In case you haven’t noticed, most blogging advice out there focuses on the ways you could get one email subscriber to another to subscribe to your mailing list. Very few actually discuss what you need to do once someone actually signs up.
You should realize that the time after an email subscriber goes to your mailing list is crucial. That email subscriber found your blog, read and appreciated your content, and is actually committing to you by offering you their email address.
And so what are you supposed to do with it?
Read on to have some ideas.
The First Step Is to Set Up an Automatic Follow Up Email Response
Fortunately, there is Aweber that can take care of all your needs through its Follow Up function. There could be some other ways this could be done, but as far as simplicity and affordability go, this is how I recommend you use it.
What is a Follow Up Email all about?
In simple terms, this is just a simple way you can automate the process of sending out a welcome email to your email subscriber who wishes to receive updates from your blogs perhaps. The beauty of this tool is that you just have to set it up and let do the work afterwards.
If you’re wondering how simple it actually is to use this tool, watch the video below:
There’s no way you could ignore the importance of this automatic follow up or welcome email. What this simple message does is give your email subscriber an idea of what he or she can expect after subscribing to your list.
Keep in mind that should you fail to set such expectations, the result will be an increase in unsubscribe rate every time you send them emails. You cannot blame them because they have no idea at all what you are sending them.
8 Things that Your Follow Up Email Should Not Be Without
1. A Sincere Personal Message
It is vital that you write to your email subscriber for the first time in a personal tone and in a friendly and comforting manner. Your goal is to build a relationship with your subscribers. Remember that this email subscriber of your may have read just one of your articles, and thus may not be familiar with your tone or style yet.
2. A Heartfelt Thank You
Never forget to thank your email subscriber for having interest in what you have to offer. The fact that they joined your mailing list means they are now part of your business and success. As a matter of fact, giving them a free ebook as a token of appreciation will be a great move.
3. A Link Where They Could Download Your eBook
If you are offering an eBook for free, then you have to see to it that your follow up email contains the link to the page on your site where the eBook can be downloaded. This is double advantage for you as you’re going to send them back to your blog.
4. Some Old Yet Still Interesting Posts
What you should do next is give your email subscriber a glimpse of some of your old, new and most interesting posts which they may not have read yet. As you know, readers are not likely to read all the content in the blog they visit. A good way of introducing these posts to them is to include the links in the eBook download page. Just include a short paragraph inviting them to explore your website more.
5. A Place to Express Their Biggest Concerns
Your Follow Up email is actually a good way of making your email subscriber feel welcome to share their opinions or whatever it is they are having trouble with. The beauty of this is that you can use their concerns as an inspiration to what you are going to write next for your blog. To make them feel comfortable, give them an email address or perhaps a social networking site where they can reach you anytime.
6. Other Elements in Your Site
Make sure also that you let every email subscriber on your list know all the other stuff they can find in your site. If, for instance, you are promoting the use of Google+, then you could instruct them on how they could find your own profile.
7. Details of How They Would Receive Content from You
Again, it is important that your subscribers know what they will get by signing up for your blog. The last thing you would want to happen is surprise them with your emails containing various links to your site only to make them hit the unsubscribe option. First, let them know how you are going to communicate with them and how often they may hear or receive content from you.
8. Leave Them Alone for a While
Finally, it is very important that you leave your email subscriber for a while after he or she subscribes to your blog. It won’t do you any good to send your subscribers a series of Follow Up emails because this could annoy them.
Additional Tip: It’s always a good idea to keep your emails brief and informative. Don’t try to say everything in a single email as this would result to you sending out lengthy and wordy emails. You can send your subscribers to another page where they could state whether they want to receive more information from you or not.
So Is That All?
Well, for a smart person like you, it won’t be hard to notice that there’s another important thing I haven’t discussed here yet – What if your email subscriber refuses to open your Follow Up email?
If this happens, something’s really wrong.
A critical part of getting email subscribers is to make sure that your subscribers are actually doing it for the right reasons. Be sure that you are sending these Follow Up emails to those subscribers that are relevant to your own goals. This is one of the trickiest things to do, but if you want, I could teach you some techniques on how to find targeted email subscribers. But of course that will be later.
