Get More Clients Online

Upselling customers to new products

Q:  I have a fairly high % of people who buy my products and services the first time they get to my website. Fairly high is about 30 – 40%. I find it weird because don’t the stats say people need to see your message 7 – 9 times first?  I can see this trend because the order comes through with their name and THEN they sign up to my list. I even have people that don’t even get on my list but just buy my stuff (granted, these are usually clients who buy my Organise your Business system).  I then find it kind-of hard to sell to people once they’re on my list. I’m judging this based on number of sales vs number of mailing list subscribers. Do you think it’s because I give away such a lot of free things in my intro pack? Do you think I should scale back? Or do you think my prices may be too low so they don’t trust the products?

 Marcia Francois
www.TakeChargeSolutions.org

A:  Congrats, Marcia, that's a great problem to have! LOL  Many of my clients have just the opposite problem. Obviously, you're doing a number of things right, from your copywriting to offering just what someone needs when they need it. 

Your problem could lie in any of these areas that you list, but it's tough to say without asking your customers.  So, ask them!  Create a survey to find out how they're faring by using the info found in your product.  Then ask about any continuing challenges they're experiencing and how they'd like to solve them (1:1 help, another info product, webinar/teleclass, discussion forum, etc.) as well as what they'd pay to solve their problems.  Proceed to create the additional assistance according to the responses that you receive.  Or, if you discover that your product answered all of their questions, then I'd say you're giving too much away with your initial product.

The responses you receive should force your to examine your product funnel.  Once you have some sense of what their problems are, creating ongoing upsells at higher price points to send customers through your system, so that those beginning with an inexpensive product can be upsold through autoresponders to the next levels of products. 

More info about product and marketing funnels and creating followup autoresponders can be found in the member section of OnlineBizU.com.

Got an Internet Marketing question?  Ask it here: AskDonnaGunter.com.

Leverage Your Expertise: Create a Fixed Term Membership Program

by Donna Gunter, The Online Biz Resource Queen (TM)

I first became acquainted with the term, "fixed term membership" from Internet marketing guru Jimmy Brown,  when he created his Membernaire program.  He defines a fixed term membership site as a membership that consists of weekly content shared via autoresponder to paid members for a specified period of time.  I would have formerly called this concept a fee-based ecourse, with the distinction that in the fixed term membership, the lesson is delivered in a PDF file, rather than as a part of the text of the email autoresponder.

Should you integrate a fixed term membership into your product offerings?  Here are 7  reasons why this business model makes sense:

1.  Ease of operation.  In many ways, this type of membership site is easier to operate than a traditional site because it is much less involved.  To run a fixed term membership program, you simply write one article lesson every week. load this article to an autoresponder for subscribers to access, and then sell access to the series, which would last 3 - 6 - 9 or 12 months. Of course, you do have to set up a website as your selling point and create the copywriting for your sales letter, just as you would for any online business.

2.  Greater implementation by subscribers.  The useful aspect for your subscribers is that the info that you teach is broken up into small, easily digested pieces.  So, rather than overwhelming your customer with a 400-page ebook and 5 DVDs to watch, you can instead feed this info to your subscribers slowly over time, with action steps included with each lesson, and offer check-in points as needed.  In this fashion, there's a greater likelihood that they'll actually implement the information you provide, instead of leaving the binder and DVD cases to gather dust on their bookshelves.

3.  Numerous upsell opportunities.  During the term of the fixed membership, you can easily integrate upsells to other products and services that you offer into any lesson.  So, for example, if your membership site teaches people how to start a professional organizing business, you could upsell them to individual or email coaching throughout the term if they want some additional help and hand-holding.  Or, if you have a DVD program that goes into depth about marketing a professional organizing business, you could mention that in the course of the marketing material you provide in the fixed term program.

4.  Greater retention.  Many traditional membership sites suffer large attrition because members get bored, don't have time (or make the time) to revisit the site for updates, or have gotten all that they want from the membership and leave.  However, with a fixed term membership site, you structure the membership so that if someone leaves, that person has to start from the beginning of the membership again if she returns and wants to renew 3 months later.  The simple aggravation of being unable to pick up where you left off is a great motivating factor for fixed term program members to complete the full term of the membership.

5. No regular updates required.  With traditional membership sites, there's always the pressure on the owner to provide more articles, more downloads, more videos, more information.  However, with a fixed term membership, the only content you provide is that which is contained in your weekly lesson. You can write these all ahead of time, or stay just ahead of your members by creating one a week. Once you've written that content, you can sell that fixed term membership again and again.

