If you’re delivering a multi-part ecourse as an incentive, then you’ll already have your single/solo emails in place. All you have to do is take your course, break it up into 7-12 parts (lessons) and deliver one lesson every one to three or four days.
Each of your emails will be part content (the lesson) and part pitch (where you promote the related product).
For example, let’s say you’re selling a book about making money blogging. If this affiliate product is aimed at beginners, then you might create a seven-lesson series that teaches people how to set up and start their own blog. In each message, you promote the advanced “how to make money” blogging product.
Here’s a sample set of lessons:
Lesson 1, sent immediately after prospect joins: How to choose a hungry niche.
Lesson 2, sent two days later: Deciding on the purpose of your blog (affiliate marketing, AdSense, selling ad space, CPA offers, etc).
Lesson 3, sent two days later: Choosing a domain name and hosting. (Here you include affiliate links for a domain registrar and web host.)
Lesson 4, sent two days later: Installing a WordPress blog.
Lesson 5, sent two days later: Customizing your blog. (Here you may include affiliate links for WordPress plugins.)
Lesson 6, sent two days later: Populating your blog with an initial set of posts.
Lesson 7, sent two days later: Monetizing your blog. (Note: While you’ve promoted your affiliate link for the blogging product in virtually every message, you might have this lesson be mainly pitch if monetizing the blog is the focus of the product you’re trying to sell.)
Tip: Even if the course ends with the seventh message, you can still send out more messages automatically (although you may want to start spacing them out so that you’re eventually on a weekly schedule).
If you publish several month’s worth of content via your autoresponder, your newsletter will run virtually on autopilot. Naturally, you should start promoting other affiliate products in these messages.
One note, however: Your initial autoresponder series of emails (no matter how long the series is) should consist of evergreen content. That’s content that doesn’t get dated or “stale.” The content is as relevant today as it was last year. And it will still be “fresh” and relevant next year.
For example, telling your subscribers how to write a sales letter is an evergreen topic. But telling them to buy a “new” product is NOT evergreen, since the label “new” won’t apply after a few weeks.
What If You’re Not Offering an Ecourse?
The great thing about using an ecourse as an incentive to join your list is that you’re training your subscribers to read your newsletter. However, if you don’t offer an ecourse, you should still load your autoresponder with at least 7-12 messages that are part content, part pitch for the main affiliate product you’re promoting (along with other promotions, where applicable).
The difference here is that you won’t be offering a sequential set of lessons. Instead, you may just be sending a series of articles on a tightly focused niche topic.
Let’s say you’re promoting the blogging product referred to in the previous section. And let’s suppose you’re offering a blogging report as an incentive.
Even though you’re not delivering the content via autoresponder, you’ll still want to send out a series of solo emails to help you build a relationship with your readers and to close the sale on the affiliate product you’re promoting.
So you might send out seven articles, like this:
Article 1: How to set up your own WordPress blog.
Article 2: Tools every blogger should own.
Article 3: How to write blog posts that go viral, part 1.
Article 4: How to write blog posts that go viral, part 2.
Article 5: How to monetize your blog.
Article 6: How to get more traffic to your blog, part 1.
Article 7: How to get more traffic to your blog, part 2.
Do you see the difference?
Instead of a “step by step” guide, here we have seven articles that could go out to your subscribers in almost any order and still be valuable.
Now, here are some ideas about what each of your individual emails might look like. Here’s a template you can swipe:
——————————
Your newsletter name // Your name
Your newsletter slogan
In this issue: [teaser for the article to build anticipation and increase readership]
[Optional: Short one or two line product pitch.]
[Feature article. Here you may weave affiliate links into your content. More about that later on.]
[Optional: One or two line product pitch. If you didn’t put a short ad at the top of your newsletter, than you may consider putting it here. If not, put it in the P.S. as described below.]
[Build anticipation for next newsletter issue. Here you tell readers the benefits of the next issue / what they’ll learn, plus you let them know when to expect it. For example, “Watch your inbox because in two days you’ll find out which blogging tool you can use to send your blog entries to the top of Google! You won’t want to miss it!”]
[Sign off]
[Your name]
[Your contact information]
[P.S. Here’s a good place to remind people about a product or other promotion.]
——————————
You’ll notice in the “featured article” section that I referred to weaving your affiliate links into the content. Basically, this means that you don’t put a direct pitch for a product. Rather, you suggest a solution as part of your article.
Example #1: let’s suppose your article on blogging talks about how to choose a domain name and hosting. You can include your affiliate links for a domain registrar and web host.
Example #2: Perhaps you’ve written a dieting article that refers to protein shakes. You can suggest that your reader buys a particular brand of whey protein (and then you provide your affiliate link).
Naturally, you can also weave your promotions for your main affiliate product right into your content. For example, you might offer an article about setting up a blog, but you leave out information that tells people how to monetize their blog. You then recommend a product that shows them how to do it.
In other words, you provide useful but incomplete information. In order to get the full details, your readers need to order the product.
Here are two tips to boost your affiliate income:
Choose one product to focus on. Your initial autoresponder series may promote multiple products. However, you should primarily focus on promoting ONE product – and each of your messages should be created with the intention of promoting that one product.
In other words, each of your initial emails should be aimed at pre-selling the main affiliate product you’re promoting. Once you’ve complete the initial seven or so solo emails, then you can focus on promoting other products.
Rotate your products. While your initial series should primarily focus on one product, you should rotate affiliate products to determine which one gives you the best conversion rate.
Example: Let’s say you’re promoting a weight loss ebook. You might test two or three of the top weight loss ebooks to see which ones your readers respond to best. Your email messages more or less remain the same, but the product you promote changes.
You have your autoresponder series. You have a compelling landing page. You’ve created an attractive incentive.