Put Life into Sequential Emails

There are various points at which you might decide to kick in a series of sequential emails. Usually with the help of an autoresponder program.

These emails may be triggered by someone signing up at your site, registering for something or even completing a purchase.

They are often designed to familiarize the reader with your site and its services. More often than not, the underlying purpose of the sequence is to upsell or cross-sell the reader.

In other words, you have their email address and their attention, and now is the time to see if you can engage them a littler more deeply and turn them into a customer, or repeat customer.

What goes wrong...

Over the last couple of weeks I have had occasion to study two sets of autoresponder emails, from two very different companies.

Each set contained useful information and the expected pitches to drive readers back to the site.

But here’s what I noticed about both series. They felt like they had been written by the “Incredible Auto Responder Copywriting Wizard”.

In short, they had no life.

There was nothing in them to indicate that the writer was really pleased someone had signed up. No sense that the writer was enthusiastic about finding someone who was interested in his products or services. No sense of excitement about introducing someone new to all the great things on his site. No sense of drive. No sense that the writer was genuinely grateful for the opportunity to help someone, guide someone, inform someone.

To put more life in your emails, here are three quick tips to follow. (They also apply to the programmer of the Incredible Auto Responder Copywriting Wizard to include in version 2.03.)

1. Be genuinely enthusiastic about welcoming someone new to your list. And what not? If you feel indifferent about adding just “one more name” to the list, you can be sure your indifference will shine through in how you write.

2. Let people know what to expect. Will this be a series of emails? Let them know. Will you be including a valuable tip in each email? Let them know in advance.

3. Create a sense of continuity. In email number two you might want to make reference to what was covered in number one. And at the end of number two, why not tell them what’s coming up in number 3? That way they’ll be watching out for your next email.

4. Keep your sales pitch in context. There is no problem in making a sales pitch in each email – although I would hope you would also choose to include some useful and valuable content – but try to match the content to the pitch. In other words, if you are selling an online kit for writing Wills, include three tips on writing Wills in the same email in which you provide them with a link to your primary Will sales page. Contextual promotion is a powerful sales driver.

5. Be friendly, but don’t pretend to be their buddy. You’re not. I’m sure we have all received those emails that sound like they were written by our best friend. It’s ridiculous, and simply undermines your company’s credibility.

Finally, the hall of shame...

If you ever include any of the following phrases in a series of emails, I will personally cast you into a pit of angry fire ants...

“Frankly, I’m disappointed...”

“What’s up? I can’t believe you didn’t respond to my last email...”

“You’d have to be mad to let this opportunity pass you by...”

You know the kind of thing.

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