6.  Few administrative hassles. Common problems for membership site owners include issues like members losing passwords or being locked out of a site.  With a fixed term site, those problems are non-existent, since all information is delivered via autoresponder.  And, if you make sure to mention in all of your lessons that the links to the previous lessons can be found in the current lesson, that greatly reduces the "I didn't get the lesson" emails you might receive, as you can remind your subscribers to simply wait for the next lesson and they will catch up.

7.  Greater profitability than traditional info products.  Which would you rather sell, a $97 ebook to a one-time buyer, or a $27/month, 12-month program that distributes the same info, with the addition of the upsell opportunities explained in #3?  The pricing psychology of a fixed term membership site is also more attractive, as many of your target market may look differently at a $27/month investment than they would a $300 up-front purchase. And, your overhead is very low with this model, as a fixed term membership requires no costs for CD/DVD duplication or printing for transcripts, manuals and binders as you find when selling hard copy information products.

Assess your collection of information products and determine if any of them might be better delivered as a fixed term membership. Or, create a fixed term membership program as your first information product or as a test for a full-blown membership website.  Your monetary and time investment is minimal, and the rewards could be quite profitable!

Want more info about creating your own fixed term membership?  Check out Jimmy Brown's Membernaire program for all the details.  I highly recommend it!

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this blurb with it: Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FR*EE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at  AskDonnaGunter.com.

Create a Coaching Program for Your Multiple Streams of Income Funnel

by Donna Gunter, The Online Biz Resource Queen (TM)

Whether you're a chiropractor, an exterminator, a carpet cleaner, or a professional organizer, you're amassed a great deal of information in your field or industry.  You have two primary targets to whom you can market this information:

• to your client base in the form of in-depth or additional training or information about your topic area (a 3-hour health-oriented program for chiropractic clients, a 2-hour "ABC's of Organization" seminar for professional organizing clients, etc.), or

• to others in your industry who want to have the in-depth knowledge that you have (carpet cleaners want to learn how to clean tile and grout as an additional service offered by their business) or who want to learn your business secrets (7 Steps to Attracting Clients into Your Chiropractic Practice).

A coaching program is perfect for either offering. In a coaching program, your primary goal is to take your clients from where they are to where they want to be.  So, if you're a professional organizer, your coaching program, which teaches professional organizers how to fill their practices, could easily target new professional organizers who are currently struggling to find clients.  Get the idea here?

I've watched my clients develop coaching programs over the years, and I've discovered that there are 7 elements to creating a successful coaching program.  They are:

1.  Target Market:  Who is your target market for this program?  The ability to target a defined group of prospects will make it so much simpler to market your coaching program.  Understanding key characteristics of this market,  such as knowing in what professional associations they hold memberships, the magazines and newsletters they read, and the discussion groups to which they belong will help you "reach out and touch" this group on a regular basis.  (Note:  You can download a Target Market Interview worksheet as a member of OnlineBizU.com.  Here's how you can get access.)

2.  Your Niche.  I define niche a little differently than others. I use the term niche to refer to the specialization you will  use to reach your target market.  For example, if you're a residential cleaning company who's had a great deal of success in building your business through referral marketing, then you'll want to create a coaching program that teaches other residential cleaning companies how to build their businesses fast by mastering referral marketing techniques.

3.  Core Message.  What is it that you do better than anyone else in the world?   Where have you been successful?  How can you best convey this information to others?   The answers to these questions are your core message.  Your core message combines your target market (residential cleaning companies) with your niche (referral marketing) along with the results you'll provide (have a waiting list of customers).  So, in this example, the core message for this fictional cleaning company coaching program might be, "Discover how residential cleaning companies create a waiting list of customers through successful referral marketing."  Sounds compelling, doesn't it?

4.  Your System.  Now you need to document your system that helped you get from point A to point B to point C.   In a coaching program, people want to buy a series of steps or a system and they want to have some idea of what those steps are or what's in the system.  That doesn't mean that you have to give away all of your program secrets in your marketing materials, but you do have to disclose enough information so that they can clearly visualize themselves going through that system to reach the level of attainment they desire.  If you can give them a realistic number of steps over a period of time, (your 9-step, 90 day process, for example), you'll have a much greater chance of enrolling enthusiastic participants in the program.

