After the subscriber has input his/her contact information into your squeeze page, he/she should be taken to a Web page that states that the free report he/she signed up for is on its way to his/her inbox.
This is the beginning of your relationship with this subscriber; you need to use good email marketing practices in order to build the relationship further and convince the prospect that you are a respected and knowledgeable person in your industry and that the prospect can trust you, the information you provide, and the offers you present.
Research has shown that it takes at least seven contacts with a prospect before he/she is willing to buy a paid offer. This means that you need to make contact with that person at least seven times before you can reasonably expect the person to push the “buy” button on your offer.
Now, some prospects will be willing to purchase before seven contacts are made, some will only be willing to do it after more than seven contacts are made, and some will not be willing to buy period. It varies depending upon the person, his/her way of thinking, and his/her situation.
Still, with virtually all sales that you make, good email marketing practices and building the relationship are key to making those sales.
Expecting a prospect to just become a lifelong customer overnight or after one to two emails is very unlikely.
Therefore, you need to provide more valuable information in your follow-up emails after he/she has downloaded your free report.
You need to follow up with him/her to ensure he/she has gotten the report, provide additional information on the problem or issue, and gently hint that the main product offer in your sales funnel is the key to solving the problem or issue in question.
You also should let your email subscriber know that you are available to answer any questions he/she might have about the issue or problem, as this will encourage him/her to reach out to you for advice and help. By offering advice and help for free, this will further strengthen the idea that you are an expert in your field and that your paid main product offer will be even more helpful and useful to the prospect than the free report he/she downloaded was.
Over time through good email marketing follow-up, some of your prospects will be ready to purchase your main product offer. This is why it is vital that you put a link to your main product offer in each email you send.
Note, though, that you should not “hard-sell” or aggressively promote your product in each follow-up email you send; rather, you should only “hard-sell” in one to two emails at most in a 7-part email follow-up sequence.
The other emails should just provide information on the problem or issue and some steps to help remedy the situation, along with a link to your main product offer at or near the end of the email.
Most people are not fond of “hard selling” or aggressively marketing products; this is why you cannot afford to do this too often in your emails or you risk losing the subscriber entirely, as it’s likely he/she will unsubscribe using the link in the email.
If this happens, you will likely lose the opportunity to connect with that subscriber and make him/her a lifelong customer forever. Thus, you cannot hard-sell your main product offer; providing important information and helping to educate the prospect is key to convincing the prospect that your main product offer is worth purchasing.
Once the prospect has come to the realization that your main product offer is worth purchasing, he/she will click onto the link in one of your emails and purchase your offer.
The prospect has turned into a customer and entered your sales funnel; now is the time when your sales funnel begins to work
its magic.
