If you are using an Autoresponder service (eg. AWeber, GetResponse, MailChimp etc) then chances are that you will be writing auto-response emails that will get sent out to your subscribers once they subscribe. Every piece of communication that you send adds to the overall impression that a customer has of your product or service. Autoresponders can be used for simple acknowledgments, newsletters, or even series of newsletters. Here are ten tips about autoresponder use.
1. Acknowledge your customers
Send an email to thank your new users for signing up to read your newsletter. This reminds those users that you have received their opt-in request. It should also give your customers an idea of what they should expect in your writing as well as how frequently they should expect to receive it.
2. Make privacy policies crystal clear
Your readers want to know that their information is not going to be sold or given away to other users or companies. Place a link to your privacy policy within your newsletters.
3. Unsubscribing should be as easy as subscribing
People unsubscribe for a variety of reasons. Don’t feel offended or take it personally when someone doesn’t want to be subscribed to your newsletter. Immediately remove the subscriber when requested.
4. Stay in their minds, don’t anger them
Do you like it when a place sends you an email every day? Do not send your email out as frequently as possible. Send out a newsletter every week or two. People unsubscribe for receiving too much email.
5. Make it personal
People want to believe that the information in your newsletter is just for them. Subscribers care about how you can help them personally. Starting a newsletter off with ‘Dear (name),’ is a lot more effective than ‘Dear newsletter subscriber.’
6. Use catchy and descriptive headlines
You want a newsletter that will capture the attention of your subscribers. Try out a test of newsletter headlines to see what works the best. Give readers a hint of what you are sending them.
7. Don’t sell
The pieces that you do with the autoresponder are designed to build trust and entice readers to keep you in mind when they need to get your products. They do not need to be pressured into buying because they already know that you exist.
8. Reward subscriber loyalty
Even though selling outright is frowned upon, offering time limited coupons is not. With coupons, you are not going for the hard sell. Instead, you are telling the customer that you will be there when they are ready.
9. Offer useful and relevant tips
Customers are reminded of the experience that they received when a newsletter is emailed to them. You want to keep that rapport by sending them tips about subjects within your expertise.
10. Keep it simple
Make sure that you have something mastered before adding a new mailing. This applies to services as well as content. You want to make sure that you do one thing very well before moving on.
The autoresponder can help you gain more visitors to your site. You are keeping your customers thinking of your services once every week or two. Offer great content to your readers and they will keep coming back.
reading your article “10 tips for writing an autoresponse email” i remembered a time where enterprises did too much of it and sold the adresses they got from the newsletters to others that monetize this data via spam. Very good article, the most i like is the simple form it should be. Coming from the console, a good short text message does it much more for me than a spammy looking html respond.
Hi.
Great points you made on autoresponse emails. Nothing more irritating than a hard sell or getting a dozen emails a week from the same marketer. It’s a recipe for immediate unsubscribe and delete. A lot of new (and not so new!) marketers make this mistake.All the tips and information on tipsandtricks is golden! Thanks!
Linda
Being in the IM game i see a lot of people trying to sell via email. If people trust you they will buy from you regardless if they want the product or not.
These tips are really good. thanks for sharing.
Very good tip, I like 4th, 5th and 7th point and that is most important. Thanks dude.
Great content. I think it’s really important that emails are personal and personalized because that’s how you stand out from all the other email lists.
I got one more tip for you! You can include a “Happy holidays!” sentiment if it applies during a holiday season 🙂
Great tip there!
Point number 4 is especially true for newsletters (not so much auto response emails per se). There are lots of newsletters which just floods a subscribers inbox which just annoys them. This usually results in them unsubscribing.
Nice tips! One of the things that I really hate is hard sell. I instantly unsubscribe from a list when people try to hardsell.