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Just what is an autoresponder?

Written by: Helen Dowling

Article Overview: The word ‘Autoresponders’ has been used more and more over the last few months and pretty much all of us have now experienced them even if you don’t yet realise it. But just what is an autoresponder and why should you think about using one in your business?

Just what is an autoresponder?

The word ‘Autoresponders' has been used more and more over the last few months and pretty much all of us have now experienced them even if you don't yet realise it. But just what is an autoresponder and why should you think about using one in your business?

Well, let me explain.

The simplest form of an autoresponder is when you send a message to someone and you immediately receive an email back that tells you that person is out of office. This email will have been sent automatically (no human response was required) and it will have responded to you - hence the name autoresponder.

You will have also probably seen an autoresponder if you've purchased products off of a website. Take Amazon for example or Ebay. If you've purchased something from Amazon or made a bid on Ebay, the chances are high that you will have immediately received an email from the company confirming your purchase or your bid.

And you may have seen autoresponders at work if you've subscribed to a newsletter from a website. In most cases now, you will have immediately receive an email from the company concerned welcoming you to the website with a copy of the newsletter.

Now, trust me when I say that a human is not sitting there at all times of the day or night responding to messages that come in from a website or order confirmations - these emails are sent automatically from you by a computer programme that has been specifically written for this purpose.

But, why should you care? What has this got to do with your business?

Now (hopefully) you've got your head around what an autoresponder is, I want you just to think for a minute about the power of autoresponders and how they can help your business.

Imagine that while you're on holiday, a potential customer visits your website. On your website, you have a mechanism to allow someone to subscribe to receive some top tips about your product or service. The potential customer is interested in what you do and then signs up to receive these.

These tips are sent to the customer automatically while you're relaxing on your holiday. Over the next few days, the customer receives more tips and helpful information all while you're soaking up the sun on the beach. By the time you come back, the customer has been so impressed with all the free information that they've been receiving that they've placed an order for your products or services.

Now ok, there is a bit of work required here - you'll need to write the tips and useful information in advance and put them into a series of emails that the customer receives over the next few days or weeks. But, once you've done that, a potential customer will receive this series of emails over time from you even while you're asleep.

And it will happen with every new customer without you even thinking about it. You'll be perceived as being helpful and useful and you'll be building a relationship with your potential customer while massively reducing the time you take on this activity.

You can even set up a series of emails so that everytime a customer purchases a product or service from you, they get emails automatically to encourage them to purchase more from you.

I'm only giving you a brief introduction to autoresponders here, but the power of them for building a relationship with your customers and reducing the amount of time you spend doing your marketing is immense.

So, where do you go to get an autoresponder? Well, there are a number of packages already out there including Constant Contact, 1ShoppingCart and theautoresponder to mention but a few. Have a look at them and see whether they are for you.

But for now, just consider the benefits that autoresponders could make to your business - if you understand that, you can definitely take your business to the next level - automatically!

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Article Tags: amazon, autoresponder, autoresponders, computer programme, ebay, email, human response, simplest form



Related Forum Posts
AWeber as Autoresponder - I've been using AWeber as my autoresponder program for over a year. I researched a lot of companies and AWeber at that time had the highest delivery rate in the business. They are considered a very reputable company by many email hosting companies. They also offer the subscriber double opt in option to protect you from spam complaints. They deliver emails very quickly when someone signs up. You actually get to check the time the person signed up and when it arrived in their email box. I've rarely had undeliverable emails with AWeber. It could be because I check all of my work on their spam filter guide before I send it out. It's obviously a great filter. Their customer service has been great. I have to admit I've had a few issues with my ezine when I've imported information from Word, but they seem to have that problem ironed out now. I must say it really is important to be sure on who you want to go with. I had some serious glitches with my previous autoresponder company. It seemed they were losing email addresses from my account. I had several people I know telling me they had signed up to receive my ezine (newsletter) and there was absolutely no record of them on the autoresponders behalf. My web traffic stats proved people had even gotten to the thank you for signing up page. The people who were dropped could tell me what I had written so they were definitely telling me the truth. Hence my diligent search for a new company began in early 2007! I personally wouldn't think of going to a different autoresponder now, knowing that it is really important to me that my subscribers actually get my information. I don't want to end up in some one's spam filter! My current web hosting company offers its own autoresponder as part of my package, but I simply won't take the risk of going with an unproven system. I'd rather pay the $20 a month to AWeber. Hopefully, this helps. Best wishes in your search, Tami
aweber - At RSC Business Group Inc., we plan on using Aweber for sending out Newsletters and to use as an autoresponder to inform clients of upcoming seminars they showed interest in attending.
Re: Moderator Update, April 2011 - Hi guys - I put a shout out to the forums in my newsletter which is why we got that spike in new members asking questions recently. I also put it in my autoresponder so it'll be exposed to new people every day who are in my newsletter list.
Autoresponder v Blog Feed Subscriptions... - Hi folks, Autoresponders are a vital online tool for building and communicating with your list. But they are not the only tool for getting subscribers... Another tool is your blog feed, and just as with an autoresponder, you can post a sign up box on your site to get people to subscribe to your blog feed. If everything else is equal, I have a feeling that people might be more willing to sign up to a blog than to join a list. For one thing, most autoresponder forms are set up to require both name and email address whereas a blog feed only requires an email address. Also, inviting someone to join a blog feed seems "self explanatory" whereas some kind of inducement or justification is needed when asking someone to join a mailing list. The only problem with blog feeds is that (as far as I know) you don't get a list of subscribers' email addresses. However, using a blog feed to get subscribers could be a good first step to building a relationship with your website visitors... You can then post various list building offers as blog posts to get your blog subscribers to further commit and opt in to one or another of your lists. That might also make your respective lists more responsive (because more closely targeted and qualified). What do you think? And what do you do? Thanks, DH
Re: What newsletter program to use? - I use Constant Contact for myself and Aweber for a client who needs the autoresponder features. Aweber is also great for integration with PayPal. However, I don't like designing using Aweber. I design using Expression Web 2, then copy paste the codes.


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