I’ve been studying email autoresponders for 9 years.
(And also, email newsletters.)
The most effective ones — that bring in the most money, and which people like reading the most — have zero fancy gimmicks:
No graphics, no pics…just plain text and short, simple paragraphs.
Typos even!
The best autoresponders don’t feel like they were pre-written at all.
To the person on the receiving end, they feel like the CEO just rattled off a personalized, individualized email on the fly.
“How fuckin’ cool is that! The CEO just emailed me!” they think to themselves.
They realize you’re a human, not a f%#king corporate robot with no soul.
Most companies’ autoresponders have “template stink”…AKA they smell like they came out of a lame script sold by a big marketing guru.
That’s what happens when you fail to PERSONALIZE each email in your own voice and style…human imperfections and all.
“This guru told me to use the formula, because it would sell, so we used it.”
But readers can smell that laziness and generic-ness a mile away…
F#ck templates, scripts, and formulas!
Anti-Marketing Tip: Create an email autoresponder with ALL your best articles, delivered over a period of 1 year.
Think: all of your best rants, best articles, best interviews, etc…
Schedule one article to be delivered per week.
(This allows you space to create new content each week, too.)
Make sure every new subscriber gets added to that autoresponder automatically.
Bam…new people who enter your database will get ALL of your best content that you spent thousands of hours, or tens of thousands of dollars creating!
By doing this, you can reuse your best content, leverage it, and make sure new people see it.
Plus, this provides a PHENOMENAL opportunity for those new subscribers to be MEI’d — motivated, educated, and inspired! Their life will change over that year, as they read and study your content and share it with others!
Remember, most of your new subscribers have never read any of your previous articles!!
They are newbies.
If you’re not drenching them with fantastic content, you’re in a barren wasteland of your own making.
…So pop all those articles into a well-thought-out autoresponder and profit big!
Or don’t.
(BTW, don’t include any discounts, “special offers,” or time-sensitive shit that can become obsolete in a month or a year. Sell at full price, and keep it “evergreen.”)
Enjoy that extra cash!
Michelle
P.S. I know a lady who emails people a poem a day, for 365 days in a row. Once, her autoresponder failed to deliver a poem for a particular day…and her readers bombarded her with emails demanding the poem! (That’s how much they love her writing!)
She makes a ton of money off that one autoresponder.
If you like big profits… go back and scour your email newsletter archives for ALL past broadcasts that people had strong reactions to, and bought the most product after reading.
Then plug those into a year-long autoresponder for all new subscribers to receive.
The idea is to use, reuse, and repurpose the “Seriously Good Shit” (SGS) that you’ve written over time, that your readers loved, and you’re proud of… so you can continue making money off that content, indefinitely. (And your new subscribers can have an opportunity to be MEI’d by it!)
Michelle Lopez Boggs is a copywriter, copywriting mentor, and author of "The Anti-Marketing Manifesto: How to Sell Without Being a Sellout." She's helped her clients sell millions of dollars' worth of products and services online by using the MEI(S) principle — motivate, educate, and inspire, and sell. 