The Ultimate Follow-Up Strategy
by: Stacey Morris
Here’s the scenario: a visitor finds your site through Google. They sign up for your ezine, report, audio—something free that your visitor sees as valuable. You get their email address when they sign up. In the Multiple Streams model we call this freebie the pink spoon, after Baskin-Robbins© appetite-whetting sample. The report is automatically downloaded and your visitor- now a prospect-reads or listens to it over the next couple of weeks. They really like the information and they decide to put it to use. After a couple of weeks your prospect finds out it really works. Wow-that was great advice! Maybe they remember where it came from, but maybe they’ve forgotten all about you…
What if your prospect downloads your pink spoon and doesn’t read it right away—in fact, what if they forget about it altogether? It downloads into a temporary file and disappears. If they have trouble remembering you under the best of circumstances, and they do, they’re certainly going to forget you when your pink spoon is gone.
The bottom line is that we rarely make a significant purchase impulsively. We think about it, mull over it, discuss it with our friends, and choose to buy it or forget about it. There’s usually a contemplation period between our initial exposure to a product and our purchase. So if you’re not marketing your services and products to prospects consistently over time, you’re losing out on valuable sales.
So what is the least expensive, and yet extraordinarily impactful method of staying in touch with your prospects and customers?
Autoresponders.
An autoresponder is a sequence of emails that is sent automatically to a prospect or buyer. For example, if you buy a service or product online you will usually immediately receive a response or electronic receipt via email. Anytime you make a purchase from Amazon, for example, they send you a prewritten confirmation email of your purchase.
Therein lays the power. Autoresponder messages are prewritten. Once you’ve written them, you load them into the autoresponder server, and they’re sent automatically to anyone who signs up for your ezine, report, product, or service. The messages can be very personalized or more general, depending on how much information you’ve requested from the prospect.
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The Ultimate Follow-Up Strategy
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