Now that you thought about the basics of creating autoresponder messages, building relationships, and making money, it’s time to consider advanced copywriting techniques. While you’re not writing full-length sales letters, a lot of the techniques still apply.

Applying these time-proven methods can increase your profits substantially. These are very powerful, so make sure you always use these techniques ethically and responsible.

Create Scarcity

One of the ways to make money as quickly as possible is to create scarcity when you present an offer. People have very busy lives and will put off making a purchase until later — often forgetting in the process. If you create a sense of scarcity, they will be a lot more likely to make a purchase immediately rather than waiting.

There are many different ways do this.

Only allow a certain number of a product to be sold.

If you’re an affiliate, you can limit the number of bonuses that you are presenting with that offer.

Offer a product at a very low price to begin with, with the price rising at a point in the near future.

People don’t like to feel like they are missing out, so scarcity tactics work very well. Be sure you are always truthful about this scarcity, though. If you aren’t, it can make you look dishonest.

Give a Reason

Studies show that responses increase if you give a reason for taking a certain action. It doesn’t matter whether the reason for buying is a good one or not, as long as you give a reason for people to do so.

Psychology expert Cialdini notes a study where there was a line at an office where everyone was waiting for the copy machine. The researcher asked to cut ahead. The response was not very good.

However, when the researcher asked to cut ahead “because I have to make a copy” response increased substantially, simply because a reason was given.

The same thing can be applied to your copywriting. If you give a reason for people to make their purchase now, they will be a lot more likely to do so.

Use Reciprocity

If you do something nice for people, it is natural for them to want to do something nice back to you. This is one of the reasons why creating a relationship with your list can be very lucrative for you in the long run.

If you give someone a gift, they feel a sense of obligation to help you out too. In this case, it might be buying a product.

Offer Social Proof

Social proof is another amazing way to boost your sales. Nobody really likes to make the first move, in case we make the wrong one. The same can be said when people are buying an offer. They don’t want to take the risk of it being a bad buying decision.

If they see that other people have already purchased and have enjoyed the product, they will be a lot more likely to buy it themselves.

Some ways to incorporate social proof are…

• Include actual numbers when talking about results.
• Include case studies or before and after videos or pictures.
• Include some testimonials and even a picture of people who have used the product you are promoting.

You don’t have to do this within the e-mail copy itself, but you want to do it in the copy that you link to. You can even give some sales figures if you think that will boost their confidence.

Focus On Their Emotions

Many people make their purchases based on their emotions. If you feel very strongly about something, the chances are that you’ll make a purchase, right? That is why niches based on hobbies, desperate situations, and passions are so easy to make money in.

Step into your customer’s shoes to see what their emotions are, and how you can showcase your product so they feel that it will take care of their needs or fulfill their desires.

Hitting those emotional hot buttons is often what makes people purchase quickly. If you can incorporate some honest and real emotions into your emails, you’ll stand apart from the competition.

Use Contrasting Prices

People are very cost-conscious. If you are able to show a contrast in price between your product and another you can often make yours seem far more appealing.

For example, if you are  selling a strategy used to eliminate stress from your life, you can compare the cost of your information product to going to a doctor to get expensive medicines.

You often put things in a different (better) light when you present them in this way.

Give People a Reason To Trust You

On of the most important things you can do is make sure people know that they can trust you — and give them a reason why they should trust you. People are very skeptical so be sure to clearly spell out why they should listen to you by telling a compelling and true story.

Your ultimate goal is to help people, but you also want to increase your bottom line. Learning how to make money with your list is essential — it’s also important that you don’t make mistakes that could cut into your profits.

Promote Affiliate Products

One way to make money with your list is to promote affiliate products. The chances are good that no matter which niche you’re in, you can find relevant products that people will respond to. These might be information products, physical products, or even services. The important thing is that you check the product yourself for quality to make sure it’s something that you will feel good about putting your stamp of approval on.

