If no one reads your email, it can never be your most powerful marketing tool?

 

Obvious, but what do you do about it?

Stop following the practices of digital marketers.

Most marketing emails today can follow their roots back to direct mail marketing and advertising copywriting from the early twentieth century.

 

Over the last few years, these direct marketing techniques have been adopted by thousands of folks trying to sell something creating a tsunami of identical copy and techniques.

 

This is further amplified in the author community, where all the authors are taking the same courses, using duplicate swipe files and email sequences to get what …

 

The same dismal results

• Low open rate
• Low click-through
• Increased allocation to spam

Imagine a deliberate audience-building over time—a future where automated systems scale your audience up and don’t require constant attention.

 

As good as this might sound for you, it’s even better for your readers because they get a coherent marketing message when they want it, and it’s tuned to them.

 

So how do you make this happen?

 

Keep reading, and I’ll share with you how you can build an author marketing system I call Autoresponder Advantage.

 

The system will use email and automation to build a marketing system that can scale and will adapt to whatever comes your way.

Best of all, email is proven to be the best method for selling books hands down and that's before you apply what you're about to learn.

 

 

We do this by building an exciting and fun system to educate your ideal customer. Show them they are in the right place and what you offer is just what they’ve been seeking.

 

The result will be a smaller list, but those subscribers will be interested in what you have to offer.

 

We won’t just throw any subscribers on a list but qualify a prospect by intent.

 

Those showing the right intent will be your tribe.

 

I’ll also share with you some novel ways of nurturing your audience.

 

You see, the goal isn’t to build a list of emails but to build a list of engaged readers—a community.

 

 A very different goal.

 

You can quickly build a list by giving away a novella, joining every possible newsletter swap and promotion.

 

What you’ll end up with is a list full of names that rarely engage and never buy a book.

 

Later, as you do gather engaged readers, your list will be polluted with stale email addresses.

 

We seek quantity over quality.

 

You need a more nuanced solution.

 

While high quantity traffic is a part of the solution, we want to qualify those that are your perfect audience.

 

If we do this right, you won’t be wondering why they don’t buy because they will, and you’ll save time and money because you don’t have a bloated list.

 

If you have a bloated list, I have a post on how to get your list lean and mean.

 

There is another reason why this work is essential.

 

As tech companies fiddle with privacy and data control, it harms a creators' ability to send a signal to their community.

 

The actions of the privacy movement directly conflict with the tools needed to signal engagement, namely open rate.

 

So what are we to do?

 

We shift from being email marketers to publishing in the email format. The inbox becomes the delivery system for your engaging and entertaining content.

 

 Autoresponder Advantage  is a system to refine your customer-attracting signal.

 

You’ll understand what I mean by signal if you read on…

 

The ideas are based on my book Advantage, this is a practical application of the strategies from Advantage—not the why but the how.

 

A way for you to get quick wins…

 

Rather than pushing someone through a funnel to make a transaction, we focus on letting a visitor determine their timeframe if and when they will accept your offer.

 

Let’s take you, for example. Here you are on this page, looking to learn more ways to grow your audience.

 

What you’re reading is what is called a qualifying page.

 

The purpose of the content here isn’t to sell you anything, but to help you understand if I can help you with your most pressing problem.

 

If building a solid subscriber list and reader community is something you’re interested in, then continue to read on. You’ll come away with some actionable steps.

 

For a fiction writer, the qualifying page is a micro-story.

 

Something I can read quickly on your website and decide if I want more.

 

An example of these actionable steps is building a page like this on your website. A means to let prospects get a feel for what you offer, then indicate interest.

 

Many visitors to this page stopped reading 880 words ago.

 

They didn’t see a vivid picture and the seven secrets to becoming a six-figure author and left.

 

Bye Felicia…

 

They don’t have the patience, but you do.