Autoresponder Tips
What is an autoresponder?
An autoresponder is an essential tool for any online business. An autoresponder is a contact manager. When a website visitor opts in at a webform, giving you their name and email address, they get an immediate automatic response, personaly written to them from you around the clock in response to their inquiry.
Then, you get to follow up to remind them to visit your website(s) again. With the right kind of autoresponder follow up, targeted to your visitors interests, you can get them to take the actions you want, for example, more sales.
An autoresponder is absolutely indispensable for online business to make more sales. Years of sales research shows that it may take up to 7 exposures to your online offer for them to make a buying decision. ISP and web hosts autoresponders provide only one response.
If a person sent an email request, they received just one message back.
Unfortunately, to obtain full value and advantage from an autoresponder, this is inadequate. You must have a system that automatically provides a scheduled number of responses. For this you need a “sequential” type of autoresponder.
Why an autoresponder is a ‘must have’ for any internet business.
Marketing studies have well documented that it often takes 7 or more contacts before a prospective customer will purchase a product or service.
This is why major corporations run continuous ads in numerous media, even if solely for name recognition. The first time a person views your website, or ad for your product or service, they may not be ready at the precise time to make a purchase.
They are likely to soon forget your name. An autoresponder is the needed solution to these problems to dramatically increase your sales and customer retention. Simply - an autoresponder keeps your name and product or service in your prospective (or existing) customer’s mind.
How different types of autoresponders work.
Each of the autoresponders listed here are the sequential type. In other words, multiple scheduled messages can be sent. For example, you can use this type of autoresponder when a website offers a window to fill in a visitor’s email address to send them more information about a service or give away something of value to the visitor.
When this visitor person fills out a webform, this sends their name, email address and possibly other information requested from the webform to the autoresponder. They automatically receive a confirmation message, and then they will get followup messages you add to the autoresponder series.
You decide what gets sent and how often. For instance, you may schedule attractive follow up information that is targeted to their interest to be sent by the autoresponder monthly, weekly, or on an established schedule - 2 days later, a week later, 15 days later, 45 days later, 90 days later, etc. Newsletters and ezines (or electronic “magazines”) can also be setup as autoresponders.
These messages can be set up to educate your subscriber on the benefits and features of your product, service or opportunity. It then gives a link back to a page of your website to buy what ever the messages have high-lighted this month, for example.
What is the difference in costs?
There are two general types of autoresponders. Some have a one-time purchase, or a yearly license fee. You can place this autoresponder software on your computer or website. Some cgi or other technical knowledge may be required, but generally support is provided or the seller will do the installation for you.
This is actually not the type of autoresponders many professional online marketers choose to use and it is not my choice either due to some problems I will address in a moment.
The second type of autoresponder, and a better choice for many, is used via the Internet. You pay a subscription fee either monthly, quarterly, twice a year or yearly with deep discounts on cost for yearly, bi-annually or quarterly. These have easy to use interfaces even a novice can use and are usually fully supported. These are also easier for a beginner.
One dependable autoresponder I personally use and highly recommend is AWeber. I offer support and training on Aweber as part of my list building and online marketing membership system.
Here is what I love about Aweber:
- Online Live Support Chat
- Email Delivery 99+%
- Reliable well respected one of the oldest
- Fabulous features… see Videos
- Works great with my system - Sales Funnel Secrets!
- How important is email delivery to you? (remember our last autoresponder?) I made SURE to do the research before moving my system to a new autoresponder- Aweber is the best there is for delivery, cost, features and support!
- Excellent Customer Support & Aweber
Autoresponders accessed online by paying a monthly fee are extremely rich in their features. In the long run, the purchase of an autoresponder will generally be cheaper but the drawback is, if you want to build an ongoing residual income by recommending others use this same autoresponder you use, then the membership type internet-access autoresponder like AWeber is the one you want to choose.
You will also have greater flexibility depending on your technical skills (no special skills needed with AWeber) . Also higher-end autoresponders, with a significant number of features and related options will be more expensive for the one time purchase, where as the membership type is very feature rich yet still very easy to use, very user friendly for everyone.
On that point I must add ….
If you do have a question while you are using your autoresponder, the customer support at Aweber is the best via live chat, phone and email (6 days a week). This makes a big difference when your learning to use it. If I am working in Aweber and see something I don’t understand, I just open a live online chat and the issue gets resolved right then usually. I really like that.
Let me show you how to get an autoresponder series that self promotes your favorite autoresponder and other marketing tools and advertising resources, to help you build ongoing residual income streams out of all your costs for business resources. This has the wonderful benefit of transforming essential business costs into profit-makers all on auto-pilot and bringing you multiple residual income streams that keep growing.
