Using Free Autoresponders

If you’ve looked at the prices of autoresponders that
are available online, you may have decided to search
for and use a free autoresponder for your marketing
needs. Using free autoresponders is acceptable in
certain situations, and in the world of Internet
marketing, any autoresponder is better than not
using an autoresponder at all!

Your first option for a free autoresponder should be
the one that comes with your webhosting account –
if you have a webhosting account. These
autoresponders can easily be set up through the
control panel of your website, and they do not
contain advertisements from the autoresponder
company or webhosting service. If you do not have
a hosting account, or your hosting
account does not include autoresponders, there are
other options that you can pursue.

There are many free autoresponder services to
choose from. These services are free, because the
company makes their money by placing a small
advertisement in each message that your
autoresponder sends out. These advertisements
may appear at the top of your auto responses, or at
the bottom, depending on which company you use.

Many paid autoresponder services offer a free version
as well. These free versions may or may not include
advertisements in the outgoing messages. These
lighter versions of the paid autoresponders typically
do not include many of the powerful features of the
paid versions. But if you don’t need the more
advanced features, this is a great choice.

Most free autoresponders have a limit on the number
of subscribers you can have. Many people start out
with the limited free versions, and then upgrade to
the paid versions once their lists are large enough
to exceed those limits. Many marketers don’t feel
that the expense of the autoresponder is warranted
until the list that they are building is turning a profit.
From a business standpoint, this makes sense.

As the owner of a business, you are the only one
who can decide whether you need a paid
autoresponder service, or if a free one will do the job.
If your list is small, a free autoresponder should do
everything that you need it to do, but as your list
grows, you should definitely consider upgrading.
However, having the small advertisements that the
free services place in the outgoing
messages may present a problem if the ads
compete with what you are trying to sell. They may
even pose a problem if they do not directly compete
with your product or business. Again, this depends
on what you are trying to accomplish with your
autoresponder.

Using Autoresponders Responsibly

In today’s world of unsolicited email and spam laws, it is extremely important that you learn to use your autoresponder responsibly. Autoresponders make our lives much simpler, and they are very powerful marketing tools, but if they are used in a way that they
are not intended, they can quickly turn your life into a nightmare!

First, never add people to your autoresponder mailing list that should not be there. If they have requested information from you, they
should automatically be added, and you should have a ‘double opt-in’ method in place to make them confirm that they have
requested the information. This serves to protect you and them.

Each autoresponder message should include a link that the recipient can click that will automatically remove them from the mailing
list. Without this link, you will be breaking the spam laws, and you risk having your website, your ISP service, your email, and your autoresponders shut down!

We all want to build a list of a million people, but you must do so responsibly, and it does take time. Don’t get in a hurry and break
all the rules and laws in an attempt to build a large list. This will only result in losing your list altogether!

Using an Autoresponder to Publish an Ezine

There are many uses for an autoresponder. One
such use is the publishing and distribution of an
ezine or newsletter. Since autoresponder services
usually are set up to send automatic responses to
the people on the list at certain intervals after they
sign up, setting up an autoresponder to send out an
ezine can be a little confusing.

Depending on the service or autoresponder that you
are using, you will need a ‘broadcast’ feature. The
broadcast feature works essentially the same as the
autoresponse feature, with one big difference. The
messages are not sent out at intervals. The
messages can, however, be scheduled to go out on
a certain day, which has no bearing on when the
subscriber was actually added to the mailing list.
Broadcast messages are ‘one time’ messages that
are only sent to your current mailing list. People
who sign up for your list after the broadcast has
been sent do not receive it, unless the specifically
request it with an autoresponder address, which
you must set up.

Using the broadcast feature of most autoresponder
services, you can simply go and either type your
newsletter, or copy and paste it into the editor, then
choose to send the broadcast to your entire mailing
list. More advanced autoresponder services will
usually have broadcasting features.

