I’ve said it a number of times, your email list is one of your most valuable assets when it comes to building an online business.

By building an email list, you’re getting people, in your target audience to subscribe and give permission to contact them with relevant information. You’re then able to provide value to those individuals and nurture a relationship where they can grow to know, like and trust you.

This, unlike your social media presence is an asset that you own and control. If you’re not building an email list, you need to pause whatever you’re doing and get this started.

As a part of your email campaign, one of the best types of messages to take advantage of are autoresponder messages. These types of emails go out on an automated schedule.

With autoresponder messages you can specify the message your subscribers will receive at predetermined intervals – i.e. immediately, one day after, one week after initially subscribing, etc.

The way you craft these emails can positively impact the growth of your email list, blog and business.

After working with autoresponder emails for a few years, I’ve come up with an effective, three-part formula that maximizes the potential of your emails.

Setting Your Goals

Although different people have varying goals and objectives when it comes to blogs, the goals and intent of an autoresponder email are generally the same:

1. Get people to open the email.
2. Get people to read the email.
3. Have people feel as if they got value from the email.
4. Have people take a specific action.

Goal #1 is the first one to focus on because if your audience doesn’t open your email, they definitely won’t do any of the other three.

In fact, that goal is so important that I’ll be writing a completely different article about how to craft the perfect Subject line for your autoresponder email (Stay tuned for this one).

In this post, I will assume that they have already opened the email and will focus on points two through four.

My Three-Part Formula

Now that we’ve established the goal of an autoresponder email, it’s time to explore the formula for creating the content of the email.

Here are the three parts of the formula:

• A warm, friendly greeting that builds curiosity.
• Teach something or help them solve a problem.
• Bring them back to your blog/offer.

Sounds simple doesn’t it? It is. In fact, it’s so easy, a blogger can do it 😉

The best way to illustrate this is by actually walking through one of my autoresponder messages and breaking it down together. So let's do that.

Dissecting my Email

Here’s an email I sent out with the subject line “One Trick That Will Set You Apart”. I’ve received a lot of  great feedback on this email. Let's look at what makes it effective. To do this, let's break down the three parts:

Part 1 – A warm, friendly greeting that builds curiosity

Hey (FIRST NAME),

One of the questions I've been asked many times is, “How do you make your blog unique enough so that it stands out?”

That is probably one of the most important questions you NEED to ask yourself as you build your blog. Seriously – there are MILLIONS of other blogs out there. Why should someone listen to you?

In this first section, I’ve chosen to casually address my email with a:  “Hey (First Name)”. This is simple, but establishes a conversational tone that’s welcoming.

I proceed to build their interest in finding out how they can get their blog to STAND OUT.  By starting the email like this, I’m quickly creating the possibility for a solution to a common struggle amongst beginning bloggers.

But it doesn’t end there, I have to deliver on the expectations I’ve set up from the beginning. So let's move on to Part 2.

Part 2 – Teach something or help them solve a problem.

I have one simple tip (and a challenge) that will help you be 100% unique. Are you ready for it? Here goes…

Awesome Tip: Tell personal stories.

WHAT? That's it? Leslie, come on . . . there must be more to it than that. Well, of course there is. But for now, this will do. Personal stories help bring your personality into your blogging.

Here's the fact: There is no other you, and that makes you unique.

So, if you can teach a lesson by first telling an interesting story from your life, that's naturally going to be unique. 

The key is this – make sure the story is relevant and helps get your point across. AND, if your audience can learn from your story – even better.

So, my assignment for you is very simple: In your next blog post, start out with a story, and see how people respond.

Did you see what I did there? I taught how using personal stories can really help them stand out. This is something I’ve found to be VERY effective and I want my audience to try it out so that they can see how it can help them develop their blog.

Please note: I didn’t give them a daunting task. In fact, you can probably imagine someone reading this and thinking to themselves – “Hmm, that’s simple enough. I think I’ll try it”.

But it doesn’t end there. I want my audience to engage in a specific action to accomplish my third goal.

Part 3 – Bring them back to your blog/offer

Wanna see it in action? Check out this post I made on my blog:

Yes, I gave up on this blogging stuff, but then . . .

So that's pretty much it for now. Next Wednesday, I'll be sharing a cool Free plugin I use that I recommend for EVERY blogger out there.

Talk to you soon!

Remember, I’m using my email list to nurture a relationship with my subscribers by providing value, but I also want to use it as a traffic generating mechanism for my blog.

Here’s the key – the call to action has to be directly related to the lesson you taught in the email. That makes the logical next step, the action you are calling them to.

In Summary

Your autoresponder emails are powerful tools for engaging your audience and generating traffic on demand.

Every sentence your subscriber reads should make it so that the final logical step sends them to resources your blog (or offer) can provide.

Using this three-part formula can help increase your subscriber engagement significantly. Try it out and let me know how it goes.

Your Turn

Do you have any tips for increasing subscriber engagement? Let me know in the comments below.

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