How to Set Up Autoresponder Campaigns to Educate and Sell

One of the first questions I get when it comes to building an email list is: “What am I going to send people once they join my list?”

The idea that you need to be constantly churning out new email content to keep the people on your list happy and in the loop is valid, but also really daunting. And for most small businesses, not always the best use of your time.

The less stressful way to take care of the people who join your email list is to set up a drip campaign, also known as an autoresponder sequence.

This is a series of emails that you’ve pre-written, which go out at a set interval after someone joins your email list.

Check Out this Example Campaign

Take a look at the example below, from my own drip campaign for my RealFoodsWitch brand:

You’ll notice that I designed my drip campaign to be a series of lessons. I believe that the more we can educate people who have just discovered us and joined our list, the better we’ll be able to connect with them (and potentially sell something down the line). Check out the first email in my campaign.

Share Actionable, Educational Content

I know that when you lead with valuable information, with no strings attached, it’s way easier for people to take you up on any future offers that you’ll make. It’s also important to lead with actionable, educational material because it showcases your expertise.

If you’re teaching your new subscribers something new, especially if you can keep your education on the entertaining side, then they’re a lot more likely to think of you first when they are ready to buy something. They’re also more likely to remember you fondly, and recommend you and your offerings to other people if they felt like they got a lot of great value from your welcome sequence.

Get Started with Your Own Autoresponder Campaign

Creating a drip campaign in Mad Mimi super simple! Just activate the Drips option, and then click the “Create a new drip campaign” button, and you’re off to creating your very first autoresponder email.

Now you might be wondering how many of these drip sequence emails you should write, and what to put in each of them … to increase your odds of making more sales down the line.

Unfortunately, since each business is different, I can’t prescribe a formula for you. But what I can recommend is that you include the following elements in your drip campaign.

Include These Essential Elements in Your Campaign

1. What they can expect from your emails in general, and specifically from this campaign (how many emails, how often, what topics you will cover)

2. Your story, and why you created the business that you’re in today

3. The “what” — this is the content that you’ll be sharing with people; it could be tips, stories, tutorials … fun and educational is the idea!

4. Resources to help them along their journey: these could be resources that you’ve created, found, or even your paid programs and offerings

5. A call to action to share your free series with others who might benefit from it, too

6. If you’re just getting started and your email volume is manageable, you can also ask people to hit reply to one of your emails and answer a question or two about what they need help with

7. Ask for the sale! This is the missing piece of most email marketing drip campaigns … if you don’t have a direct call to action in your emails that tells people about your products or services, they won’t know they’re available!

So these are my tips for getting your very own drip campaign set up! I recommend writing all of your emails out in your favorite writing program (I’m a fan of Scrivener myself) and then copy and pasting into Mad Mimi once you’ve spell-checked and ensured all the emails flow together.

And once you’ve set up your drip campaign, you’ll have 5-10 emails that automatically welcome people to your world, and there won’t be as much pressure for you to pump up new content each week. Although it’s still good to get into the habit of emailing your folks regularly, but at least now they’re being well taken care of right after they join your list!