Using an autoresponder to maintain a mailing list
and to distribute a newsletter is a wonderful idea.
Your subscribers can easily opt-in, or opt-out, and
all of the distribution is handled for you, based on
the schedule that you set. List maintenance can
become very difficult without the automation that
autoresponders provide. You can write each issue
of your ezine or newsletter well in advance, and
have it delivered to your mailing list, no matter
where you are or what you are doing. That is the
beauty of automation!

Since all past broadcast and autoresponse
messages are saved, you can easily refer back to
old issues, or allow people to request past issues.
You can also use the tracking feature throughout
each issue of the newsletter to determine how
many clicks you are getting for the various products
or websites that you promote in your ezine.

If you have not yet purchased an autoresponder or
signed up with any autoresponder service, make
sure that you inquire about the broadcast feature
first. Not all autoresponders or autoresponder
services have this feature, and as your marketing
progresses, you will find that this is one of the most
useful features of the service or program.

Using Your Autoresponder to Generate Leads

Autoresponders are one of the most important marketing tools that you can have if you are doing business online. In fact, the
only thing more important that the autoresponder is your opt-in list! But all autoresponders start out without a list – the list doesn’t
exist until your autoresponder mailing list starts filling up with names and email addresses!

The easiest and fastest way to build up an email list is to give things away for free. Some marketers will tell you that this is a
waste of time – and if you already have a list of one hundred thousand people that you can market to, then it probably is. But for
those who do not already have a list, this is the way that it gets built! You simply pay for advertisement to promote your freebie.
Don’t think of this as lost money, think of it as an investment in future earnings.

Give away an ezine, free reports, free ebooks, free access to private websites, or anything else that you can think of. The object is
to get people to sign up to receive that freebie, and to agree to receive email from you in the future! It is a win-win situation for
everyone, but you get more than anyone else in the deal. The person gets a freebie. You get their name and email address, and
permission to email them in the future.

But if you do it right, you get even more than that. The freebie that you give away should also be used to promote your products or
services. Even if it just has affiliate links for products or services that are related to the topic of the freebie, it is a way to generate
extra revenue. Then, when you send email in the future, you can again promote your products or services. Just be sure to include
valuable information in the email as well, or you will have people dropping off of your autoresponder mailing list like flies!

Using every opportunity that is presented to you in the world of Internet Marketing is vital to your success. You have the opportunity
to earn money in the freebie that you create, you have the opportunity to earn money when you send the ‘thank you’ email after a
person has requested your freebie, and you have the opportunity to earn money every time an autoresponder message is sent out
to that list in the future! Don’t waste those opportunities, and put it all in automatic mode with the use of an autoresponder.

Tracking Autoresponder Responses

As an Internet marketer, it is vitally important to
know how well your advertising campaigns are doing.
Advertising campaigns cost a lot of time and money,
and campaigns that are not doing well need to either
be changed or scraped. When using autoresponders
for purposes of Internet marketing, you will be able to
tell how well your autoresponder messages are doing
by using response tracking.

Autoresponder response tracking is usually easily
set up with the higher quality paid autoresponder
services. Using the tracking set up tool, you simply
enter the web site address that you want your
readers to visit, and the software generates a brand
new URL. This URL is used track the number of
clicks that you have from the autoresponder message
to the website that you are promoting.

When a person clicks on that special URL, the click
is captured, and they are automatically redirected to
the website that you intended them to arrive at. The
visitor does not know that they have been redirected
in most cases. You can monitor the results
through the control panel of your autoresponder
service account. The control panel will tell you how
many messages were delivered, and how many
clicks were received. Most quality autoresponders
will even include a feature that allows you to track
how many of the emails were opened. This is a
great marketing research tool for mass email marketing.

Not all autoresponder services offer tracking abilities
such as this. If tracking is important to you, you
need to make sure that this is one of the features of
the autoresponder service before you sign up. This
feature gives you the ability to know whether the
message you are sending out is effective, or if
changes need to be made. It also allows you to
see if the sales copy on your website is effective, in
a ‘round-about’ way. For instance, if you are getting
thousands of clicks from the autoresponder
message, but very few clicks from the sales page
to the order page, you know that the
autoresponder message is working, but the sales
copy is failing.

