by Leon Brickey

Autoresponders, also called "mailbots" or "infobots" are basically small programs used in emailing that will cause a service provider to automatically send a document to any user who sends an email to that autoresponder's email address.

Autoresponders are an absolute MUST for doing business on the internet. They are a powerful tool you can use to help automate your business. The problem is that they are misused or not used to their full potential by many online marketers. I'm sure most of you are somewhat familiar with autoresponders, but just for those who aren't let me very briefly cover the basics.

ALL autoresponders are NOT created equal! In addition to that; the cheapest price may not be best choice! Here are a few key points to keep in mind while shopping for autoresponders;

1) You MUST have control over your autoresponder documents at all times. In other words you must be able to upload a new document any time you want or need to.

2) Your autoresponder should be user friendly. Some autoresponder services require you to enter a particular email subject or email body in order to retreive the document you are requesting. These autoresponders will work, but they are more difficult for the user to understand and if the instructions aren't followed precisely your prospect gets NOTHING! Why take a chance on losing a prospect or a sale?

• Keep it simple. Remember K.I.S.S. keep it simple sweetheart or keep it simple stupid; whichever the case may be?. Set your autoresponder to send the document back to the person requesting it no matter what is in the subject or body of the message. When I advertise info on an autoresponder I say "Send any email to:". Most saavy marketers automatically recognize this as an autoresponder email address. This type of autoresponder will require you to have a separate email address for each various message you wish to offer.
• For example: healines@yourbiz.com (headlines report) and banners@yourbiz.com (for info on banners). These are not true email addresses. They are just an example.
• With the autoresponders that ARE NOT user-friendly one email address can control more than one document. Here is how they work: To get info on headlines you may email the address abc@yourbiz.com and enter HEADLINES in the subject. You may also get the info on banners by emailing abc@yourbiz.com, but you must enter BANNERS in the subject to get the banners document. However what happens if the prospect or customer enters headlines or banners in small letters? What if they put an exclamation point or a period? NOTHING! They get no info and you lose a contact.(ouch!) Again these email addresses are just made up to illustrate the example.
• Many autoresponders limit the size of your document/message. Be careful. If your AR will only send 15K or 30K messages maximum; that's gonna place limitations on how you use it. Get autoresponders that allow you to send unlimited size messages or at least very large messages.
• Also be sure you can send attachments; this will allow you to send more complex documents as well as graphics, etc. You may not need those extras now, but how about a few months down the road?
• Be sure you find out how quickly you can update your messages, set-up additional autoresponders, etc. as you need them. I think most of the more modern autoresponders allow you to change them yourself as needed, but I can tell you from experience there are some providers who have to change your message for you. A good rule of thumb is? STAY AWAY!
• Does the autoresponder log and save every email address that contacts it? Even better; does it forward the contacting email to you? This is critically important! If you get the email addresses you have a way of following up. If you don't get the email address?.what's the point? Bottom line; be sure you get at the very least the requesting email address and even better the requesting email message which of course also has the date and time of the contact. If the autoresponder you are considering doesn't get the email address or message to you? KEEP LOOKING!

Now??.THE DOWNSIDE.

Stay away from autoresponders that:

a) charge high set-up fees (more than $25 is unacceptable.)

b) charge more than $10 per month for the service.

c) charge you "per hit" or every time someone requests your document.

d) require you to send your document to some sort of service provider and THEY will take care of uploading your document for. You lose your ability to control and change the document.

Been there. Done that. FORGET IT!

Most marketers use autoresponders for sending out articles, sales letters, press releases, etc. They post their ads in classifieds, message boards, newsgroups, FFAs, discussion groups, forums, etc. urging readers to email the autoresponder for more info. Once you learn these basics and fine tune your ad copy you will get requests and sales.

Have you ever heard the words "back end products" or "back end sales?" Many of you have, but let's look a little closer.

We need an example to illustrate this, so I'm gonna use a business opportunity that I am somewhat familiar with. Just for this article let's say you are involved in reselling telecommunications type services. A VERY lucrative type product or service to market.

Let's say you sell long distance, calling cards, toll free 800/888 numbers, internet service, internet based fax services, internet phone telephone service, etc. And let's say you have a customer who decides to try your long distance service. Usually, you will receive email notification immediately of every sale or order.

You can simply set-up an autoresponder to send a very polite thank you note to the email address of the person placing the order. In addition you could include some valuable info regarding the product or service the customer just placed. (specials, updates, changes, etc.)

After the thank you and the valuable info you can now offer a product or service that is pertinent to the product or service the customer just signed up for?..

So you have a small business owner as a long distance customer. You acknowledge him as a customer, thank him, give some valuable information which is pertinent to the service, and include some info on toll free 800/888 toll free numbers, internet based fax services or internet phone telephone services. These are all products that your new customer may be interested in. You know that because the customer just purchased telecommunications services from YOUR website. So the chances the customer may be interested in other telecommunications services is pretty good.

