Many of the business owners I work with cite a common goal when they speak about why they started their online business: the freedom to work from anywhere!   Starting your own business, especially an online business, can help you fulfill that goal.   With a laptop and an internet connection, we can work from our backyards, our cottages or even the local Starbucks.

But in every business there comes a point where the goal of working from anywhere is replaced with a different goal: the freedom to work smarter, not harder. That is, the freedom to have your business run independently from you.  To fulfill this goal, you’ll need to set up systems and automate your marketing.  So let’s get started.

The Automated eCourse

I’ve written about how to create an eCourse before.   So let’s talk about how you can use them to automate your marketing.

Model #1 — eMail eCourse

One of the automated marketing strategies that I have used successfully in my own business as well as in my clients’ businesses is the eMail mini-course.  In fact, converting a keynote speech into a six-part mini-course was the first project I completed for a client when I started my Online Business Management business and still get requests to set them up.  With all the advances in new media marketing and online technologies in the years since I set up my first eCourse, it cannot be denied that eCourses still have relevance in automating your marketing.

The purpose of the mini-course is to promote or sell one product.   An ecourse is essentially a multi-part autoresponder series (or “lessons”) on a particular theme or topic.   So it’s a series of educational e-mail messages that share free content with your subscriber about a particular topic, while promoting one particular product in your product line.

That’s why the eCourse is a great model to use on your salespages.  Because of the targeted focus on the eCourse, it works well to enhance a product salespage, especially if you build it into the header of the page.

Model #2 — Recipe of the Week

I’ve been using this model on various different sites over the past few years.  It works quite well for any site in which health information or recipes are shared.  The concept is very simple: every week, subscribers receive a new recipe by e-mail. I’ve modified the format a bit over the years but the basic model for the ezine is one recipe and one ad.  It’s a very effective ezine format.  Click tracking (which can be enabled through 1ShoppingCart’s ad tracker feature) shows that this ezine format generates sales.

There are two ways that you can set up this eZine.  The fastest way to get up and running is to create your ezine template to include space for a recipe and then an ad for one of your products or an affiliate product.  Then on a weekly basis, you will generate the ezine to send out to your subscribers.  You can partially automate the process by using aWeber’s blog broadcast feature and integrating your blog’s RSS feed to format and broadcast any new posts automatically.

The second option is completely automated.  Using either 1ShoppingCart or aWeber, you can pre-load a series of messages into an autoresponder to broadcast automatically.  Let’s say you already have 52 recipes that you know you would like to share.  Simply format them in an ezine (remember one recipe and one ad per ezine) and then load them into an autoresponder, setting the delivery date one week apart on each message.

By pre-loading your ezine into your autoresponder, every time someone subscribes to the ezine, they will automatically receive a new e-zine per week, every week, for a year!

The same model can be followed for health tips or business tips.  I’ve even used the model successfully for a weekly Q&A ezine.  Think creatively!  If you don’t manage a recipe blog, how can you apply the ezine of the week model to your own business?

The Next Step

Spend some time this week thinking about how you can incorporate an e-course or a recipe or tip of the week into your e-mail marketing.  In the next post, I’ll show you exactly how to get started with your automated ezine campaign.