If you have never tracked your autoresponder
responses before, you should definitely consider it.
Again, this information allows you to find out what is
working, and what is not working. It will essentially
make your autoresponder marketing much more
effective and profitable. You will most likely be very
surprised at the results of the tracking!

The Difference Between Autoresponder Programs and Autoresponder Services

Many newcomers to the Internet marketing arena are not aware that there is a vast difference between an autoresponder program
and an autoresponder service. Not knowing the difference, they often purchase the wrong type of autoresponder, and find out too
late that they have wasted money on a program that is useless to them.

An autoresponder program is a program that is set up on your web server. This is usually a free autoresponder that comes with
your web hosting account. Many people don’t like to use autoresponder services; so instead, they use an autoresponder program
that they have more control over. Some of those people don’t like the autoresponder programs that come with their hosting
accounts either and purchase autoresponder programs or scripts that must be installed on their web server.

Other people are quite happy with using an autoresponder service. This is a service that is usually paid for on a monthly or yearly
basis. The fees are ongoing, and everything is browser based. In other words, you can set up your autoresponder messages and
manage your opt-in list through your web browser – just as you can with an autoresponder program that is installed through your
web hosting account. The difference is that the service runs on the autoresponder service’s web server – not yours or your web
hosts.

Beginners are usually better off using an autoresponder service. These services are very easy to understand and to use, and no
technical knowledge is needed to set things up. As a newcomer to the field, however, you might be concerned about the costs of
an autoresponder service. If this is the case, you have the option of signing up with a free autoresponder service.

Free services make their money by placing advertisements in each autoresponder message that you send out. Sometimes these
ads appear at the top of your messages, and sometimes they appear at the bottom. Some of the free services are simply an
enticement to purchase the professional version, and have many of the more advanced features, such as tracking, disabled.

More advanced users often choose to use autoresponder programs, simply because they have more control over the autoresponder,
and they don’t have to follow some of the stiffer rules imposed by autoresponder services, such as sending confirmation to each and
every person who is entered into the autoresponders list.

The autoresponder that you choose is strictly up to you, but in most cases, an autoresponder service should suit your needs. If
you are unsure, look for a service that offers free signups, with the option of upgrading to the professional paid version at a later
date.

Powerful Autoresponders – Does Yours Measure Up?

Autoresponders are very necessary when it comes
to marketing or taking care of customers. But the
power of an autoresponder, or the lack of power,
can mean the difference between success and
failure.

When you use an autoresponder service, you must
make sure that the domain that the autoresponder
uses isn’t blacklisted by the spam watch groups. If
it is, your messages probably won’t make it past
the majority of spam filters, no matter how much
you check it with spam checkers.

Also, not having the ability to track responses can
cost you business. If you can’t track response rates,
you won’t have any way of knowing whether your
messages are doing you any good. A good
autoresponder will provide the ability to track
responses. If yours doesn’t, you might want to shop
for a new autoresponder.

The ability to add and remove names to your
autoresponder manually is vital. Often, people will
contact you without going through your
autoresponder. These people need to be put on the
autoresponders mailing list. If you are moving your
list from one service to another, you need the ability
to import names and addresses to your list. Again,
if your autoresponder service isn’t powerful enough
to allow this, look for a different one!

Personalizing Autoresponders

Have you ever walked into a store in your town, and
been addressed by name? This has probably
happened to you at stores that you frequent often.
The shop owner knows your name, and uses it. He
remembers you, and he wants you to know that he
cared enough about you and your business to
remember you. In the offline world, this is just one
aspect of customer support.

Customer service like this is almost impossible to
achieve on the Internet, but some semblance of it
can exist when you personalize your autoresponder
messages. Autoresponder messages can be set up
to address people by their first or last name – or both.
In fact, there is quite a bit of personalized information
that can be added, depending on the autoresponder
that you are using.

The information is included in the autoresponder
messages by using codes. Each autoresponder will
use different codes to insert the information in your
messages. You simply write your message, and put
the codes where you want the personalized
information to appear. For instance, your message
may start out with ‘Hello (code for first name)! In this
case, the person’s first name will be inserted where
that code is.

