This type of autoresponder is referred to as a multi-follow-up autoresponder, because it will send out your marketing message multiple times over a specified period. For instance, you can follow up with them on day one, send a different message to them on day three, and yet another message to them on day seven - all automatically.
The reason that you need to be using follow-up (or sequential) email autoresponders is because a single email is rarely enough. Sure, some people will immediately respond, but most people need to see the message more than once before they even think about responding to your offer. In fact, studies have shown that people do not take action until they have received an average of seven messages on a given product or service. And 90% of the time, they don't buy from the same company that they made the initial contact with -- unless you are the one they keep hearing from.
How People React to Marketing Messages
To understand why it takes so long for people to take action, it is first good to take a look at how people react to getting these messages. Each person, with each marketing message and for each different type of product or service, has a specific response. Almost all markets can be divided into several, graduated segments based on these behaviors. There are five general categories: 1) Innovators, 2) Early Adopters, 3) Early Majority, 4) Late Majority and 5) Laggards.
Innovators are risk-takers and venturesome. They respond to new offers almost immediately, without giving them much thought, but only consist of about 2.5% of the market. Early adopters respond to new ideas or products early, but are a little more skeptical before committing. They take up about 13.5% of the market. The early and late majority categories are the bulk with 34% each.
The early majority usually buy before the average person does, while the late majority group is skeptical, careful and slow. They take their time, usually shop around and need to see the offers a few times before taking them seriously. The laggards may take up to a year to take action and consist of only 16% of the entire market.
Knowing these facts, it is easy to understand why it takes a different number of messages to different people to get the type of response that you want. Repeating your marketing message is essential with the largest segment of your market (the majorities consist of 68%), and that why using an autoresponder is essential to your business.
Now that we know why we need to use autoresponders, let's examine how we should use them. There are two ways to effectively use follow-up autoresponders:
- To send a series of messages to people that have already purchased your product or service.
- To send a series of messages to prospects in an effort to get them to look at your product or service.
How you approach these two messages series should be completely different if you wish to use them effectively and stay out of trouble.