List Building - Maximizing Profits With One Time Offers
There are plenty of methods that you can use to make money from your list of subscribers including; promoting your own products and endorsing affiliate products, one of the most effective methods that an email marketer can use to maximize profits from their list right away is by using a one time offer, often referred to as an OTO during the sign up process.
Typically, one time offers appear to site visitors only one time during the sign up or sales process. Most of the time these special offers are presented right before or immediately after a person makes a purchase. However, when it comes to using this technique in conjunction with list building you can offer your new subscribers an irresistible one time offer immediately after they have confirmed their subscription to your list.
While there’s some debate as to whether or not including an OTO in the list building process to increase profits is a good approach to take, because it doesn’t allow any time for the list owner to develop a strong relationship with new subscribers before trying to sell them something , which is one of the most important factors in successful email marketing.
The augment being that if you aren’t recognized as an expert in your market, and your subscribers aren’t familiar with who you are and what your business offers, presenting them a one time offer immediately after they sign up for free information can actually damage your reputation with your new subscriber.
If you want to play it safe you and still use this technique you can build a special offer page to send your subscribers to only after that have been on your list for a few days and received free content that they signed up for. You can then send out an email broadcast letting your subscriber know that you have a very special one time offer available.
To make this process easier, all you have to do is load your autoresponder with pre-written messages. This way as soon as a new subscriber joins your list they will immediately be entered into the series and they will start receiving follow up messages that are sent out automatically on specific dates. Try to keep the first few emails content rich and designed towards building a relationship with your new subscriber.
A good rule of thumb is to send out the first email (that includes the download link for the free product) instantly, and then set your autoresponder to send out one email per week until the series ends.
As I mentioned above, with regards to sending out promotional email, the broadcast feature in your autoresponder system is a much better option, especially if your promotions are time sensitive. Most autoresponder systems come with this feature ant it allows you to instantly send out an email to your entire subscriber base at one time, instead of including it into the autoresponder sequence.
When it comes to the frequency in which you send out email broadcasts to your list it is completely up to you. Many online marketers will suggest once a week, while others think that the more often you send your messages the sooner you’ll be able to build a relationship with your subscribers. Ultimately it is up to you
When it comes to building a responsive mailing list it will take some time and you will want to train your subscribers to expect both free content and promotional emails from you. Remember to create a balance of content filled and promotional based emails and above all only promote quality products and affiliate offers to your subscribers. After all you worked very hard to get them to join your list and you don’t want to drive them away by offering them information and products that don’t meet up to their expectations of you.
Tags: email marketing, list building, maximize profits, One Time Offers, OTO