Personalizing your autoresponder messages will
most likely improve your response rate. Research
has shown that emails that are personalized with the
person’s first name are opened more often, and
those people are generally more receptive to the
contents of the email message. It is usually very
easy to do. You write one message, using the
codes where you want the personalization,
then, no matter who that one email is sent out to,
their personal information will appear where the
codes are.

Of course, the autoresponder must collect the
information first. This is done with the use of forms
that activate the autoresponder. For instance, if you
are giving away a free ebook, and you have your
visitor fill out a form with their email address to receive
the download instructions for the ebook by email, that
form should collect any type of information that you
want for personalization – such as a first name, as
well as the email address. If that information is not
collected, the autoresponder won’t have anything to
insert where that code appears in your messages!

Take a look around the control panel of your
autoresponder, and find out what type of
personalization you can add to your autoresponder
messages. You may be very surprised at the
improved results!

Motivate Your Downline with Autoresponders

Many affiliate marketers have a hard time building a
downline – and an even harder time keeping downline
members motivated and selling. If your income
depends on the sales of others, you should strongly
consider keeping them motivated with
autoresponders.

You can load your autoresponder with positive
messages, sales tips, and news related to the
product or service that is being sold. Many affiliates
fail simply because they don’t know how to market a
product, and they have little or no support from affiliate
managers or up line members! With the use of
autoresponders, all of that can change.

You should definitely write on some marketing tips,
specific to your product or service, and set you
downline members up in the mailing list for that
series of messages. Send broadcast messages
once a month congratulating the top sellers. Send
short motivational articles that will keep your
downline member upbeat.

Failing to communicate with your downline members
is the same as ensuring that they fail at the
business in most cases. If you want to succeed in
affiliate marketing, you have to take steps to help
your downline succeed!

Invoicing with Autoresponders

If you have recurring invoices that you send out, you
can easily automate this process with
autoresponders. Many business
owners find that they spend a good portion the day
sending out invoices, or trying to collect on unpaid
invoices! This can easily eat into the time that you
could be spending generating new business.

If the amounts invoiced are the same each month,
and due on the same day each week or month, you
can easily automate the invoicing process with the
use of an autoresponder. Many shopping carts that
have autoresponders built in work well for this.
Others may take a little time to set up, but in the
end, they will save a great deal of time overall.

Get extra usage out of the automated invoicing
process by adding small messages to the invoices
that alert these clients to new products or services
that you offer. Think about your phone bill – doesn’t
your phone company send out additional sales
material with each bill? There is no reason you
shouldn’t use this same marketing technique with
your autoresponder invoices!

Improper Uses of Autoresponders

Autoresponders are wonderful! They can be used for
a variety of things, but there are several ways that
autoresponders should not be used. Using
autoresponders in improper ways will make things
a bit more difficult for other people, and it could
make things really bad for you!

Having one autoresponder respond to another
autoresponder creates chaos, and in some cases, it
can overload servers. This happens when you sign
up for something, using your autoresponder email
address. You sign up, and a message is sent to
someone else’s autoresponder, which responds to
your autoresponder, which responds to that
autoresponder – and this continues on and on until
it is manually stopped and straightened out.

Some people use their autoresponder address on
purpose when they sign up for discussion lists. In
effect, this causes an their autoresponder message
to be sent to the entire list, or to one person on the
list, each time a person sends a real message to
the discussion list. Needless to say, discussion list
members and owners frown on this practice, and the
autoresponder owner gets banned.

Avoid these problems and use your autoresponder in
ways that it was meant to be used. Do not use the
autoresponder irresponsibly! Not only will you create
problems for others, but you may find that you get
reported for spam!

How Important are Autoresponders to Internet Marketing?

Internet Marketing and autoresponders essentially
go hand-in-hand. In today’s online business world,
you simply cannot succeed at Internet marketing
without the use of autoresponders. Autoresponders
are used to achieve many of the marketing tasks
that are essential to a successful online business.

