"Cutting Edge Training, Tips, Tricks, Tools, and Much More for our SFI Downline"

"Email Marketing 101, Part II: How to Set up Your Autoresponder to Work with your new SFI Members" by Linda J Bruton

This is Part II in a series on how to build a promotional system for SFI using email marketing.

In Part I, we talked about how to obtain and set up an autoresponder that will then AUTOMATE all your marketing! This is one of the most EFFECTIVE and EASIEST ways to promote SFI - or any other program.

The autoresponder company we currently recommend is Rapid Reply. They offer up to 50 autoresponders per account with up to 52 followup messages in each, and import of your leads. That means you can use leads you buy from our co-op advertising program, or a leads generating program such as SFI or Leaders Club. Their cost is just $12.49 per month - one of the lowest-costs online.

If you haven't read Part I, please go to:

http://www.mlmmillionaire.com/email101.htm

Let's move on to the second step - working with the people you sponsor with your email marketing system.

Your Rapid Reply autoresponder isn't just a terrific email marketing tool. It's also a great tool for easily working with - and keeping track of - all the new members you sponsor into SFI!

What an autoresponder really excells at is automating repetitive tasks. With promotion, it automates the task of sending out the same series of letters to hundreds, or even thousands, of prospects.

But it can also automate the tasks of sending out welcome letters and upgrade letters to your new SFI members. That's the subject of this article.

Before we go into the HOW, though, let's take a brief look at the WHY.

If you've been a network marketer for awhile, you know that it is FAR MORE important to spend your time working with the people you sponsor than actually sponsoring them.

After all, if you just keep plugging prospects into your promotional autoresponder, you're going to end up with hundreds, then thousands, of free members in your downline.

But you don't just want FREE members. You want UPGRADED MEMBERS. That's the only way you get paid for your work and start moving up the leadership levels.

That's also how you will eventually end up getting paid for the work of your downline and earning a full-time income. Never forget that the way to make a six-figure income in ANY MLM program is to have a WORKING downline. In SFI you get paid very nice commissions for the sponsoring that your downline does - ONCE you have yourself sponsored 3 upgraded members and become a Powerline Team Leader (PTL).

Once you are a PTL, every person in your new Powerline must give you 3 members before they can start their own powerline. While they will get the enroller commission, you'll earn Gold Overrides on these people.

When they become PTL's and start their own powerlines, you'll continue to earn from their work. You'll now earn Bronze, Silver, and Platinum Overrides on the upgraded members in their powerlines.

Eventually, folks, this is going to be a large chunk of money coming into your pocket every month - and your downline did the work!

That is why it is so critical to work with your free members, get them upgraded, and get them WORKING THE PROGRAM!

The more time and effort you spend on that task, the more money you will make.

You cannot just sponsor people and then forget them. If you do, you will never be successful in this business. Your dropout rate will be high and you'll be running faster and faster just trying to stay in place.

The key is to start working with people the minute they join as a free member.

The first step is to send them a welcome letter. A good welcome letter will introduce you as their sponsor, offer your help, tell them how to contact you, and tell them about the training and tools available on our own member support site. Remember, our site is not only for you - but for your downline as well.

We don't get the email addresses of people you sponsor. We cannot contact them or send them our updates. YOU must get them to our site if you want them to use the training information and our co-op to start promoting. If you don't tell them about us, they will never know what we have available to them.

The second step is to send out periodic upgrade letters telling them the benefits of upgrading. I recommend that you send one out once a week to every single free member in your downline.

We currently have sample welcome letters and upgrade letters on our SFI member support site that you can use as samples.

You can easily automate these 2 tasks with a Rapid Reply autoresponder.

You already have one autoresponder dedicated to promotion. But remember - you can get up to 50 different autoresponders from Rapid Reply. That's one of the big benefits of their service. Darlene and I probably have a good 25 autoresponders between us, because they are so useful, and we get them all for the same low price.

So your first step is to go in to the Rapid Reply member site and create a 2nd autoresponder. Be sure to sign up for Plain Text. On the part of the form that asks for the reply email address, be sure to use an email address that you monitor every day.

Why is that important? Because your letters will be going out to your DOWNLINE. Many of those people will hit "REPLY" to email you back with their questions. These are generally people who are very interested in upgrading. You don't want their email to be lost in some junk email account that you never check. Use your regular email address when you are contacting your downline - ALWAYS.

Once you have your new autoresponder, log into it. Please note that you have to log into each autoresponder separately to set it up. Each has its own client menu, set of emails that you input, and subscriber list. Make sure you are very clear which autoresponder you are logged in with when you add names to your list.

Now go to your client menu and input your letters. Start with a welcome letter that will go out to all your new members. Then input all your upgrade letters for about 7 days apart.

If you don't have any upgrade letters written, you can send them as you write them. Instead of inputting them into the followup sequence, just go to the Client Menu and click on "Mail List." You can now input an unscheduled message to go out to your entire list of free members.

You can send all your emails to your downline using the "Mail List" function, rather than inputting letters into the followup sequence. The important thing is to simply contact your downline frequently! Remember, free members are just prospects until they actually join.

Continue adding upgrade letters in the future, so your new members will continue getting one from you every week for months into the future. You never know when people will upgrade. I've had upgrades in my primary program from people who had been in for 4 months or more.

Once you have your letters input, you are ready to use this autoresponder every day as you sponsor new people.

It is CRITICAL to check your email for new member notifications every single day and add any new personally- enrolled people into this autoresponder. When you add people, just use the import function on the Client Menu, just as you did with your prospects.

Be sure to format them as follows:

firstname,lastname,email

This is the only format that Rapid Reply accepts. It is important to include first names, since this will allow you to personalize your followup letters. It is much more effective to put someone's first name into the subject line of your email. They are far more apt to read it and not think it is junk email. We do this with all our followup letters.

Another important consideration is to remove people from this autoresponder once they upgrade. You don't want them to continue to receive upgrade letters after they have already done so. So anytime you get an upgrade notification, just login to your autoresponder and follow the instructions to remove them from your list.

You may even want to set up a third autoresponder for your upgraded members. You can use it to send out regular letters to share with them how you are working your business and to keep in touch.

Once you get in the habit of adding new members to your autoresponder every day, you'll find that it just takes a couple of minutes. And it saves you tons of time!

Please let me know if you have any problems setting up your member autoresponder!