5.  Coaching Model.  How do you want to deliver this program?  Will you conduct group coaching sessions of 10 participants per group over a teleconference bridge line?  How about an email coaching program in which you send out weekly lessons and offer to meet twice a month with your participants on a teleconference line to answer questions?  Will you take only 1:1 coaching clients at a premium price?  Or, will you do all three?  There are a myriad of ways to deliver a coaching program.  You need to discover the one that's the best fit for your style and will be most appealing to your target market.

6.  Signature Coaching Program. Your signature coaching program is the one that emerges from combining your system with a particular coaching model.  In the fictitious cleaning company coaching program I've been using, the signature coaching program might be, "Get More Clients Through Referral Marketing Coaching Program: 90 Days to Creating a Waiting List for Your Residential Cleaning Company."  In the marketing materials for your program, you would further explain your 9-step process that is delivered in 3 group coaching calls per month via a bridgeline over the next 90 days.

7. Your Marketing Funnel.  Once you've created your program, now you need to determine how it fits into the market funnel for this segment of your business, what your longer-term plans are for attracting participants into the program, and then selling them an advanced version when they complete your initial program.  For example, for the cleaning company coaching program, you might get participants into the marketing funnel with a low-cost ebook or ecourse, with the upsell being the 90-day coaching program.  Once they've completed that coaching program, then you offer to work with a limited number in a 1:1 setting at a premium price, or offer an advanced version of the program, which would take them to the next level.  Or, perhaps you turn the 90-day program into a home study audio course and you offer a live version of the program only occasionally. You don't have to have all of these pieces mapped out to get started, but it's helpful to have a plan in place to help you market this program.

Adding a coaching program to your mix is yet another way to create multiple streams of income for your business.  If you have found success in implementing a particular system, more than likely there's an audience willing and eager to pay you for your learning and experience.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this blurb with it: Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FR*EE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at AskDonnaGunter.com.

10 Questions to Ask Before Licensing Your Program

Once you have several products or services that are selling quite well, your customer will begin to ask if you will permit others to use your product as the basis for training that they are doing.  Or, if you are doing training or consulting, you may be asked if you'll train others to be a trainer using your system.

This is the perfect opportunity for you to consider licensing your content or program.  You've only got so many hours in the day, and if you have others delivering your content and/or requiring the purchase of your materials, your business will grow exponentially as a result.

Here are some issues to think about as you consider licensing your content to others:

1. What will you charge for a licensing fee?  Will it be a one-time fee or something that has to be renewed periodically, like on an annual basis? Or, do you base it on a percentage of sales?
2. Will you charge a royalty for each product sold or per participant in a training session?  What systems do you need to put into place to ensure that you are being compensated appropriately for each sale?  Does the fee increase when the sales volume hits a certain level?
3. Is the licensing exclusive, i.e. pertinent to a particular project only, or can it be used at the licensee's discretion?
4. How will you ensure that your content is being delivered appropriately?  Do you require each licensee to go through training?  Is that an additional fee that you charge, or is that a part of the initial licensing package?
5. What are the requirements for your licensees to purchase any materials for a licensed training (CD programs, ebooks, etc.) through you, or if the materials are available through other sales outlets, can the materials be purchased elsewhere? Do you offer the materials to them at a discounted rate?
6. Can your licensees modify or alter your program or content in any way to fit the needs of various target markets?  If so, what are the parameters for doing so?  Does the modification need your approval?
7. Can your licensees adopt any part of the name of your licensed product into their business name in any way, or into a domain name for a website?
8. In what ways do your licensees have to display your logo, trademark info, or contact information for any products or training they license from you?  What are the standards for usage of such information?
9. What are the grounds for terminating a licensing agreement?
10. What actions must be taken by both you and the licensee in the event a license is terminated?

In the process of drafting your licensing agreement, I would strongly encourage you to hire an intellectual property attorney who has experience in licensing products or programs. S/he will tell you where the holes are in your agreement, and make suggestions for other issues you need to consider.

Licensing your programs or products is a great way to get the word out about what you do, and have others (your licensees) pay you for the privilege of distributing your info around the globe.  Take a look at your products and services with a discerning eye. Which of them could you license to others today?

How to Start Marketing With No List?

Q:  What is the best way to get explosive list growth for a new niche product, where I have no related list?

Mark

A:  It's quite tough, Mark, to start without a list. The first thing I would do is to create a squeeze page in which you capture your visitor's name and email address.  I've written an article about how to do that here.

Secondly,  create a client capturing device, like a special report, audio file, ebook, etc. that answers a pressing problem of your target market and offer it free to your visitors on your squeeze page..

