A woman told me this week, "Your advertising is wasted if you don't follow-up on your leads." Her solution is to use a multiple autoresponder that sends her prospects a new sales message very few days.

People need to see your ad message several times before they buy. Those who buy on the first ad have already made up their mind after seeing someone else's ad. Yours had the good fortune of reaching the customer at just the right time.

You can greatly increase sales with a three letter multiple autoresponder. There are a number of places to get these autoresponders free (fastfacts.net, getresponse.com, smartbotpro.net) and others who sell up-graded service at low cost.

Make your first letter briefly present your offer. It should be designed to get attention and bring in those who tend to quickly make up their minds to buy.

Your second sales letter should arrive the next day. Make it longer and filled with details. About 70 percent of consumers are folks who need ALL the details before they will purchase. List your features and connect them with the benefit your customer will get from those features.

Your third sales letter should be scheduled to arrive several days later. Start with "Successful people are busy. I know you probably saw my earlier messages, considered them, but haven't yet had time to respond."

Then give them another rundown on your offer. Bring in a fresh angle so it doesn't seem like they are reading the same letter they saw a few days ago.

More than three sales letters tend to get ignored. If you want to send more, have your fourth and fifth letters arrive weeks or months later. Scheduling a new letter to arrive every month can catch a prospect when they're ready to buy.

Offer Your Own Email Course

One of the most successful marketing techniques I've found is offering your own course via autoresponders. I introduced my Make Your Website Sell course (yes, before MYSS came out) and it is still getting gobs of sign-ups every day.

Here is how to create yours:

1. Pick a problem that lots of your customers struggle with. In my business the big stumpers are getting a site that sells, finding a way to handle email, figuring out search engines, and finding low-cost ways to advertise effectively.

A course on any of these is guaranteed to bring lots of interested prospects and customers (and you can bet I'm plugging my ads here and there during the course).

Your course could be on how to complete a basement, how to avoid an IRS audit, how to give your kids straight teeth, or anything else that customers often ask about.

2. If you don't write or have time to pen your own articles, look for others who have written on the topic. It is perfectly legal to put their ideas in your own words (always proper to give them credit).

You can also quote the article. It is best to ask in advance, if your course is for commercial purposes. Start your article, then say expert Jane Doe has some valuable information. Include a few paragraphs of what Jane wrote. Be careful not to use so much you give away her entire article and spoil her ability to sell the information.