Many list owners make the mistake of simply choosing offers based upon their commission without checking to make sure it’s something that their readers can actually use. By hand-selecting what you promote, you’ll gain the trust of your list members and they will be more likely to buy from you in the future.

In doubt? Don’t promote.

Promote Your Own Products

What many list owners end up doing is creating their own products (if they don’t have them already).

This gives you ultimate control over what you’re offering to your list, as you are the one who decides what goes into the product. This is amazing, because after a while you will have gotten a feel for what the members of your list really need. This allows you to zero in on their wishes and hand-deliver them a product you know they’ll be happy to pay for.

It can also be more beneficial to promote your own products, since you don’t have to split the commission as an affiliate. This can be more lucrative in the end. Having your own product can also brand you as an expert. As soon as people see your name on a book or other product, they know that you are a serious person in your field.

Presell The Product

No matter whether you’re promoting an affiliate product or you’re providing your own, you need to make sure you presell the product.

Preselling means to warm up your reader BEFORE he/she is sent to the sales page.

That means using good copywriting skills right within your e-mail that will show people that the product that you’re recommending is one that they actually need. Empathize with the reader, and show that this is a product that can do exactly what they need it to do.

That doesn’t mean you’re going to hype the product at all or lie. You can certainly make a lot of sales without making false claims about anything. It will be easier than you think to presell to your customers if you are promoting a product that you truly believe in.

Create Special Offers

Creating special incentives and offers can help you to make sales. Your list members will be thrilled to get discounts just by being a member of your list. This strategy also makes being a member of your list special and exclusive – something they can’t get from the competition.

Here are some ideas…

Negotiate a special discount with a product owner if you’re an affiliate. Ask the owner for a percentage off, a free trial, or even an added bonus – just for your readers.

Create and offer an added bonus yourself. Provide it only to those readers who buy a product through your affiliate link. For instance, an extra report, audio, or maybe even your notes that you took when YOU went through the same course.

Drop your price just for your list members on a product that you own.

Offer Resale Rights or PLR rights to your own product – only to your list.

Bundle up other people’s Resale Rights products into a package and offer it at a steal.

Offer personal coaching only to your list members.

No matter what you decide to do, keep in mind that you need to treat your list members like gold, which means giving them offers that nobody else has access to.

If you make these offers truly special, you’ll get customers for life!

Don’t Be Afraid To Change Out Products Over Time

It can be very tempting to just leave everything as it is after you’re done setting up different products to promote in your autoresponder series. The truth is that some offers may not convert as well as you thought they would. You need to check your stats and periodically clean things out. Test different offers to make sure the needs of your list members are being met — and that you’re earning as much money as possible.

That may mean trying different affiliate offers or taking note of your list member’s feedback and creating products based around that. Even though your autoresponder series can be “set and forget,” that’s not always the best case scenario.

Do you want to improve your email marketing skills? If so then register for the free webinars below.

Free, Live Email Marketing Webinars ~ Become an Email Marketing Master

Recommendations:
aWeber Autoresponders - Quickly create and run your campaigns with powerful, easy-to-use email marketing tools.
Go Daddy – Where I purchase all my domain names.
Hostgator – Very reliable and low cost hosting service which I have been using for about ten years.

Having a series of money-making autoresponder messages is a very important part of the process, obviously. If your autoresponder copy is dull and ineffective, it doesn’t matter how big your list is because you’re not going to make any sales. That’s why it’s very important that you understand how to write good copy before you get started.

After you sign up for your autoresponder account, you will want to load it with messages that will gain people’s trust and help you make sales.

Understand The Difference Between Follow-Up and Broadcast Messages

If you are completely new to list building, you may not know the difference between a follow-up message and a broadcast message.

Followup message:

Your follow-up messages are what the members of your list receive no matter when they sign up. These will usually be in a sequence that is delivered at a predetermined rate.

So, if Sally signs up on Tuesday she will receive follow-up message #1 on Tuesday. If Tom signs up on Friday, he will receive follow-up message #1 on Friday.

