont be shy or feel like your email autoresponder ought to stay purely instructional.  You have given your readers great content, and you earned their attention. They don’t mind if you mention something you think they would be interested in. They dont mind if you mention that webinar or other product in your email to them. Readers appreciate you telling them about products or services theyd be interested in. Dont beChoosing The Topic For Your Email Autoresponder Course Here you are, convinced that you ought to have an email autoresponder course. What should it be about? As usual, Im going to tell you to know your audience and youre going to sigh in frustration. Before you walk away in exasperation, though, read on. You can find out who your target audience is. You can find out what your readers want you to tell them more about. 1. Look at your analytics. Your analytics can tell you specific information about why people visit your site. Here are three things to look at in your analytics that give you an idea about what is bringing people to your site, and what they want to hear about from you: Search terms: You can find out the specific terms people are using to find your site, which will help you decide what the most popular topics for your readers are. However, Google searches are increasingly not providing the specific search terms  that they used to, going with â€Å"not provided† instead, so this ability may decrease in the future (at least with the Google search engine). You can subsidize this lack of information from Google Analytics a little bit with your  Google Webmaster Tools dashboard. Simply go to Search Traffic Search Queries and get a list of the terms people are using to find your site. Google Webmaster Tools can tell you what search terms bring people to your site. High-traffic posts:  High-traffic posts are the posts that people are reading, and indicate a topic they are interested in. You could create an email autoresponder out of these specific posts, or use them as a guide on what people want to read about.  An added bonus, once you know which posts get the traffic, is that you can promote your email autoresponder in those actual blog posts and target a specific audience. For example, we found a few obscenely high-traffic posts on the Todaymade blog, and created a pop-up that encouraged people to sign up for an ebook that was related to the topic of the post. These were posts that had high bounce rates, meaning people came in, read what they wanted, and left. We figured we might as well offer them related content, since they were going to leave anyway. (Click here to see what I mean.) Imagine if you did that for your email autoresponder course?  If you know people are going to those posts, why not offer them useful related content? Theyre already primed for the topic. Nuthin to lose. Choose a topic for your email autoresponder that your readers already like, not one you like. Topical trends: See if there is a trend across these posts that make for a singular topic. Unrelated blog posts might still have a connection. For example, on my personal blog, two high-traffic posts have to deal with customer service issues with Dell and Verizon. They are unrelated except that they indicate people are looking for help in dealing with large corporations when they are frustrated. That trend could be a topic. What topics are people reading that are related on your blog? 2. Look at your social media. Your social media isnt just for sharing and conversation. Its also a not-so-sneaky way to learn about what your readers are doing with your content. It is a kind of â€Å"unofficial† source of analytics, if you pay attention. Shares. Which of your blog posts get shared the most on social media? This is a good indicator of not only what your followers are interested in, but what they are willing to share with their own followers. Even basic stats are useful, such as what bit.ly provides. Bit.ly, Buffer, and other apps that you use with your social media give you some nice stats that show you which of your posts get the clicks and shares. Those posts have topics and headlines people liked. Hashtags. Pay attention to the popular hashtags you’re seeing used by your social media followers. They are telling you what topics are the most important to your readers. Plus, you can capitalize on these hashtags when it comes time to tell the world about your email autoresponder. Conversations. You’ve had conversations with people on social media. What are they talking about? What are they repeatedly asking you about? Wouldn’t you love to have an email autoresponder handy so the next time you’re asked, you can mention that it is available?  Places like Inbound or Quora are a great place to find out what people want to know about. Just read the conversations they have with each other. Answer their questions, and tell them about your email autoresponder.  