Email marketing is easily the most powerful form of marketing I've ever used. Sure, I focus heavily on Twitter and drive a decent amount of traffic from it, but it's 3X harder to convert a Twitter follower (or any social network follower) into a sale from a post. Why? Think about it. When's the last time you purchased something from a telemarketer? I never have--because I don't know who they are, what credibility they have and I don't trust them. The same thing applies to social media. If someone clicks on one of your posts for the first time and is directed straight to a sales page, the chances of them buying are very slim. Because at that point, they don't know you or trust you.
A few years back, I heard the saying, "People only do business with someone they know, like and trust." (Click to Tweet this quote!) I firmly agree with that. In fact, the last 3 purchases I made for my business were a result of email marketing people did with me for several months: [checklist]
[/checklist] What would your business look like if you could email 1,000 targeted people in 5 minutes, whenever you wanted? What about 5,000 people? 10,000? You get my point. (If you haven't started email marketing yet, I highly recommend reading my Guide to Getting Your First 500 Email Subscribers) :) With email marketing, however, comes great responsibility. - What if someone signs up to receive an email every time you write a blog post and you blog 7 days/week? - What if someone downloads your free ebook and you want to up-sell them on a paid course? - Or if someone is on your blog post newsletter list and also opts into your free ebook, but you don't want to email them twice? That's where email automation comes in. Email automation helps relieve tedious tasks and opens the doors to literally make sales while you sleep. Here are a few email automation techniques I use daily.
I overlooked this amazing email marketing strategy for about 9 months. (Regretfully) Blog broadcasts allows your email marketing service to automatically email your list whenever you publish new content. (You may even be reading this post as a result of my blog broadcast automation!) Here's what they look like: 
Now, I used to write all the email copy for my broadcasts before they went out, but here's why I like these better:
In this video, I'll show you how to setup a blog broadcast:
List automation helps eliminate any probable duplicate subscribers. (i.e. Someone opts into your email newsletter, then 2 different ebooks.) Without list automation, you could have the same person in your system 2, 5, or 10+ times--depending on how many lists you have. Not only does it take up space in your account, but they could also be receiving multiple emails, which could leave a sour taste of you in their mouth & cause them to unsubscribe. In this video, I'll show you how to setup list automation in Aweber:
This is my favorite email automation technique. Followups. (or autoresponders) A followup is basically an email that's sent to someone after a certain period of time who subscribes to a particular list. It's fantastic for automating your sales & building relationships. For example: Let's say you have a free ebook, but want to upsell a 30-minute coaching session 3 days after they optin. Here's how you do it: 1. From your Aweber dashboard, click 'Follow Up Series' 
2. Click 'Create a Followup' 
3. Type Your Subject Line & Email Body 
4. Set the Interval of the Email (Amount of time after the previous email) 
If you're like me, your time is limited. Between trying to manage employees, run Quickbooks, strategize the company future, do sales calls, and run marketing, sending out an email broadcast is one of the last things on your mind. Having proper email automation in place will help you streamline your marketing, build a relationship with your subscribers and maximize any potential sales. Do you use email marketing automation? If so, which of the 3 are you using? Leave a comment. 8-)