Thirdly, plan now how you plan to keep in touch with your prospects.  Create a series of autoresponders that "reach out and touch" your prospects every so often. Write a regular email newsletter to send them, or post to your blog or create a podcast that will remind them about you.

The most immediate way to draw traffic to your site is to create a compelling ad at Google Adwords.  In order to avoid the "Google slap", where Google penalizes you for not having content on your site, you may want to have a few articles posted on your site for content.  The master of Google Adwords, Perry Marshall, has written the definitive guide to Google Adwords, which you can read about here. 

Good luck on your listbuilding!

Update to PDF alternatives

Back in December Dusty had asked me a question about cheaper alternatives to Adobe PDF writer.  I've recently discovered 2 that are free of charge, and the programs do convert text links to hyperlinks in the PDF document (a text-based hyperlink would be like the word "question" above, which links to another page of this blog).

Google provides the answer, amazingly enough, in their Google documents.  Once you've created and formatted your document, all you have to do is go to the file menu and "save as PDF".

Another option is an open source version of software that's very similar to MS Office, Open Office. Although I haven't used this product, I hear great things about it and that it will give MS a run for its money.  Here's a posting from Solveig Haugland's Open Office Training blog about how to create a PDF in Open Office.

12 Steps to Creating Your First Info Product

The creation of your first info product is a huge first step toward implementing multiple streams of income in your business.  It means that you have something to sell prospective customers to "size you up" as they consider purchasing your services.  It means that you can sell something 24-7 from your website that demonstrates your expertise. It means that you're well on your way to creating a passive revenue stream for your business.

Unfortunately, for many, this notion of creating an info product comes with a "fix it and forget it" mentality. Granted, the creation process requires a great deal more work than the maintenance phase, but at no time can you just leave it to the Internet gods that people will find your product and purchase it.  You'll be constantly tweaking your sales page and your marketing strategies, especially if you're using pay-per click as your primary marketing method. So, while an info product is considered passive revenue because it doesn't directly involve the selling of your time, that doesn't mean that you can passively stand by and hope it sells. 

Your process doesn't have to be as detailed as I've outlined here, but if you want to do a thorough job in the creation process, I suggest that you embark on all the steps.

1.  Solution to a Problem.  The best-selling information products provide a direct solution to a major problem of your target market.  If you're a professional organizer, the problem might be how to clean and store and organize holiday decorations so that they can be easily found and used from year to year.  If you're a weight loss coach, the problem might be how to stay motivated when you've hit a weight loss plateau. Jot down some of the primary problems of your target market and the process by which you help your clients resolve these issues.

2.  Determine Your Offering.  Info products come in all types of formats, from ebooks to ecourses to recorded teleseminars to podcasts to special reports to CD and DVD sets.  Take stock of your target market and determine what format would best fit their lifestyle.  Are they virtual business owners who work from home at their computers for most of the day?  Then an ebook or ecourse would probably work well for this group.  Are they busy executives who travel frequently?  Then you might consider a portable audio format.  You can also combine formats to appeal to a variety of learning styles or lifestyles.

And, of course, cost is a major consideration. Do you want to create a physical product that has to be shipped, or would an electronic download work?  There are much greater costs on your end to produce a physical product than an electronic one, and you also have to deal with product fulfillment as well if you choose to sell a physical product. I tell my clients to start with an electronic version and test it out, and if it's successful, move to a physical product, which has greater perceived value in the eyes of consumers.

3.  Pricing.  Pricing of info products is all over the map.  Check out your competition (yes, there will be competing products on the same topic aimed at the same target market) and see what they're charging.  You also need to take a look at your contact database and make some assessments of the value of your information to them as well as what you think they will pay.  You can survey your database to determine this info, or base it on comparable offerings in the marketplace.  Many times my clients get hung up on the notion of comparing pricing for their info product to what they can find in the local bookstore.  Generally, pricing for info products is higher than retail bookstores because the info being sold online is specialized for a target market and is delivered immediately upon order (if it's an electronic download). 

The pricing strategy that also seems to sell better online is ending your price with a 7, like in $17, $47, etc.  If you offer a high-priced product, consider offering payment via an installment plan, where you charge a bit more each month for the product than if someone were to pay for the product in full at time of purchase.

