#1 Reason Internet Marketers Fail
Written By: Terry Dean

I am always amazed when I discuss marketing techniques online with other internet marketers that MOST of them are missing the key ingredient I find in my own online success.

They usually are well focused on producing internet traffic or on writing good ad copy (which are both key ingredients to success), but then they leave out what I consider to be the most important tool of all online...Follow-up.

Almost every one of them without fail tells me when follow-up comes up, "I have autoresponders" or "I answer all of my email." Well, good for you. That isn't follow-up though.

Making the sale will usually take you 5 to 10 contacts with a prospect. The recognized number we all quote is 7 contacts. So, if it takes at least 7 contacts with a prospect to make the maximum number of sales of your product or services, what are doing to make sure you reach that number with EVERY prospect?

You cannot take a passive approach to marketing and hope that if someone is a real prospect, they will come back to your website later to check it out again. That is financial suicide! All of your marketing has to be active...In other words, YOU are the one who has to make sure you reach at least 7 contacts. Don't even consider leaving it up to your prospects!

We have the most powerful tool in the entire marketing world only available to us online...yet only a small portion of us are taking advantage of it. That tool is Email. Is there any other tool where you can follow-up consistently with dozens or even hundreds of prospects EVERY day of the week and not spend a single cent extra.

If you followed a daily follow-up system in direct mail, you would quickly mail yourself right into the poorhouse. The same thing would occur with telemarketing. With email though, I can send hundreds of follow-ups for FREE as often as I like. If you are not following up on all of your prospects online, don't make excuses. Change it or admit that you are too lazy to care about the success of your business.

Make a commitment that today you will follow-up. I am asking for that commitment to be made to me and to yourself. Plus, I am going to help you. Below I am going to detail the three most important steps for getting started in email follow-up so that you will have a base to build upon.

1) You have to capture the email address.

This is the very beginning of your marketing process and I make it a chief priority in all of my website's designs. Take a look at my website at http://www.bizpromo.com/ and notice how I give you a chance to subscribe to my newsletters, hit my autoresponders, fill out forms with your email address, etc.

Everywhere you try to go on my website, I am giving you another opportunity to give me your email address. This is all because I know that real internet marketing begins when you give me your email address!

(NOTE: Throughout this whole report I am referring to only following up on prospects who first contacted you and gave you their email addresses willingly. I don't believe in using SPAM to promote your business, because you will offend people, lose your ISPs, and lose your reputation online if you start sending unsolicited bulk email)

2) Buy & Learn How to Use High Quality Email Software

Although you may start off with low or no cost email software which is included with your browser or with your computer. I recommend changing it to professional email software. I personally use Eudora Pro version and can recommend it to you. That is not the only one out there, but it is a great one to get started with.

The key element of using this type of software is that you will be able to manage hundreds of email addresses, sort mailboxes, and assign address books for follow-up. You will be able to add all incoming requests for info into special address books so that you can follow-up on dozens or even hundreds of prospects all at one time.

I don't want to get into a complete study of the software programs here, so I recommend that you actually pick up and read the email software's manual. It will take some time, but you will find that your email software's features can quickly become your biggest time saving feature in your online business.

3) Learn the skill of making offers

Here is a simple technique for getting you started in email follow-up correctly and consistently. Have your first offer or sales letter prepared on an autoresponder or as a automated reply in your email software. Collect every request for that information into an address book for follow-up.

Then, begin mailing out to that address book your follow-up offer daily. The simplest way of doing this is by sending the same sales letter (We don't want to confuse your prospects), but attach a new paragraph to the top of each outgoing message everyday.

On this paragraph, you could do a scarcity offer or an email probe. A scarcity offer at the top of the email would look like this:

"ONLY 5 MORE LEFT IN STOCK...The first five who turn in their orders today will receive a...."

Then, go on to describe exactly what your prospects get if they order today. Then, the next day you could do the same thing, but list "ONLY 3 MORE LEFT..." and continue through with scarcity.

The other technique is to actually put a paragraph on top of the email saying that your surprised that you haven't heard from them yet and you wanted to know if they had any questions, etc.

Follow-up can be just that simple. Include the same sales letter, but change the top paragraph in every letter you send out. Then, keep it up with each of your prospects until they buy or they tell you to stop. If someone asks you to quit following up, simply remove that address from your address books and continue with the rest of your prospects.

Learn and follow this technique in your online business and your sales will double or triple in the upcoming weeks!