Internet marketing can be very time consuming.
Whether you do affiliate marketing or market your
own products, an autoresponder is a big part of your
marketing arsenal. Autoresponders are used to keep
in contact with your past customers, and to develop
a relationship with potential customers.

An autoresponder can be used to deliver sales
messages to your opt-in customer list. It can be
used to deliver email courses, to send reminders,
and even to help you build an opt-in list if you don’t
already have one. There are many creative ways you
can use your autoresponder to make more sales and
to build customer relations.

Any successful marketer will tell you that there are
two tools that are vital to any type of online
marketing – an opt-in list and an autoresponder. In
fact, most marketers will agree that you could take
away all of their other marketing tools, but they
would fight to the death to keep the list and the
autoresponder!

Give Potential Customers A Preview With

Building customer interest and excitement is the first
step to successfully marketing many products.
Autoresponders play a vital role in building this
interest and excitement. For instance, if you were
developing an ebook, you may want to start telling
your website visitors and opt-in subscribers about it.
Start building interest; tell them what this product
will do for them, and how soon it will be available.

Do more than build interest by telling them about it.
Use an autoresponder to let them preview your
product! Even though you will be selling the product,
you can allow your potential customers to preview
the information. Have you ever seen previews for
movies that will be playing intheaters soon? It is the
same concept.

Load one chapter of the ebook into an autoresponder,
and put a form on your website where your visitors
can enter their name and email address to receive
the preview chapter free of charge. This gets their
name on your list of potential customer. Each
week, send a reminder email, letting them know how
close the release date is, and what they can expect
from your product – keep building interest and
excitement.

Finally, a couple of days before you are ready to
launch your product offer those that received the
preview the option to buy a pre-release copy. You
canopt to offer a discounted price, or leave the price
as it will be on launch day – the choice is yours.

Take a look at the list of people who signed up to
receive the preview. How many of them are still ‘
subscribed’ to that list? They’ve had the option to
stop receiving notices about your product, but they
chose to keep receiving the information you were
sending. These are highly targeted prospects for
your product. They have already shown you that
they have an interest in your product, and a large
number of those people are simply waiting on the
autoresponder broadcast message that will let
them know that it is time to pick up their copy of
your product!

Isn’t automation a wonderful thing? Using an
autoresponder, you are able to see how much of a
market there is for your product, and build a great
deal of interest in it before it is ever released. This
isthe key to making sales on launch day. Use
autoresponders to build the interest. Get your
prospects excited about what is about to come –
andon launch day, give them what they are waiting
for andwatch the sales pour in!

Getting Your Autoresponder Messages Through The Spam Filters

In light of the spam problem, most email clients now
have spam filters installed. These filters catch spam
email and either move it to a ‘spam folder’ or
automatically delete it. After spending a great deal
of time laboring over your series of autoresponder
messages, it would be a shame to find out that the
majority of the messages that are sent out end up
in the spam folder, or are automatically deleted as
spam!

You can avoid this in two ways. First, when anyone
signs up to receive information from your
autoresponder, have them automatically redirected
to a page that gives them instructions for ‘white
listing’ you. Email clients have an actual white list
where the owner of the email client can add specific
addresses that should never be considered spam.

The other way to make sure that your autoresponder
messages get through the spam filters is to check
them using one of the various spam checkers that
are available online. These programs are often web
based, and free to use. They check your message
for words or phrases that commonly trigger spam
filters in email clients. Don’t send out any
autoresponder messages without doing a spam
check first!

Formatting Autoresponder Messages

Have you received emails that were all broken up?
These emails have one or two words on one line,
then eight or ten words on the next line. In some
cases, one word begins on one line and ends on the
next. These emails are very hard to read, and they
appear to be very unprofessional. Is this what you
want your autoresponder email messages to look
like?

If not, you need to learn how to format your
messages. Start by reading the instructions for your
specific autoresponder. Each one operates a bit
differently in the way that it handles text. For
instance, some autoresponder messages will be
messed up if you do put a ‘hard line break’ at the
end of each line, while others will be messed up if
you don’t! Find out what the right option is for your
autoresponder!

