It's true that "content is king," but equally important to success in online marketing of any kind is contact. Not just the one time "flash in the pan" type either. You need to form relationships with your potential customers, and maintain it on a day to day basis. Remember, just as with content, good solid contact will get you good solid sales.

Developing relationships with your clients is paramount in any successful campaign, and to do this, you need more than a series of advertisements hitting the airwaves. You have to "lock" your readers in so that you can get assurance that the highest number of people are reading anything you send out.

In other words, you need to get yourself a mailing list of people who have signed up to get information from you. These people have agreed to hear what you have to say, and so will be more likely to open your emails than, say a cold contact would. You give them a taste of the area of sales you're focusing on, and no doubt, they have similar interests.

So how do you go about getting a mailing list, and how do you keep track of it?

Obviously, you'll need a place for your potential customers to sign up. You can do this a few different ways:

1. You could create a simple sign up page on your website with a form on it that'll let you gather names and email addresses. Then place a link to that sign up page on your main site with a brief statement about what they'd be signing up to.

2. You could create what's called a "landing page" that also has a sign up form on it. Landing pages are good when you're working with Google AdWords or a similar advertising method. You could create an ad that simply states, "Get some free information about (your marketing focus) and be on the road to success in no time." As the link URL, you'd supply your landing page, where people could sign up. Add some pertinent info about your offer and you're on your way.

3. Or you could build the newest form of page used to develop a good mailing list called the "squeeze page." A squeeze page can be a stand alone web page that offers your readers some information about a product much like a sales copy page does. However, the difference here is that you'll be splitting the information into two separate pages thus giving only half of the information along with an, "If you'd like to learn more, simply fill in the form and you'll be immediately given a much better idea of what it's all about."

Which ever way you choose to get sign ups, you've only won half the battle however. Now you have to keep track of your new customers and give them something to read that'll get them to buy from you.

This is where autoresponders can come in handy.

Autorepsonders make it easy to build relationships with your customers because, as the name suggests, they are automatic. Most autoresponders can be tied into any sign up form and harvest names and email addresses for you, so you don't have to keep track of them manually.

They're also used to send out mailings automatically whenever you schedule them, so you could load something into your autoresponder today and have it emailed out several days or weeks later. Or, if you have something exciting and new to tell your readers, you could have the autoresponder mail it out right away. It's all up to you and how you want your mailings scheduled.

Many autoresponders also keep track of how many readers open each email you send out, giving you an idea of which mailings are the most popular. This way you can find products through your affiliate programs that get the best responses and not waste time and effort promoting things that aren't received as well. You get to keep your customers happy, you become more popular with them, and at the same time, create an efficient selling machine.

Another handy feature of most autoresponders is that they allow you to personalize your emails. With a click of a button, you can add each reader's name to your message and give them the sense that you're talking directly to them. Who wouldn't rather open an email and see, "Hi Fred," than "Dear Reader" any day? And which emails do you gravitate to when you open your email client, those that have headlines that read, "Important Information for You," or "Hey Fred, Here's Something You Might Like to See"?

Yes, autoresponders can help you achieve a highly personal and efficient sales machine, building relationships between you and your customers for weeks, months, and even years to come. They can help you put your best foot forward and give the impression that you are a professional online affiliate marketer that can be counted on to give regular and valuable information. This will gain you trust from those who read your messages, and trust always leads to more sales.

Fred Farah
copyright 2005