It’s the first day of the 30 Day Autoresponder Challenge, and I’m totally stoked to have you on board with me!

Over the next month, I’ll be revamping my central email list to enhance the experience of my subscribers and boosting momentum in my own business.

I’ve mapped out what I’ll be doing over the next 30 days, and each day I’ll be highlighting what I’m doing and why here on the blog.

30 Day Autoresponder Challenge Bob The Teacher

Don’t worry – you aren’t supposed to read the tiny type!  Just want to show you that we’ll be accomplishing a lot over the next month, but each day is a focused task or two that should take about 10-15 minutes. Plus, you can actually download that entire map, and use it throughout the challenge if you want to. You could also just use a piece of paper and follow along each day.

Each day, I’ll be zooming in on a particular day of the map above.

Today’s Featured Steps:

  • Set goals
  • Identify intended and ideal audience
  • Get autoresponder (if necessary)

Setting Goals Prevents A Hodgepodge Approach To Your List Building

Before we get into the technical steps of setting up the new list, adding messages to the series, creating a new squeeze page and all that, I’m going to establish the goals and intended audience with this list.

Over the last few years, I’ve created over 100 lists, each containing between 1 and 50 messages. Sometimes I’ve failed to properly set up goals with each list, or to really think about who the readers are going to be. That’s resulted in varying results (from pretty good to mediocre or worse).

So from the start, goals and audience need to be in the forefront. And specifically, I have 3 areas for my goals.

  • Business goals
  • Personal life goals
  • Goals for my customers/subscribers

autoresponder goals

Believing as I do in what I call the “Oxygen Mask Theory” (i.e., you can’t help others around you if you’ve already passed out), running a profitable business is at the top of the goals list.

My own business goals are centered around generating focused attention and traffic on the IM Success Library and other resources people need for internet marketing. Doing so in such a way to generate reliable revenue is an important result to achieve from this list.

For my readers (the business owners in the chart above), I want to help them enjoy their businesses more. This comes from working with the right clients, and being more productive with the right tools and strategies at the right time.

And personally, I want my new autoresponder list to help me achieve better life balance while reducing personal debt I piled up teaching for 10 years and early mistakes I made when trying to start my business.

Take a moment now to identify your own goals with your autoresponder. Be as complete and specific as you can be, but only take 5 minutes at this point. You can always revise this list of goals as you go.

I’d also recommend you use “ambitious realism” when you’re setting your goals. If you’ve never made money online, setting a goal of $5000/month within the next 90 days is unlikely. But having a list of 1000 subscribers is likely with the right steps.

Meanwhile, if you have an existing revenue generating business, then you’ll adjust your goals accordingly.

Identify Your Intended And Ideal Audience

Most people will ask you “who’s your target market”, which implies who you are “aiming at”. Besides not being too friendly, it may also be misleading.

In a perfect world, you should be creating your autoresponder for a specific type of client/customer that you love to work with. And your intent of serving them should be at the forefront.

Think about the type of customer you want to work with, and what makes them tick. Be as specific with creating this “customer avatar” as you can be.

Here’s mine:

audience

Now it’s your turn. Map out your customer avatar, again realizing you can come back and make changes.

The most important thing here is you don’t try to be all things to all people. Yes, it could be true that “everybody needs” what you have. But you won’t appeal to the masses – nobody does. Stick to people you can relate to, who will find you credible, and the masses will follow this core group of raving fans you develop through this list.

Get Your Autoresponder Account

During Day 2, we’ll actually create the “list”. So if you don’t already have one, get your autoresponder account set up.

In the past I’ve used Constant Contact, Email Aces, and several others. As a consultant, I’ve worked with clients who were using Get Response and 1ShoppingCart.

All my experience and discussions with clients and colleagues points to Aweber as the best autoresponder for marketing your business online.

The only downside to Aweber on the surface is it’s pricing structure. When you look at it, you’ll see numbers like $300/month (don’t worry – it starts out at $19.95), and those other services will seem cheap and attractive. But most of the others limit the number of emails you can actually send out per month and charge you (Aweber doesn’t).

Others fail to include the tracking, testing, and analysis features that you’ll use to pinpoint your most profitable email campaigns (and those that are dragging you down).

Aweber simply has the best set of features for internet marketers, and I rely on it heavily for my own business. I trust it to manage over 40,000 subscribers. Plus, the broadcast to Twitter publishing feature is worth the investment alone.

And here’s a secret tip to get your first month at Aweber for $1 (if it’s still available). Go to this Aweber discount link and click “Pricing” in the menu/tab at the top. On the next page, scroll to the bottom of the page and you’ll see a banner to get your first month for $1. (take the $18 you save and put it to work in another area of your business, like web hosting, which you’ll need for Day 3 if you don’t already have it).

Coming Up Next

Tomorrow, I’ll be taking the next steps in the 30 Day Autoresponder Challenge:

  • Creating the new list
  • Writing the confirmation message
  • Creating the web form (where they’ll enter their details)

Remember, each day is designed for 10-15 minutes of focused action to make sure we get it all done in 30 days.

After you’ve completed today’s steps, please feel free to leave comments below to let me know what your goals are, and who your intended audience is. You may want to read over what others write, too, and see if you have some similar people here to collaborate with in the future. (Feel free to link to your Twitter page!)

Bob Jenkins

p.s. I’ll be posting Day 2 on the blog tomorrow, but if you want to make sure you don’t miss a single day of the 30 Day Challenge, make sure you’re getting my update alerts via email!

p.p.s. If you ordered the video version of the challenge, you’ll get an email letting you know when it’s available for you.

Article Series - Autoresponder Challenge

  1. Day 1: Set Your Goals And Identify Your Audience
  2. Day 2: Create Your New List
  3. Day 3: Put Webform On Site And Plan First 10 Messages
  4. Day 4: Write Follow Up Message #2
  5. Day 5: Create A New Squeeze Page
  6. Day 6: Basic Social Networking Promotion With Twitter And Facebook
  7. Day 7: List Building From The Blog Sidebar
  8. Day 8: Create A Survey And Write Message 4
  9. Day 9: Split Test The Opt-In Form
  10. Day 11: Create A New Opt-In Offer
  11. Day 10: Add A Signature To (Almost) All Your Emails
  12. Day 12: Connect The New Opt-In Offer To The List
  13. Day 13: Create Special Offer For New Subscribers
  14. Day 14: Activate And Connect The Special Offer
  15. Day 15: Send Your Blog To Your List
  16. Day 16: Plan Your New Squeeze Video
  17. Day 17: Record New Squeeze Video
  18. Day 18: Edit Squeeze Video With Camtasia
  19. Day 19: Upload And Embed Squeeze Video
  20. Day 20: Fix OTO And Write Message 5
  21. Day 21: Download Page Opt-In
  22. Day 22: Promote To Existing Subscribers
  23. Day 23: Give First Month's Free Report
  24. Day 24: Connect An Affiliate Program
  25. Day 25: Customize Confirmation Page
  26. Day 26: Extended Lesson For Message 7
  27. Day 27: Tracking Goals With Aweber And Google Analytics
  28. Day 28: Message 8 And Better Blog Sidebar Box
  29. Day 29: Messages 9 and 10
  30. Day 30: Evaluate Progress

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