If you know how to promote with automation (which an autoresponder makes possible), preferably with an automated system that promotes all your links, like my system, Sales Funnel Secrets, then a large advantage to a monthly paid type autoresponder, is the residual income when others get their own autoresponders through you. Basically it is a good investment.
Do choose the right one.
Another concern is spam and a very important issue may be liability. Having a third-party administer your autoresponder through a monthly-fee web subscription may help insulate you from spam-related liability if there is a question about opt-out requests being granted.
However, in all my years of experience, by using an optin form and
knowing what and how often to send your messages, and by sending pertenant useful information, this results in low opt out rates and nearly no complaints from your readers.
If you send the right kind of message series you can build trust with your subcribers. I show you how to cultivate trusting relationships with your list, as a member of Sales Funnel Secrets and how to get a preloaded series of autoresponder campaigns that has proven to get a good response from your subscribers.
Do free autoresponders work?
Some free autoresponders are available, but they are typically free because they are ad supported. Third party ads are included in your messages. This is not recommended and is counter-productive to your purpose. You want to look professional, and using a free ad-supported service will not do, just like your website is probably not hosted on a free ad-supported web host.
How do I learn what to send and how often?
If you want to learn how to write an email that can make your readers buy, watch these free videos. I promise, if you do, the first time you send an email and watch the sales pour in minutes later, you will be glad you spent that hour learning how to write an email from these 8 short videos.
I have a system that can not only teach how to use an autoresponder
but will also give you an Instant eNewsletter or ezine, preloaded with effective messages setup in a response pulling, relaionship building schedule. You can get dozens of pre-loaded campaign series for an ever growing list of marketing interests, all self promoting both your main offer, as well as all your buisness resources via your affiliate or referral links. This is easily customized with all your information and links using custom fields.
It comes supported with audio-visual lessons for you to easily impliment one step at a time. It also comes with live coaching and training to support you to perfect your auto-pilot marketing for anything you wish to promote online.
At Sales Funnel Secrets we give you shared AWeber campaigns with custom fields for your links, pre-written and pre-loaded to give you your own instant ezine or newsletter. If you do not yet have AWeber, go here to get it. And if you do have Aweber, be sure to get a Sales Funnel Secrets membership to compliment your investment.
Do contact the owner of Sales Funnel Secrets, Julie Wolf, if you have both, to have a chat, and answer any questions you may have. During beta pre-launch, she may even give you a special bonus, to save you loads of costs, if you get both AWeber from here and an upgraded Sales Funnel Secrets Elite membership, which includes coaching (normally $47/mo) free.
In conclusion, which autoresponder to choose…
A subscription service with a reputable company (like Aweber or even Get Response ) is a far better choice in most professionals marketers opinions. For one thing, your domain and email address are protected from spam complaints better than if you used your own autoresponder on your own domain and host.
For another thing, you do not have to maintain a relationship with the many major and minor ISPs and ESPs (internet Service Providers and Email Service Providers). More on that in a moment.
Another obvious advantage to subscription based autoresponders, like Aweber, is the residual income you get when others use it from your affiliate or referral link. Which my system does for you.
Deliver - we must talk about the importance of deliver.
You know how I mentioned your domain and email address are protected from spam complaints better with an internet based (hosted for you) subscription service type autoresponder like Aweber?
If an email service provider decides your domain is spaming, (perhaps due to complaints or even bouncing emails from bad addresses you have in your autoresponder lists), … your emails can get blocked to all your subscribers who have an email account with that email provider… even if they WANT to receive their subscription email messages from you.
Aweber and GR will consistently work hard on their relationship with all major providers to prevent automatically filtering your autoresponder messages to your subscribers, so you do not have to. Both Aweber and GR maintain a constant 99% + delivery rate. (Aweber just costs less once your list gets a certain size and does not advertise to your subscribers vs GR).
Whatever you choose, here is a post on my Aweber Tips Blog that you will find useful - independent study statistics of the top 10 Email Service Providers in 2006. Interesting stuff!
That study tells me how much work you would have to do if you buy your own autoresponder to maintain all those relationships with the providers for consistantly good delivery rates.
What ever autoresponder you choose, you MUST be sure it has a 99% plus delivery rate. I know how important this is because I used to use one for years that didn’t deliver. I am so happy with the dependable one I now use. It is fast and sure! The contrast is amazing.
If feels GREAT to have an autoresponder I know will deliver! What a difference it makes to have a top quality professional and reliable autoresponder like Aweber.
Thank you for reading. And good luck choosing an autoresponder!
Author Info:
Julie Wolf is the creator of the SalesFunnelSecrets system, Income Assurance Ezine and Newbie List Building Coaching (NLBC). Feel free to contact her for questions. Download Skype free here. Skype: juliewolf
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