• Pull the Reader in
• Introduce the Product
• Explain the Product’s Significance
• Tell the Reader to Make a Purchase
  

Pull the Reader in
To convince your audience that your text is worth reading, make your first sentence or two very interesting. Make a bold statement, say something seemingly ridiculous, or appeal to your prospect’s emotional side. Then, tie this grabber in with the rest of your copy.

Introduce the Product
What is the product you’re advertising? What does it do? Directly after your grabber, give a compact explanation of your product. Keep this explanation short, while still being very clear. This should still be a very short section of your text.

Explain the Product’s Significance
What will it do for me?

By writing your own copy, you can directly target your unique audience. Make the most of this opportunity! Clearly explain how your readers will benefit from this product.

No one knows your audience like you do. Suggest a variety of product uses just for them, and give examples. This is the time for details – make this section long and rich.

Tell the Reader to Make a Purchase
You’ve come so far – you’ve laid out exactly what the product is and how it will help your unique audience. Now, seal the deal – tell your readers to purchase the product! Include your affiliate link in this section.

This step may sound strange, but it’s necessary. Often, people hear about a product and are genuinely interested, but fail to actually make a purchase. A clear call to a simple action cuts down on buyer ambivalence. Don’t be pushy – just change your verb tenses to the imperative. Instead of:

“If you think that you fit this profile, you might want to think about buying this product.”

Say: “Click here to order an account today.”

Drive Sales – Use Long Copy

If you don’t feel ready to write long copy yourself, ask your affiliate program manager for help! Many companies release well-written articles by respected authors that you can reprint free of charge.

The novelty of the Web is wearing off. People online now are busy. Surfers won’t make a purchase unless you make a great case for what they’ll get out of it. And you’re not going to do that with just a banner ad.

Your web business probably gets product inquiries from potential customers around the globe. Inquiries come via e-mail and your web site, and you try to send information to each hot prospect as quickly as you can. You know that you can drastically increase the likelihood of making a sale by satisfying each person’s need for information quickly!

But, after you’ve delivered that first bit of information to your prospect, do you send him any further information?

If you are like most Internet marketers, you don’t.

When you don’t follow that initial message with additional information later on, you let a valuable prospect slip from your grasp! This is a potential customer who may have been very interested in your products, but who lost your contact information, or was too busy to make a purchase when your first message reached him.

Often, a prospect will purposely put off making a purchase, to see if you find him important enough to follow up with later. When he doesn’t receive a follow up message from you, he will take his business elsewhere.
Are you losing profits due to inconsistent and ineffective follow up?

Following up with leads is more than just a process – it’s an art. In order to be effective, you need to design a follow up system, and stick to it, EVERY DAY! If you don’t follow up with your prospects consistently, INDIVIDUALLY, and in a timely fashion, then you might as well forget the whole follow up process.
Consistent follow up gets results!

When I first started marketing and following up with prospects, I used a follow up method that I now call the “List Technique.” I had a large database containing the names and e-mail addresses of people who had specifically requested information about my products and services. These prospects had already received my first letter by the time they requested more information, so I used the company’s latest news as a follow up piece.

I would write follow up newsletters every now and then, and send them, in one mass mailing, to everyone who had previously requested information from me. While this probably did help me win a few additional orders, it wasn’t a very good follow up method. Why isn’t the “List Technique” very effective?

* The List Technique isn’t consistent. Proponents of the List Technique tend to only send out follow up messages when their companies have “big news”.
* List Technique messages don’t give the potential customer any additional information about the product or service in question. He can’t make a more informed buying decision after receiving a newsletter! If someone is wondering whether your company sells the best knick-knacks, what does he care that you’ve just moved your headquarters?
* List Technique messages convey a “big list” mentality to your potential customers. When I used to write follow up messages using the List Technique, I was writing news bulletins to everyone I knew! I should have been sending a personal message to each individual who wanted to know more about my products.

What follow up method really works?

Following up with each lead individually, multiple times, but at set intervals, and with pre-written messages, will dramatically increase sales! Others who use this same technique confirm that they have all at least doubled the sales of various products! In order to set this system up, though, you need to do some planning.

First, you’ll need to develop your follow up messages. If you’ve been marketing on the Internet for any length of time, then you should already have a first informative letter. Your second letter marks the beginning of the follow up process, and should go into more detail than the first letter. Fill this letter with details that you didn’t have the space to add to the first letter. Stress the BENEFITS of your products or services!

Your next 2-3 follow up messages should be rather short. Include lists of the benefits and potential uses of your products and services. Write each letter so that your prospects can skim the contents, and still see the full force of your message.

The next couple of follow up messages should create a sense of urgency in your prospect’s mind. Make a special offer, giving him a reason to order NOW instead of waiting any longer. After reading these follow up messages, your prospect should want to order immediately!

