A Word About Autoresponders

By Ed Akehurst

You must learn about autoresponders if you intend on becoming (orimproving yourself as ) a Niche marketer, Article Marketer, or even a Bum Marketer.

One reason is that people expect prompt replies to their email inquiries. However, unless you can figure out how to work continual twenty-four hour shifts, or hire enough people to constantly monitor incoming emails (while they’re eating up your revenue), you have a problem. An autoresponder is an inexpensive - or even free - method of quickly responding to emails. What these programs do is automatically respond to incoming emails as soon as they are received.

Emails are essential to your business for many different reasons. Among the most important are immediate response time, ongoing communication, an ability to automate marketing, the ability to offer courses and timely information about your services or products, a chance to offer specials or discounts, and a way to obtain feedback form your visitors and customers. Maybe you want to offer your site visitors a special bonus of some kind, such as advice or relevant articles. All of this can be handled by an autoresponder. You can also advertise your business and then build stable relationships with your customers by using autoresponders.

An autoresponder is simply a program that automatically responds to your emails without you so much as having to click on your mouse (after you've set them up, that is). 

Autoresponder programs vary from software that runs with your email program to a specialized script that runs on your web hosting company’s server or through a service provided by an outside company (recommended). This kind of script may use a web page form or simply operate with your email account and is programmed to send out a standardized message whenever an email is received or when someone subscribes to your list. The message is sent to a particular script or email address. Some autoresponders can do more than simply send out standardized messages. They can send out an unlimited number of follow-up messages sent at predetermined interval of time. For example, you can set your autoresponder to send out a new message every day for as long a period as you desire. This is called an e-mail campaign.

There are numerous companies who offer autoresponders free of charge. Your website hosting company often provides autoresponders as a free service. If this is not the case with your web hosting company, there are numerous companies
who offer this service for a small fee, or free of charge, providing you attach an advertisement for their company to your emails.

To avoid having an advertisement on your e-mails and to have more control over your e-mail campaign settings and options, I recommend using a service. There are a number of good autoresponders you can use. Two of the best that I recommend are GetResponse and AWeber. Or go onto Google and you will find a long list of free autoresponder companies.

Autoresponders are an effective and powerful marketing tool, allowing you to make contact with thousands of potential customers. This is an invaluable asset considering how many potential customers you usually have contact with before you make an actual sale. Essentially, an autoresponser allows you to automate part or all of your marketing campaign.