At the end of the email tell the customer that you will keep them updated regarding any special offers or new services from time to time. Then give them remove instructions in case they prefer not to receive anymore email from you. What this does is send a sales letter for your OTHER products and services along with the thank you and free info that pertained to their recently purchased service. Keep this email short; one to two pages at most.

So how can I do this Leon?

It's as simple as putting your autoresponder address in the recipient list of the submission form the customer signs up on. If it's your own product and your own online form; no problem. About 10 seconds work and it's done. If you are working someone else's associate program you will have to ask to see if you can get your AR address in the recipient list of the submission form used from your website. I can tell you it's no problem with some associate programs to make this modification, but I can't speak for all.

A very small percentage of these customers will ask to be removed. Don't worry about that. Just kindly remove them and thank them. The good that will come from this is that you now have "white hot" qualified leads for your other telecommunications products and services. When the customer signs up for 800 numbers and internet based fax; these are what marketers call "back end sales." This is not theory this is PROVEN to be quite effective. Anyone with past experiences in business opportunities (offline or online) will probably be familiar with the value of "back end sales." Back end sales will cause your profits to skyrocket!

Another way you can make autoresponders work for you is by using them in conjunction with your website.

I've had a couple of my ezine subscribers ask me if they could capture email addresses from all the visitors to their site. Unfortunately no. The browsers folks use to visit your website will tell you what domain they are from, what the last url they visited was, but it will not give you the email addresses.

Here are a few ways to get the email addresses of your visitors.

First, guest-books have been popular on the web for some time. An electronic guest book; no different than a guest-book in a hotel except it's on the internet and it's electronic of course. Visitors sign in and leave their email addresses, website url, along with some feedback on your website. If the website is yours and it's your guest-book you may be able to modify the guest-book to hit your autoresponder and send the guest-book entry a follow-up email.

However even if you can't configure the guest-book with your autoresponder you still get the email address; which is what you wanted anyway.

Secondly, you can offer a free newsletter. This is VERY POWERFUL! Allow folks to sign up for your free ezine/newsletter from your site. You can easily set-up an autoresponder to send a thank you and confirmation of their subscription as soon as the visitor subscribes. Of course your sig-file will be at the bottom of the "thank you/confirmation email." After that you get to send the subscriber information regularly by email which costs you NOTHING except your time!

The third method would be to offer any reports you have displayed on your website in email format via autoresponder. This way folks can save the report for future reference or they can print the report and lie on the couch and read it instead of sitting in that tiring office chair. You get the email address of anyone requesting a report from your site and can follow-up. I've had very good luck with this method. If you write decent reports folks will request them and read them.

Let me inject one point about autoresponders and email. Many of us in the US have "unlimited" internet access for a flat fee of $20-30 per month. Not so in most other countries and not always true in the US. Many folks pay by the hour in 15 minute increments. By offering your sales information/ newsletter/ article in email format you allow the individual to download the email in a couple seconds and read it at their convenience. This is a tremendous help to those folks and I guarantee you they will more likely read it in email format than if they had to stay online to read it from your website. Enough said?.

Next I want to touch on the autoresponders that do automatic follow-up.

These type autoresponders have been popular for the last 9-12 months. The concept of 'following-up" is great. Lots of studies to prove it's value. AWeber (http://www.aweber.com/?22124) offers these auto follow-up autoresponders. They aren't cheap, but they do have value in marketing online. Also you can get a free autofollow-up autoresponder from email super-guru Sanford Wallace at http://www.smartbot.net/. The only requirement to receive one Sanford's autoresponders is to be on his mailing list; which is a serious mailing list. These autoresponders do work.

Let me inject a very brief point about the autofollow-up autoresponders. The idea is great; it's proven that you close a MUCH HIGHER number of sales by following up. However, you have to have good copy writing to do this. Actually several other marketing strategies come into play here such as sweetening the offer, placing a time deadline on the offer, etc.

In the last couple months I've hit many of these auto-follow up autoresponders just to see how they designed the follow-up emails. Some were OK. Some were horrible! I received one that in the subject said: ARE YOU DEAD?!!! In the body of the message they made the reader feel like a fool's fool for not already responding to the offer. I'll tell you this, 6 or 7 follow-up emails like that and you'll never make a sale to any of your prospects. Along with all the ideas any marketers are willing to share with you NONE will help you any more than being able to write good headlines and ad copy writing! It's a must!

As I said earlier I like the idea of getting my autoresponders through my web host which is Virtualis (http://www.virtualisys.com/vr/lbrickey). This way the autoresponders have my domain name appalachianmarketing.com. A very good place to get quality autoresponders outside your webhost is Infoback.net at http://www.infoback.net/. I've used their services in the past and they are affordable and top notch. I'm not a reseller for Infoback so this is an unbiased opinion. However, if you need more than a few autoresponders you would benefit more from a web host that offered unlimited autoresponders for the flat fee.

That's it for now. I welcome your feedback. If you have any good autoresponder techniques feel free to let me know and we'll discuss them also. I hope this has helps you in your marketing efforts.

It really doesn't matter what you are selling; whether it's books, software, golf clubs, vacations, or automobiles you can incorporate many of these ideas into your marketing programs.

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