You just met this beautiful woman, and exchanged phone number and fixed a simple date.

Now, as you are going to meet her on the first date, You are thinking about. How you are going to kiss those lovely lips and then some more. Later in the year, you would love to get married and few years down the line, may be kids.

You arrive at the location and…

And…

She completely flaked on you. All your dreams shatters in million pieces immediately.

What happened there?

The issue was trust, rapport and some more trust. You cannot count on the fact that you got her number you are going to get a real date and not get flaked.

You were counting on your chicken farm, even before you put in any kind of efforts to build it. Right?

That’s exactly what happens with  most marketers. They start day dreaming just because they got the email on their list.

Hurray, You are already getting traffic and You’ve started building your list. Now comes the major issue. How to get people to open up their emails and then take action.

One of the thing about email marketing is that, the number of people doing it makes it really hard. For example, I get at least 200 emails per day in just one of my email inbox.

So how you can get them to open up their email and take action?

This starts from the moment, your reader arrives at your website. First you have to build trust, create a rapport and then sell on the idea of subscribing.

You have to remember to keep points above (building trust and rapport) in your mind every time you email.

Your first email will be going to play a major part in gaining their trust and rapport. This is your typical thank you mail, for which you should sit down and re-write it completely.

You should think about “how this email can create rapport?”. Can you take a guess?

Tell them about yourself, who are you? What you do? What do you like? (BTW, if you tell these to a women, she might think you are a stalker, pretty crazy right)

Tell a story. Telling a story goes a long way to build rapport with almost anyone. Everyone loves story, even if they say it otherwise.

After you’ve done introducing yourself, you have to give them a reason to remember you. Yes, so far what we are doing is going to help.

So, how are you going to make them remember you. It starts with Branding. You have to brand your newsletter. My newsletter always have [IMBasics] and it sets me apart from other marketers immediately. You can brand yourself in many different ways.

Frank kern brands his newsletter with whackiness. Eben pagan brands with just Authority even with people who’ve never heard of him. Eben’s avatar in dating world “David Deangelo” is regarded as Top authority. His newsletter name is pretty much “Double your dating” branding.

Like I said, many different types of branding to do.

What are the steps you should implement?

1. Create a thank you email.
2. Share a story about yourself.
3. Create a brand name for your newsletter.
4. Differentiate your newsletter with others [IMBasics].

That’s how I get over 60% opening in my email newsletter.

If you have not read my previous article on “how to write autoresponder series”, then you should do it so.

Here are the checklists in question format. You might find some of these questions odd, but they’ll make sense as you start writing your autoresponder series.

Email series basics –
Q1). What kind of email series you should start?

Q2). Do you have any kind of tempting offers you are thinking of to generate a response from your readers?

Q3). Have you decided on how you are going to pitch your
Offer (pop up, name squeeze etc)?

Q4). How many emails you are going to write? ____

Q5). Have you decided on the frequency you are going to send your emails?

Email Promotion basics -

Q6). How are you going to brand yourself, your name or your website?

Q7). Have you crafted your “thank you” email?

Q8). What kind of products are you going to promote?

Q9). Email content – Is there any demand for what you are teaching/promoting in emails?

Q10). Are you going to provide any bonuses if your subscribers buy affiliate products from your link?

Being Different –

Q11). Does your email subject line generates curiosity? Intrigue? Or just plain different that others?

Q12). Does your email have call to action?

Q13). Does your email have a good PS?

Q14). Does your email have un-subscription options?

As you can see these questions will help you get focused on writing your series and promoting the products. You should ask these questions regularly whenever you are writing your emails.

Building a list and getting them to open your emails and buy the stuff you promote is Basics of Smart affiliate marketing. That’s why in this article, I am going to cover few important things needed to be implemented in any autoresponder series.

1.    How many emails should you prepare for?

When you start writing email series, the first question automatically in your mind should be “how many emails is too many?”.

The answer to this question is pretty darn complicated. So I’ll give you the best option to try out with.

Always start with 7 – or 10 part series (that means you have to write 7/10 emails for the series).

Now that’s lazy way cop out. You should write 7 emails and then let them know, that you’ll be sending them more information on the topic.

2.    What frequency you should mail for?

Again, If it’s possible, you should try out at least once a week for starting. You can always increase/decrease the frequency. There are many marketers who are sending emails on daily basis.

I do not recommend this unless you have specified that you’ll email daily. For example, my email series on my website is a step by step marketing plan for next 30 day. I am sending at least 24 emails in those 30 days. You can get away with more frequent emails if your subscriber know about it.

3. Write your Thank you email first.

You should write your thank you email first. This is going to be most important email as this is like an introduction and a chance to get to know your reader/subscriber.

4    How much content, how much to sell?

The headache comes into play, when people start wondering when to sell, when to tell. Most people are not used to the idea of selling to others. We’ve be told “salesman are slimy and what not”. Right, so when it comes to selling, we do tend to cop out and find the lazy way (too much content).

Don’t be afraid to sell on every single email. You can always write a small PS in the end of an email about the product.

There are many formulas people use like 3 content 1 promotion and what not. I recommend you to start with what’s you are comfortable with.

Then you should send at least 2-4 emails per month that’s have promotion in them.

5. Work on your subject line

It shouldn’t take you more than 20 minutes to 30 minutes per email to write. Even that I think is too much time. Most of your time should be spent on the subject line.

I highly recommend you to not go over 65 characters in subject line.

Make your headline curious, snappy, different, intriguing. It’ll take some time to learn this skill. I spend first few month in learning how to write good email headlines and get over 60% email opening rates consistently.

You should spend next weekend on creating your autoresponder series, if you are serious in affiliate marketing.