Because each email client is different, you should
not allow any line in your message to exceed 65
characters. This will help prevent lines from breaking
up, and it is achieved by hitting the ‘enter’ key at
the end of each sixty-five character line. The best
way to be sure that your autoresponder messages
are delivered in the correct format is to send them
to yourself, before you send them to your list!

Customer Service with Autoresponders

Ideally, when you perform customer service, it is
done on a one-on-one basis with each of your
customers. That works quite well in the offline world
– but on the Internet, that simply will not do. Your
customers are literally all over the world, and there is
no way that you can really deal with each one of
them personally. That is where an autoresponder
comes in.

Customer service with autoresponders is quite
simple. When an order is place, an autoresponder
can send out the receipt for the sale, the information
for accessing the product, and a ‘thank you’ email.
This happens whether you are logged in to your
computer or on vacation in an exotic location! But
customer service doesn’t always end right there, and
if you are away from your computer, you may be
letting your customers down!

For instance, an elderly gentleman sees your
product advertised and places an order. Everything
goes through just fine, and he receives the receipt,
the download information, and your ‘thank you’ email.
Your product is an ebook, compiled into a PDF file.
This particular gentleman doesn’t understand what
a PDF file is, and he has no idea what you mean by
‘right click to download.’ He needs additional
customer service for the product that he has
purchased, and there is nobody available to help
him – nobody but an autoresponder.

Set up an additional autoresponder that will send out
a list of frequently asked questions or problems that
deal with customer service or how to access the
product. Also set up a support autoresponder. If he
sends a message to support, he should get an
instant message back letting him know that his
message has been received, and how soon it will be
addressed. This will give him some measure of
comfort, and in most cases, he will wait that
specified period of time for assistance.

However, if he doesn’t know how to download the
product, and he sends a message to support, and
nothing happens, he will most likely become very
dissatisfied in a very short period of time. The
difference between a patient customer and an irate
customer is one simple autoresponder message
that can and should be set up in under five minutes.

Really think your ordering process through, and
consider the potential problems that may occur for
your customers. Get an autoresponder set up to
address those problems, and you will find that your
customers are more satisfied with your products,
and extremely satisfied with your customer service –
all because your autoresponders handle their
problems right away!

Business Automation with Autoresponders

Automation is important to all businesses. The less
time we have to spend doing small tasks, the more
time we have to make more money – or we could
spend that time doing something besides working.
Putting an online business on auto pilot isn’t difficult
at all – and it is all done with the use of
autoresponders!

Autoresponders can be used to get people to your
website, or to promote products and services.
Simply plug your sales message into the
autoresponder, along with some valuable
information that your potential may want or need,
and advertise that autoresponders address.

Once the person arrives at your site, and goes
through your ordering process, another
autoresponder kicks in. This autoresponder
should send out a receipt, as well as information
that will grant the customer access to whatever it
is that they have purchased. Another autoresponder
message should be sent out after this, thanking the
customer for their business, and letting them know
about similar or related products or services that they
may be interested in.

The beauty of this is that while all of this ordering is
going on, and these important customer service
emails are being sent, you can be off doing
something else! The more automation you can
integrate into your online business, the better off
you will be.

Build Interest With Autoresponder Messages

If you are using your autoresponder to sell a product
or service, you must be very careful as to how you
approach your potential customer. Few people like
a hard sale, and marketers have known for years
that in most cases, a prospect must hear your
message an average of seven times before they will
make a purchase. How do you accomplish this with
autoresponders?

It’s really quite simple, and in fact, the
autoresponders make getting the message to your
potential customers those seven times possible. On
the Internet, without the use of autoresponders, you
probably could not achieve that. Too often, marketers
make the mistake of literally slamming the potential
customer with a hard sales pitch with the first
autoresponder message – this won’t work.

You build interest slowly. Start with an informative
message – a message that educates the reader in
some way on the topic that your product or service
is related to. At the bottom of the message, include
a link to the sales page for your product. Use that
first message to focus on the problem that your
product or service can solve, with just a hint of the
solution.