Phrase each of your final 1 or 2 follow up messages in the form of a question. Ask your prospect why he hasn’t yet placed an order? Try to get him to actually respond. Ask if the price is to high, the product isn’t the right color or doesn’t have the right features, or if he is looking for something else entirely. (By this time, it’s unlikely that this person will order from you. However, his feedback can help you modify your follow up letters or products, so that other prospects will order from you.)

The timing of your follow up letters is just as important as their content. You don’t want one prospect to receive a follow up the day after he gets your initial informative letter, while another prospect waits weeks for a follow up!

Always send an initial, informative letter as soon as it is requested, and send the first follow up 24 hours afterwards. You want your hot prospects to have information quickly, so that they can make informed buying decisions!

Send the next 2-3 follow up messages between 1 and 3 days apart. Your prospect is still hot, and is probably still shopping around! Tell him about the benefits of your products and services, as opposed to your competitors’. You will make the sale!

Send the final follow up messages later on. You certainly don’t want to annoy your prospect! Make sure that these last letters are at least 4 days apart.

Following up effectively seems complicated, but it doesn’t have to be! So many potential customers are lost because of poor follow up – don’t you want to be one of the few to get it right?

Click here for a free trial of Aweber now!

Basically, you’re going to have to start somewhere. It’s important to start a new routine, and the more you do something, the easier it gets. So why wait? Why not start now and test what works for you?

The hardest part about building a list is getting people to sign up to receive information from you. Let’s face it. We all have inboxes full of offers and newsletters we don’t really want. So you need to put yourself in your reader’s shoes. What do they want? What do you have to offer?

In the early days of the internet, you could just add a sign up box on your website, and people would gladly give you all the information you wanted. These days you have to work hard for the privilege of receiving someone’s information. It comes down to trust. Why would they trust you? Do they even know you?

I think the first thing you need to look at is the trust issue. Do you look trustworthy online? Are you a real person? I’m sure you too have visited lots of websites when you’re not sure if there is a real person, or a real company, behind the website – and you worry about handing over your email address and private information.

Maybe a good way to build trust is to add audio or video to your website. If you put your face on your website, you stand behind your product and services 100%. Testimonials from real clients is always a good thing too, but make sure everything is true and honest. Web visitors are suspicious by nature and will see through any sales tactic and any hype. Honesty and integrity is what the web needs.

If you can give your visitors what they need or want, your halfway home. Do you have useful information you can share with your readers? If you are a tax expert, maybe you can write a tip sheet or article that you can give away? Or if you’re a gardener, maybe a chart of what to plant when? I’m sure you can come up with something that relates to your area of expertise. One client of ours who sells marine products, gives away a “10 Tips for the Intracoastal Waterway” ebook when someone signs up for his newsletter. Another lady who does arts and crafts, gives away free instructions for seasonal art projects.

Let’s talk about sending out emails for a second. Everyone hates spam, and sending out spam is illegal. I’m sure you heard about the CAN-Spam Act.

“The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) establishes requirements for those who send commercial email, spells out penalties for spammers and companies whose products are advertised in spam if they violate the law, and gives consumers the right to ask emailers to stop spamming them.”
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.shtm

What does this mean for you and your marketing?

Basic Rules for email marketing:

• Your email’s “From,” must be accurate and identify the person who initiated the email.
• Don’t use deceptive subject lines to mislead the recipient.
• Give your recipients a way to opt-out and stop receiving your emails. The law gives you 10 business days to stop.
• Commercial email should be identified as an advertisement and include the sender’s valid physical postal address.

Read more details here.

Opt-In or Opt-Out
Opting In, means that you sign up for a newsletter subscription for example. You’re allowing the sender to send you occasional emails with their information. Usually, there’s a sign up box on the website where you enter your email address and information.

Double Opt In means that the sender confirms the sign up by sending you an email with a link. You have to confirm that you actually want the emails and you did sign up. We recommend using double opt in for your list building.

We use two different services, Constant Contact for newsletters and Aweber as an autoresponder. The difference between the services is that Aweber can schedule several levels of follow up emails, for example you could create a five day email course and email it out over five days with Aweber. Or if you want to automatically send an email when someone asks for it, it can handle that. Click here to check out Aweber for yourself.

Constant Contact is have great email marketing templates, is easy to use – and they give you 60 day trial period – so check it out yourself by clicking on the logo below.

The good thing about using a service is that it automatically takes care of subscribers opting in or opting out. You pay according to the number of subscribers you have on your list. If you have less than 1,000 it’s usually around 15-20/dollars a month. We definitely recommend using a service.

Trusted Email Marketing

Why can’t I just use Outlook?
Once you’re sending out more than 100 emails at a time, you shouldn’t use your regular email. Several small business owner we’ve talked to ended up getting in trouble with their internet service provider because they’re using their regular email program for mass emails and got a lot of spam reports. It’s not a good business practice, and with the new strict spam laws, you definitely want to use a service. It also makes you look professional, and makes managing your email marketing a snap.