Social media isn’t as mathematical as pure analytics, but it is a good measurement of what people say they are interested in. 3. Look at your blog comments. Which posts raised the most discussion and passion? What questions were asked? An active comments section is a great way to find out which blog post topic piqued your reader’s interest. If youre lucky, readers may even be so kind as to ask you questions in their comment that you can answer as part of your email autoresponder course, or that you can use as an opportunity later to refer them to your email autoresponder course. Ive had blog readers email me directly and ask if I could write specific posts to answer specific questions they had. As you can imagine, Im more than happy to do so. Wouldnt it be great to say I just so happen to have an email course thatll walk you right through that. 4. Ask your readers. Consider asking your readers directly if there is a topic they’d like to know more about. Use a survey, or write a blog post. Bloggers spend a lot of time water witching for post topics and forget that they can just come right out and ask what readers want to read.  Don’t be afraid to ask your audience specifically what they want to know, and how they want you to cover it. Wonder what your blog readers want? Why not just ask them directly?Creating The Content For Your Email Autoresponder Course Your email autoresponder can be made up of content youve already published on your blog, or new content that you write specifically for the course (or, a mix of both). 1. Use currently published blog posts. Using blog posts that are currently on your blog is quite common, and it is a good way to get started and build your first email autoresponder course. The barrier to entry is easy, because you already have done most of the work. Evergreen posts. Select blog posts that are â€Å"evergreen†Ã¢â‚¬â€œthat is, their content will age well. Blog posts with detailed â€Å"how-to† instructions on using social networks are notorious for aging poorly. Just ask me about the very long and detailed series I wrote on the new Facebook Timeline. I think it was outdated in two weeks. If youre going to use posts already published, try to find ones that will remain viable over a long period of time. Its easy to forget whats in your email course if you fall into the set-it-and-forget-it mode. Make sure your email autoresponder uses content that is relevant over a long-term. Popular posts. We’ve mentioned using analytics, social shares, and comment activity on popular posts to determine what your overall topic should be. Go ahead and use these same popular posts for your actual email autoresponder contentbut with one extra consideration: don’t forget your archives. You likely have some great posts that used to hit the top ten that maybe don’t anymore because they are a few months or more old. Do they still contain good content? You bet they do. Include them. You be the judge. You know which posts you are proud to have written (and those which inspire hidden, dark shame). Select those posts that have excellent content that your readers might not have found yet. One nice thing about using content that already exists out on the wilds of your blog is that you have the option to either include the full blog post in the body of your email, or give readers a snippet and a link back to the original post. Snippets and a link drive traffic, to be sure. 2. Creating brand new content. Sometimes you might want to create brand new content for your email autoresponder. There are several reasons this is a good idea. Rework old copy and make it new. You may have a great post that you wish you could use, but the content is outdated and in much need of repair. There are several blog posts Ive written that Ive reworked and slapped a new headline on. The foundation and frame was good; they just needed a bit of remodeling.  It is not unusual for us to use a looming new email autoresponder course as the impetus to get us to write several new blog posts for our blog. The topic or idea might be relevant, but the available blog posts at our disposal need rework. Rework an old blog post, publish it fresh on your blog for readers, and set it up for your email autoresponder course recipients. Introductions and prefaces. Creating new copy to put each blog post into context helps make individual posts seem to be part of a cohesive whole. The new copy helps frame the blog post so that it fits with the rest. For some of our email courses, weve written a preface, a summation of the previous lesson, and even a bit of a teaser that hints at what the next lesson will bring. That little bit of extra fresh and new copy helps your email autoresponder course feel less like youre just spitting out old blog posts. Create entirely new content. Perhaps you’re using published blog posts, but your email autoresponder is missing a crucial lesson and you need to write brand new content so that the course achieves its goal. Maybe youve not even begun your blog yet, and are building your autoresponder first. Or, you just want to write the course from scratch from the ground up. Some bloggers dont like creating entirely new content. For one thing, its a lot of work. But mainly, you miss out on the SEO benefit because that content is not on your site. These things are all true, but do consider this: exclusivity. When you create new content that isn’t available anywhere else, you can â€Å"sell† your email autoresponder course on the promise that there is exclusive new content not available anywhere else. Readers need to sign up if they want it. So, whether or not youll publish all newly created content on your blog depends on if you are using exclusivity as part of the enticement.