Build up from there, moving into how your product or
service can solve a problem, and then with the next
message, ease into the benefits of your product –
giving the reader more actual information with each
and every message. Your final message should be
the sale pitch – not your first one! With each
message, make sure that you are giving the
customer information pertaining to the topic – free
information! This is what will keep them interested
in what you have to say.

This type of marketing is an art. It may take time to
get it exactly right. Use the examples that other
marketers have set for you. Pay attention to the
messages that you receive from other marketers.
Start a ‘swap’ file, and keep those messages. Use
some of the better sales copy for your own
autoresponder messages – just make sure that
yours doesn’t turn out to be an exact copy of
someone else’s sales message!

Remember not to start with a hard sale. Build your
potential customers interest. Keep building on what
the problem is, and how your product or service can
solve that problem or fill that need. If you are doing
this right, by the time the potential customer reads
the last message in that series, they will be
convinced enough to make a purchase!

Autoresponder Training Sessions

Autoresponders work very well when it comes to
training others. This is why autoresponders are the
perfect way to conduct email courses. But there are
other types of training that can be done with
autoresponders as well.

Even college professors have found a use for
autoresponders. They can use them to remind
students about upcoming tests, or to deliver study
guides. Since the information in that professor’s
course is taught over and over again each time a
new class comes in, this saves the professor a
great deal of time.

Autoresponders are also used by colleges to remind
faculty and students about upcoming events.
Because events are scheduled in advance, these
autoresponder messages are set up in advance,
and nobody has to depend on a secretary to get
those notices out!

Many businesses use autoresponders to keep their
employees trained. When new equipment is brought
into the office, and employees need to know how to
operate it, an autoresponder can be set up with
training instructions.

No matter what kind of business you are in, there is
a way that autoresponders can be used. The use of
an autoresponder will save quite a bit of time, and it
can also serve to make the people in your
organization much for effective.

Autoresponders – The More You Know, The More Effective They Are

If you have signed up with an autoresponder service,
you need to take the time to read the instructions to
learn how to use the service – before you load the
first word of your first message! Not knowing how to
use the service will lead to many mistakes, and
your customers and potential customers will most
likely see every mistake you make!

As soon as you have complete the sign up process,
load one email address into the autoresponders
mailing list – yours. If there is a manual or help file
for your autoresponder, read every word of it, and
really learn how to use all of the features of the
autoresponder.

Work with it, sending messages to your own address,
until you know your autoresponder service inside and
out! This may take a little time, but after a few hours
or so, you should know all that there is to know, and
you will be able to set your autoresponders up much
more effectively in the future. Taking the time to learn
now, will not only save time in the future, it may also
help you tweak and tune your autoresponder
messages and tracking in a way that increases your
responses!

Autoresponders and Spam – What You Need To Know

There are laws against sending spam. There are
even laws that you must adhere to when you send
out email that was requested. No matter what type
of email you are sending out, the chances are good
that the anti-spam laws apply to you in some way.

In order to be in compliance with the anti-spam laws
in various states in the US, each commercial email
that you send must include your name or business
name, your street address, city, state, zip code,
and phone number. You must also include
instructions that will allow the recipient to remove
themselves from your mailing list. If you fail to do
any of this, you are essentially breaking the law in
various states – no matter what state or country you
live in!

Protect yourself from spam complaints in any way
that you can. Make sure that when a customer
requests any type of information from you that an
email is sent requesting confirmation before any
other email is sent. If someone is placing an order
from you, include a check box on the order form,
asking for permission to send them periodic emails.
Never use your autoresponder to send unsolicited
commercial email!

Autoresponders and Shopping Cart Integration

When people place orders through your website, it
is always a good idea to immediately acknowledge
the purchase. One way to do this is with the use of
an autoresponder that can be integrated with your
shopping cart. In fact, many shopping carts that are
available today have their own autoresponders built
into the system.

When you set up your autoresponder to send a
message to someone that has placed an order,
there are several things that should be included in the
message. This is an opportunity to ‘speak’ to your
customer, and to let them know about other deals
that you have or special items that you have available.
You should not miss this opportunity.

