This month's merchant is a music booking service that provides entertainment for parties, weddings, and company events. The spotlight is on Great Live Music.com run by Donovan Kovar. About 2 years ago, a magician friend named David Farr referred Donovan to 1ShoppingCart and showed him how to use his "Amazing System" to increase the effectiveness of his own bookings.

With sensitive venues, such as weddings and corporate work, it's important that the clients be constantly reassured and made to feel well cared for so that they don't worry. There are also many things that need to be coordinated for events like a wedding reception and they need a way to remember 'what to do' and 'when'.

At Great Live Music, Donovan developed a comprehensive autoresponder (AR) series to address the most common and important issues, while coordinating these messages with Alternative Message notifications that he sends to himself. This allows him to effectively manage the communications between his company and his clients at one time and with less effort. Donovan raves about this one feature, "I don't know of any other systems out there that have this type of functionality."

He adds, "We now have 24 specific ARs just for our wedding clients." He groups and organizes them by putting a *W* in front of each one for "weddings" followed by another letter A-Z (to keep the sequence in order), followed by the name of the action/message that the auto-responder conveys to him and his own 'to do.'

Below is Donovan's the list with the headings of this powerful, step marketing AR series:

W - *A* - Weddings Page - Contact Form

W - *B* - Leads - marker

W - *C* - Wedding Letter

W - *D* - Wedding Letter-w/Travel Fees

W - *E* - Starting Wedding AR Series

W - *F* - $500 Deposit Request

W - *G* - 2nd Deposit Request

W - *H* - $500 Deposit Received (auto request for booking info)

Here is own more detailed explanation of each step in his AR series and how he automates the booking process using the list above as his map:

W - *A* - Weddings Page - Contact Form

When a prospect fills out my online form requesting more information,

an email is sent to me letting me know which part of our website the lead has come from (weddings are different from other types of events) and what I should do next.

W - *B* - Leads - marker

I subscribe the lead to this "marker" to group all wedding leads together if I want to search for them that way. This also helps me keep track of when I began communicating with this person.

W - *C* - Wedding Letter

I subscribe the lead to this sales letter once I determine if it is appropriate to their inquiry. This AR series sends out 3 messages over 2 weeks following up with more info and testimonials about our services and a call to action.

W - *D* - Wedding Letter-w/Travel Fees

This is a variation on the letter above which I use alternatively to send to people outside of our normal traveling distance. It saves me the time of having to explain our traveling policy and prices to everyone.

W - *E* - Starting Wedding AR Series

This is the AR I subscribe the prospect to when they say they are ready to hire us. It explains that I will be walking them through the entire process, with a series of emails, designed to address all of their needs.

A series of questions and prompts (spread out over time) is far less overwhelming to the client than a huge list of information that's delivered all on day one (after reading this, I'm going to continue refining this system by combining ARs *E* and *F*).

W - *F* - $500 Deposit Request

This message thanks the client for choosing us and provides a link to our secure online server (1ShoppingCart) where they can make their deposit to initiate the booking process and guarantee entertainment for their event.

This series also sends a message to me after 5 days reminding me to follow up with the new client by subscribing them to the next series if I haven't yet received the deposit.

W - *G* - 2nd Deposit Request

This prompts the client again, worded a bit differently, and reminds me to

follow up if action isn't taken within a specific time.

W - *H* - $500 Deposit Received (auto request for booking info)

This AR series is triggered automatically when the client makes the deposit with their credit card. The email that's sent to me gives me a detailed list of pertinent information (event location, time, date, etc.) using the custom fields from the online form that they filled out. This message also gives me a complete list of actions to execute for this client specifically, which I print out and check off as I complete them.

The client also gets a message thanking them for their deposit and asking them the first series of questions, and letting them know what's next. I will also receive an alternate message in 7 days reminding me to follow up with the next AR series (you guessed it, *I*) if I haven't heard back from them yet.

This process goes on all the way through to *Z* which thanks the client again and asks for a testimonial and references.

By using 1ShoppingCart to automate the process, I am far more confident that everything is being managed properly and I have much more time to work on my other endeavors.

Any business that is communicating with many customers and leads can

benefit greatly by using 1ShoppingCart to automate, it's the wave of the future in my opinion and it will only proliferate as time goes on.

To research this AR series, you can visit: www.greatlivemusic.com/weddings

Donavan Kovar runs www.GreatLiveMusic.com. You must get a first peek at his soon-to-be-released Automation Process Special Recipe. It completely lays out his automation process in full detail using a 1ShoppingCart system. Just send him an email with "1ShoppingCart automation recipe" in the subject field to mailto:24-7-sales@earthlink.net and he’d be happy to send your complimentary copy immediately upon publication.

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