The future of customer service is here. Technology has made seeking out support faster and easier than ever. But, has your digital age company sacrificed true service in the name of automation?Today, finding customer support is as simple as writing an e-mail or picking up the phone. But, even though you’re not face-to-face with your customers, you still leave a lasting impression. Do you come across as caring and competent, or menacing and mechanical?

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In 1936, long before the rise of the personal computer, Hormel Foods created SPAM. In 2002, the company will produce it’s six billionth can of the processed food product. But that mark was passed long ago in the world of Internet spam.

Who Cooked This!? (How did it all start?)

The modern meaning of the word “spam” has nothing to do with spiced ham. In the early 1990’s, a skit by British comedy group Monty Python led to the word’s common usage. “The SPAM Skit” follows a couple struggling to order dinner from a menu consisting entirely of Hormel’s canned ham.

Repetition is key to the skit’s hilarity. The actors cram the word “SPAM” into the 2.5 minute skit more than 104 times! This flood prompted Usenet readers to call unwanted newsgroup postings “spam.” The name stuck.

Spammers soon focused on e-mail, and the terminology moved with them. Today, the word has come out of technical obscurity. Now, “spam” is the common term for “Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail”, or “UCE.”

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Think of banner ads as the spice in your affiliate diet. Sprinkle them around, but for a heartier helping of sales, you’ll need something more solid! Learn to give your visitors longer, more descriptive pre-sales text. Revamp your affiliate advertising using these simple steps:

Pull the Reader in

To convince your audience that your text is worth reading, make your first sentence or two very interesting. Make a bold statement, say something seemingly ridiculous, or appeal to your prospect’s emotional side. Then, tie this grabber in with the rest of your copy.

Introduce the ProductWhat is the product you’re advertising? What does it do? Directly after your grabber, give a compact explanation of your product. Keep this explanation short, while still being very clear. This should still be a very short section of your text.

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Your web business probably gets product inquiries from potential customers around the globe. Inquiries come via e-mail and your web site, and you try to send information to each hot prospect as quickly as you can. You know that you can drastically increase the likelihood of making a sale by satisfying each person’s need for information quickly!But, after you’ve delivered that first bit of information to your prospect, do you send him any further information?

If you are like most Internet marketers, you don’t.

When you don’t follow that initial message with additional information later on, you let a valuable prospect slip from your grasp! This is a potential customer who may have been very interested in your products, but who lost your contact information, or was too busy to make a purchase when your first message reached him. Often, a prospect will purposely put off making a purchase, to see if you find him important enough to follow up with later. When he doesn’t receive a follow up message from you, he will take his business elsewhere.

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The concept of the follow up autoresponder revolutionized Internet Marketing. Now, “Auto Message Setup” promises to bring the field an even greater degree of efficiency.This recent innovation lets experienced marketers painlessly transfer marketing know-how to their entire downlines. A marketer can now provide each of his downline representatives with a follow up autoresponse system that is already packaged with the marketer’s pre-written messages.

The result? Just a few minutes of work on the part of an experienced marketer, and each of his reps is set up with the same tried and true marketing messages.

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