That means that your autoresponder sequences are your little relationship builders and salespeople 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Broadcast messages:

These types of messages are sent out to your entire list so that they receive them at the same time (also referred to as an “email blast”). This is a good option if you have something to share that is not a normal part of the sequence. It might be a special announcement or a time-sensitive or limited-time-offer special deal.

Use both types of messages in your business for best results.

Think About How Often You Should Send Messages

At first, you might be nervous about mailing to your list because you’re not sure how many messages you should send and how often. Unfortunately, there is not one correct answer to this question. The answer depends on your niche, the relationship you have with your members, and what kind of information you share.

If your messages offer a lot of value, people will probably want to receive them more often. If your list messages are more focused on making sales, people may expect them (and want them) less often.

Still, the balance is individual, so you should test what is best for you. A good autoresponder will show you the number of people who click on your message when you send it. If the number stays high with more frequent messages, your unsubscribe rate doesn’t increase, and sales tend to remain high, then your list may want to be contacted more frequently.

What some marketers suggest is having one autoresponder message scheduled per week, with perhaps a broadcast message in between if you need to have a special mailing. Yes, at times the messages might land on the same day to certain readers, but that’s no reason to avoid sending broadcast mailings to your followup message recipients.

Carefully Craft Your First Message

First impressions count. That’s why you need to carefully write your first autoresponder message. It is the first impression your list members will have of you. Even if they really liked what your website had to say, they will unsubscribe very quickly if they don’t think your list will offer them a lot of value.

Your first message should almost never contain a sales pitch. This is your chance to prove that they will want to remain on your list. You want to be warm, open, and friendly. You should also consider offering a special bonus or surprise for free. This will immediately help set a positive association with your messages. This can increase the open rates on your e-mails, put your relationship on the right path, and help you make more sales later on.

Decide When To Make Your First Sales Pitch

Some marketers are focused on making the sale right away. However, you may want to consider holding off until you are at least a few messages into email sequence.

Now, this rule doesn’t apply if people sign up to get a coupon or special product offer. Then they would expect that they are going to be sold to right away.

However if your list members signed up to get some valuable information, they may not take too kindly to getting pitched to right away. This is something you may want to test, but you need to think about the relationship first and the money later in most cases.

Split Test For The Perfect Balance

As your list grows, you will want to split test your messages. You might find that the way you set things up in the beginning was not the optimal way. We all want to improve our results and split testing makes that achievable. By tweaking a few things here and there you can increase your open rate and the desired responses your list makes.

If you have a good autoresponder company, the chances are good that they will provide you with the information and tools you need to split test. Companies like Aweber will automatically send half of your list one message and the other half a different message. They will then track the results so you can compare them and make changes.

Consider The 3-to-1 Formula

A popular formula that some of the top marketers use is sending 3 relationship building e-mails to every 1 sales e-mail. This is especially important in the beginning stages, and will set the tone for later e-mails.

What you might want to do is have the first e-mail be entirely focused on offering quality information and building a relationship, the second e-mail making a very soft pitch, the third e-mail selling a little harder, and finally the fourth e-mail blatantly promoting a product.

If it makes you feel more comfortable having a system to work with, then this is a sequence that you may wish to follow.

Study The Basics Of Copyrighting Before Getting Started

You may not think of yourself as a copywriter, but I recommend that you study the basics of copy to make the most of your list.

Elements such as the AIDA formula will certainly improve the responsiveness of
your list.

AIDA stands for:
Attention
Interest
Desire
Action

This means capturing their attention, interest, desire, and finally having them perform the desired action.

No, I’m certainly not recommending that you hold off on starting a list or growing your list until you’re a highly skilled copywriter, but I do recommend that you continue to study copywriting to continually improve your results.

Focus On The Subject Line

While all elements of the e-mail are important, you will want to focus on the subject line.