Do not try to get your ‘thank you’ sales message on
the same autoresponder as the customers email
receipt. Putting the sales message on an email that
is automatically sent to grant the customer access
to their purchase is also a bad idea – that would go
better with the receipt. Make sure your ‘thank you’
sales message is a message that is sent out all by
itself, so your customer can focus solely on that!

Thank the customer for their recent purchase. Tell
them how much their purchase will help them, and
then tell them about other available products that
work well with the one that they just purchased, or
that are similar to the one that they just purchased
in some way. For instance hair conditioner works
with hair shampoo. Vacuum cleaner bags or carpet
powder works well with vacuum cleaners. Just let
them know about the various products that you offer
that will compliment their purchase in some way.

The important thing is to not let your customer get
away without further contact! Think about being in a
brick and mortar store. When you go up to the
counter to pay, there are many items there for sale.
These items are meant to be picked up as last
minute purchases, or impulsive purchases. Your
‘thank you’ sales letter serves the same purpose.

Don’t make the mistake of bombarding your
customer! You can usually send them periodic
information about your specials after they have made
a purchase through you, but emailing them on a
daily basis with your offers is not good business!
Use your autoresponder responsibly! Make sure that
your autoresponder is set up to handle automatic
remove requests, and make sure that the information
that you are sending your customers is of value
them.

Autoresponder Access to Secret Pages

People love to have access to things that other
people can’t get. It makes them feel special, and it
is a marketing tactic that really works. Granting
access to secret pages works well on the Internet.
It works best when it is limited. For instance, you
can grant access to only a lucky few, or you can
have a time limit for accessing the pages. You can
grant access to secret pages on your website with
an autoresponder.

The way this works is quite simple. You create a
directory on your website that is password protected,
with one login and password that everybody can use.
You then create some valuable content for that
directory. You can call this your secret vault or your
private stash or anything else you want to call it – as
long as it sounds like something that your visitors
may really want to get their hands on. For instance
‘the secret tools that helped me earn thousands
each month’ would probably entice many people
who want to learn how to make money.

Once you get the directory and the pages set up,
put the URL of the pages and the login name and
password in an autoresponder. Write a sales page
and distribute it to your opt-in list, or have other list
owners distribute it to theirs. Make sure you ‘limit’
the offer. Don’t let people assume that you are
going to share this secret information with the rest
of the world – they want to be the only ones with
this special access!

Keep access to the secret pages free. The goal is to
get people to those pages, so that they can purchase
your products or services. However, remember that
you’ve advertised secret tools or secret information.
Therefore, when they get to those pages, there must
be something of value there for them to collect – for
free in most cases. Don’t make the mistake of
thinking that you will be losing money by giving
something away for free – you won’t. In fact, you’ve
already gained by collecting the names and
addresses of the people who were interested in
your secret information!

Again, this is a marketing tactic that really works,
and it is a great way to use an autoresponder. Once
people have requested the information for your private
pages, you can email them periodically, using your
autoresponder, to let them know about updates to
the secret site. While you are updating them, you
can also tell them about other specials or new
products in your line.

Articles and Autoresponders

Writing articles to market a product or service is an
excellent way to build business. The articles should
be very informative, providing the reader with
information that is relevant to a specific topic. The
article usually includes a link to a webpage for more
information. The webpage, of course, is designed to
sell a product or service that relates to the topic of
the article.

These articles are commonly submitted to article
banks, websites, and ezine publishers. This is one
of the most effective ways to market a service or
product on the Internet, and it can become even more
effective when it is combined with the use of an
autoresponder.

Begin by setting each of your articles up in your
autoresponder. It is important that each article have
its very own autoresponder address, so you will
need an autoresponder service that will allow you to
do this. Next, make a master list of your articles, with
the autoresponder address for each article listed
beside the title. You can even add descriptions of the
articles on your master list if you want to.

Advertising your articles one at a time can take a
great deal of time…but advertising one autoresponder
address – the one for the master list – won’t take
very much time at all. Simply put it in your newsletter
and on your website. You can even allow other
ezine publishers to use this is a free resource for
their subscribers!