4.  Technology.  Do you have the technology in place to create and deliver your offering?  If it's an ebook, you'll need either a PDF writer program or ebook compiler software.  For an audio program you'll need a microphone and audio recording and editing capabilities.  For an ecourse you'll need either autoresponder software or a direct to desktop solution. For delivery you'll need a shopping cart that can deliver electronic products or take shipping info for physical products as well as some type of merchant account to take credit and process credit cards.  You'll also want a sequential autoresponder service to follow up with your buyers.

5.  Create the Product.  This is typically the most labor intensive part of the process, as you're actively recording or writing or videotaping your information for the product. Some products are easier to create than others, especially if you're recycling other content that you have into a new product.  If you're starting from scratch, however, give yourself a full 3-6 weeks of steady work time for product creation.  After creating the product you may want to have it proofread and/or edited in some fashion by a proofreader or an audio/video expert.

6.  Graphics.  A picture tells a thousand words, and more importantly, info products sell better when the visitor has a graphic representation of this intangible info product item. If graphic design isn't your specialty, find someone to design an ebook cover or podcast album art for you.  You may want to have the designer also create a website header banner for the product that you can use on your sales page.  You can generally have both of these done for around $200.  The more professional your image, the better perceived value your product has.

7.  Domain, Hosting, and Website.  I believe that each info product should have its own domain name and sales page to be most effective.  Domain names are pretty inexpensive, so you could actually buy several for each product -- one that reflects the product name, for example, and one that reflects the result someone will receive after using your product.  You can use the various domain names and websites for a variety of testing purposes as you go to sell your product.  If your plan to create multiple info products, you'll probably want to obtain a website hosting account that will enable you to host multiple domains from the same account.  Another option is to forward your product's domain name to a "hidden" page of your primary site.

8.  Copywriting.  There is a specific formula to copywriting for one-pages sales letter websites.  The best way to get ideas for your sales letter is to create a Marketing Swipe file of other sales copy that you like.  From your swipe file take a look at the headlines, the introduction, the subheadlines, the listing of benefits, the product description, the outline of the features, the call to action (request to buy), the closing, and the postscripts. You'll begin to see a pattern emerge when you look at 4-5 sample sales pages. 

9.  Shopping Cart.  Once your product is complete, you need to upload the product into your shopping cart and set up the cart for purchases.  This may mean that you also need to set up shipping and handling charges for physical products and integrate your shopping with your shipper of choice. If your state requires the collection of state sales taxes, you'll need to integrate that as well. 

10.  Followup Autoresponders.  Creating a series of autoresponders to follow-up with a customer after purchase enables you to stay in front of the customer and reminder her about your other product/service offerings.  Design a series of 3-5 autoresponders that will be sent out after a purchase to check in with your customer and tell her the next step she needs to take after her purchase.  This might mean referring her to another info product, asking her to join some type of subscription service, or experiencing your service with a free trial.

11. Capturing Contact Info.  Sadly, not everyone who visits your website will buy what you're selling.  However, you can still capture their contact info by creating a free giveaway for those who may not be ready to buy.  This might be a special report or free ecourse, and you follow the same steps outlined previously for creating this giveaway.  You'll also need to create 3-5 followup autoresponders here as well that will ultimately offer them your product once again.

12.  Publish and Promote.  Now, you're ready to sell. Publish your website and begin to promote your offering to your own database.  You can create a buzz about your product by writing a press release, offering a free teleclass, buying ads on other websites or in other newsletters, publishing articles, creating podcasts, purchasing pay-per-click advertising, requesting colleagues to send out notices to their contact lists, and creating an affiliate program in which others can sell your product for a commission.

Creating your first info product can be a time-consuming process.  However, once it's created, you stand to earn income from it for years to come.  Start to expand your business offerings today with information products. 

Where to List a Teleclass

I am often asked about websites that list teleclasses/teleseminars.  They've been few and far between, but I recently found a couple of new resources that I thought I'd list here:

PlanetTeleclass.com:  You have to fill out a short application to list your class with them.  A basic listing is free of charge.

Conference Call University:  You must place a reciprocal link to their site on your website in exchange for the listing

SeminarAnnouncer.com: They take no commission if the class is free of charge. If the class is $50 or under, the fee is a 35% commission on the class price.  If the class is over $50, the commission is %50 of the class price.

Teleclass.com:  Charges $39 to list a one-time one-session class, whether it's free or fee-based.  However, you do have to go through their teleclass leader training in order to list on this site.

The other leader in the teleclass listing arena, TeleclassInternational.com, no longer provides teleclass listings.

