The first step in building a relationship with your opt-in list is the email sequence which follows on from either a subscription or a purchase. The majority of your subscribers will arrive via a free offer through which you encourage visitors to your website to exchange their name and email address (or other details) for a free eBook, report, etc. This is achieved using what is generally known as a “Squeeze Page”. The squeeze page will contain a link to the free download which can be accessed by filling in a short form giving name and email address.

Once your website visitor has given their name and email in exchange – what happens next? The first thing they will receive will be a thank you email on which will be the link to the eBook or report for download. Once the subscriber has downloaded their gift the immediate transaction is completed. As far as an internet marketer is concerned, however, this is not the end of the story but the beginning. At intervals after that more follow up emails will be sent. An initial one (probably the following day) will arrive in the subscriber’s inbox to ‘reinforce’ the thank you and check that the download was successful and offering help if there was a problem with this and offering to answer any question the subscriber might have.

The relationship building will then continue through subsequent emails (perhaps a couple each week). These will offer further free gifts or bonuses, raise interesting issues related to your niche or give links to interesting articles or videos. The whole process will keep your subscriber aware of your continued interest. In amongst the information they receive will be the occasional promotional emails, either for new products of your own or related Affiliate offers. The ideal is to build such a rapport with a subscriber that they look forward to receiving messages from you. That will more-or-less guarantee that they will, at least, open your email rather than ping it straight to the Trash.

To have a large opt-in list is the ambition of all internet marketers. It is much easier to promote products and services to your list than to go fishing in cold waters every time you have a new offer. In our home town or neighbourhood we all have our favourite shops and/or businesses we go to for certain things. We will probably have our favourite shop for groceries, our preferred DIY store to meet our household needs and our favourite restaurants or pubs. It is just the same online as off. If our subscribers have been treated well and have received quality products and quality service they will keep coming back. The response to new offers will be massively higher from our subscribers than from advertising in the wider marketplace.

Follow up emails are one of the very best ways to keep our subscribers happy. However, don’t see them just as punters to be milked dry. They should feel valued and not taken for granted. If you want to take you must be prepared to give, give and give again.