If people don’t like what they see and are not enticed to click, they simply will not open your message. On the other hand, if your headline is attention-grabbing, they can’t help but click on your message to see it. Once they’ve opened your e-mail, it’s going to be that much easier to build your relationship and make sales.

Study Autoresponder E-mails That You’ve Responded To

As a marketer, the chances are good that you’re receiving emails from several other lists. Do you notice that you open some marketers e-mails more than others? You can learn a lot from this.

Save the e-mails that really grab your attention and make you respond, either by “labeling” them if you’re using Gmail.com or sorting those messages into a folder marked “Hot Copy”.

You can “swipe” certain copy ideas (not the subject lines themselves, but the ideas used) for use in your own e-mails to make them more attention-grabbing and response-inducing.

Consider The Length Of Your E-mails

There are some people who hate writing so much that their e-mails are only ever a paragraph or so long. There are others who are so prolific that their e-mails go on for pages. It’s probably best to find something in between.

If you are a writer who tends to go on and on, you have to remember that people are very busy. They often don’t have time to read long e-mails. On the other hand, you’re probably not providing much value or making enough of an effort if your emails are too short.

Find a happy medium, and your response rates will likely improve.

Do you want to improve your email marketing skills? If so then register for the free webinars below.

Free, Live Email Marketing Webinars ~ Become an Email Marketing Master

Recommendations:
aWeber Autoresponders - Quickly create and run your campaigns with powerful, easy-to-use email marketing tools.
Go Daddy – Where I purchase all my domain names.
Hostgator – Very reliable and low cost hosting service which I have been using for about ten years.

The truth of the matter is that a headline by itself won’t make you money, but a headline is by far the most important part of your sales letter. It gets the reader’s attention and draws the reader into your sales copy.

Read the headline I used for this article, “How To Create A Headline That Will Make You Money!”

It appealed to your self-interest. You wanted to know how you could create a headline that would make you money.

It also aroused your curiosity. You wanted to find out how to create a headline that will make you money.

The best headlines appeal to the reader’s self-interest and includes benefits for the reader. The reader wants to know,”What’s in it for me?”

Headlines that give news are also effective.

And then there are the headlines that arouse your curiosity, which are also good.

A great headline will stop a reader in his tracks. The reader will say to himself, ” That headline is offering me a solution to my problem. I need to read more and see if it will help me.”

If you want headlines that make you money then follow the Five Rules for Writing Headlines by advertising legend John Caples, author of Tested Advertising Methods.

1. First and foremost, try to get self-interest into every headline you write. Make your headline suggest to the readers that here is something they want.
2. If you have news, such as a new product, or a new use for an old product, be sure to get that news into your headline in a big way.
3. Avoid headlines that merely provoke curiosity. Curiosity combined with news or self-interest is an excellent aid to the pulling power of your headline, but curiosity by itself is seldom enough.
4. Avoid, when possible, headlines that paint the gloomy or negative side of the picture. Take a cheerful, positive angle.
5. Try to suggest in your headline that here is a quick and easy way for readers to get something they want.

If you can combine self-interest, news and curiosity in your headline then you probably have the best headline possible for your sales letter. 

Recommendations:

aWeber Autoresponders - Quickly create and run your campaigns with powerful, easy-to-use email marketing tools.

Go Daddy – Where I purchase all my domain names.

Hostgator – Very reliable and low cost hosting service which I have been using for about ten years.

By Jimmy D. Brown of “Small Reports Fortune”

It’s all under your control.

If you sell information products and want to make more money with them, there’s good news:

It’s all under your control.

That’s right, you can make more money with your information products simply by doing something that you have the power to do.

It’s not dependent upon anyone else. It’s up to you.

Let me explain …

While there are a lot of different aspects of selling information products, there are really only two ways to make more money with them …

 Sell More
 Refund Less

Really, it’s pretty much that simple.

In order to make more money with information products you need to either SELL MORE or REFUND LESS.

Or, better still, do BOTH.