Alternative to Adobe PDF Writer

Q:  I have a book in Word that I'd like to convert to PDF to sell online as an eBook. However, I can't afford the Adobe Writer. Do you know of another PDF converter (cheaper or free) that can allow me to keep the ebook from getting edited by someone else? I may need other features, but I don't know enough about this to know what to ask.

Dusty

A:  There are a number of free/low cost PDF converters on the market. Pdf 995 is a free utility that allows you to create and save files in the popular PDF format. However,  I'm not very familiar with these, as I use the Adobe product. You can also Google "free pdf creator" and see what's at the top of the list. And btw, Adobe even offers a monthly fee-based service that enables you to convert documents to PDF files online.

Since I'm only familiar with the Adobe product, I'm not sure how full-featured the other products are.  However, if you're creating PDF ebooks, here are two features that you want:
1.  the ability to have all of your hyperlinks as live, clickable links in your doc.  If you use the Table of Contents feature in Word, you'll also want your PDF converter to have the ability to make your table of contents clickable links as well so that readers can more easily navigate your document.
2.  the ability to "lock" your document so that it can't be electronically copied into another document and changed.

Good luck with your project!

How to Create Effective Autoresponders to Keep in Touch with Your Prospects

I often suggest to clients that they use the power of business automation found in sequential autoresponders as an effective method of keeping in touch with their contacts.  An autoresponder is an automated email response or series of responses that you have previously written and uploaded into an autoresponder service. The autoresponder enables you to reply to customers via email 24/7 without any intervention on your part past the setup stage.  For example, you might send an automatic reply to a new newsletter subscriber, to someone who has requested a free giveaway on your site, or to a customer who has just purchased your newest information product.

Where do you find a sequential autoresponder service?  Sometimes they're bundled with shopping cart software.  The shopping cart I use, GetMoreClientsCart.com, offers this feature.  Or, you can purchase a stand-alone service in which you can set up autoresponders and send out your email newsletter, as well.  For this, I recommend GetMoreClientsAutoresponder.com.

The two features that are essential to have in autoresponder software are personalization and tracking ability.  For greatest effectiveness, you should be able to personalize your autoresponders both in the subject line as well as in the body of the email.  Don't you open email more quickly when you see your name in the subject line or when the body of the email mentions your address or city of residence?  This personalization feature permits you to send automated emails that appear to have been written especially for the person receiving the email.  I constantly receive both phone calls and email responses from prospects who are the recipients of these automated emails, which leaves me with no doubt about how important it is to personalize your responses. The second feature, tracking ability, enables you to see how many and which recipients opened your email, how many emails were not delivered, and the ability to see how many recipients clicked on any links found within the email.

Once my client has agreed to use sequential autoresponders, the next question usually is, "But what do I say in them?"  Fact is, what you tell your clients is limited only by your imagination.  However, I generally recommend that online business owners plan a sequence of 7-9 emails that go out over a series of 3 weeks.  In this sequence, you need to check in with how the prospect/customer is doing with the call to action that got the prospect on your list,  point out other pieces of free information on your website that would be useful to the prospect, recommend their own or affiliate products that would be of interest, and request another call to action of your prospect.

Here's my outline of followup autoresponders that I send out when someone has requested the free report, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, from one of my sites:

Immediate send:  Confirmation of and thank them for their request and remind them how to download the toolkit.

2 Days Later:  Ask them what they think about the toolkit, point out some of the info that they might check out immediately, and request a testimonial.

5 Days Later:  Offer another gift.  I give them the URL of my articles directory and info about how they can syndicate my articles on their website at no charge and the benefits of doing so.

7 Days Later:  Ask them to complete a survey.  I created a short 30-second survey through SurveyMonkey.com that I ask them to complete.  This helps me better understand what problems my target market has.

9 Days Later:  Recommend a product.  I change this offering occasionally and either recommend my one of my products or a product for which I'm an affiliate.

16 Days Later:  Offer another gift.  I tell them about my podcast and blog and why they should subscribe and how to do so.

19 Days Later: Ask me a question.  I give them the opportunity to personally ask me a question about online marketing and let them know that I'll respond to it in my blog.

23 Days Later:  Make a special offer.  I introduce them to my coaching services and offer them a special rate to try out my coaching.

Other offers you could make in your followup autoresponders include inviting them to a discussion forum or a free teleclass, have them subscribe to your ezine, or send them to download or view a free audio recording or video.

Creating an effective series of autoresponders helps you begin to develop a relationship with prospective customers, showcase your expertise, and ultimately convert prospects into customers.