Now, in the many years I’ve been selling information products, I’ve found there are three powerful tools that will help you do just that.

You can use these three tools to SELL MORE by using them on your classified ads, solo mailings, sales letters, auto-responder messages and virtually any sales tool.

You can also use these three tools to REFUND LESS by applying them to the information products you create. 

Care to find out what they are?

Read on …

*** Three Powerful Tools ***

What makes these tools so powerful is a combination of important benefits

 * They don’t cost a penny to use.
 * They work over and over again.
 * They are under your control.

In fact, you already have them. 

These three powerful tools are WAYS TO USE WORDS.

Tool #1. Education. When it comes to information products, nothing comes close to the power and profitability of educating your readers.

I’m talking the distance between the planet Pluto and the computer screen you’re now staring at.

Not even remotely close.

Content is king.  Nobody else gets to wear the crown or sit on the throne.  Content rules the land of information products.

So, first things first, you gotta give your readers information that educates them. You gotta teach them something. 

Do this in your promotion tools (ezine articles, reports, sales letters, etc.) and you’ll have readers thinking “This person knows something … I better take a closer look.”

You’ll SELL MORE.

Educate customers in your information products and show them how to produce results in their own lives and you’ll make them happy, satisfied customers.

You’ll REFUND LESS.

Tool #2. Entertainment. To be completely honest, it’s not enough to solely provide content. Even if it’s good content, that won’t always get the job done.

Think of it this way: your high school civics teacher provided you with (too much) content in a single 55-minute class, but would you really buy anything from him?

Maybe a hall pass or a set of earplugs, but that’s about it. )

Nobody likes to read BORING content. We turn off boring television programs, we fall asleep reading boring books and we keep our credit cards tucked firmly inside our pockets when we read boring sales letters, ezine articles, solo mailings or special reports.

Make it fun.  Make it entertaining.  And you can do that by using …

 * Illustrations
 * Funny stories
 * Analogies
 * Outrageous statements

I once wrote an article entitled “I’ll Swallow A Live Grasshopper If This Doesn’t Boost Your Website Traffic”.

Do you think anyone read it?

Ask yourself this: would YOU like to read it?

We love to have a good time, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t apply that reasoning to your writing.

Keep readers interested as they consume your promotion materials by entertaining them.

You’ll SELL MORE.

Help customers enjoy reading page after page of your product by entertaining them.

You’ll REFUND LESS.

When you add entertainment to education, you’ll make more money with information products …

… faster than you can say “ “LIVE GRASSHOPPER.” )

Tool #3. Emotion. Whether it’s outrage over an injustice, excitement over a success or piqued interest over a possibility, our emotions drive us.

Few decisions are based on intelligent analysis, but rather on emotional response. Few actions are based on accurate data, but rather on impulsive feelings.

We are emotional people.  And there is no stronger proof of that than to watch what we do and to listen to what we say.

Your job is to get us emotional. Fill us with hope. Empower us. Give us courage. Motivate us. Issue a challenge. Inspire. Get us to do something.

That’s what we really want.  More than education, more than entertainment – we want someone to compel us to do something to make our lives better.

And the power and profits go to the ones who can do that.

Fill readers with hope and expectation with your marketing materials. 

You’ll SELL MORE.

Give your customers confidence and enthusiasm as they read chapter after chapter of your information product.

You’ll REFUND LESS.

*** Conclusion ***

If you want to make more money with information products, then you CAN do it. You’re in charge. It’s under your control.

Education.
Entertainment.
Emotion.

Three powerful tools that lead to incredible profits.

But, only if you use them.

Some will read this article and discard it like they have done with countless others.

And some will get busy.

I think you’ll be one of the few who will make more money.

Prove me right.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Jimmy D. Brown is the author of “Small Reports Fortune” – if
you can write 7-15 page small reports, you can earn a living
online working just a few hours each week from your home.
Look for his EXCLUSIVE formula here “Creating A Six-Figure Income
With Small Reports”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………….