Autoresponders – Email Marketing On Autopilot

Autoresponders are your most important email marketing tools. They allow you to fully automate your email marketing efforts. It will take some time to set it up correctly, but the rewards will be great.
And if you follow this email marketing series, it’s a snap to set things up the right way from the beginning.

So, let’s dive into this.

There’s a misconception about autoresponders that we first have to get out of our way in order to discuss the topic properly.

Basically, an autoresponder is a little piece of software that fires back a pre-defined email message if that software is triggered by sending an email to it. They were originally used to create bounce messages if an email couldn’t be delivered, such as “your e-mail could not be delivered because…” type responses.

The term ‘autoresponder’ however is also often used for an automated email follow up system. Such a system is a very sophisticated form of autoresponding.
It consists of a series of pre-defined messages sent out over a pre-defined period of time, often covering a specific topic.

That’s how we will use the term. So remember, if we talk about an autoresponder, we actually mean a fully automated email follow up system.

Why is this so important?

Because it’s the follow up that creates a relation with your prospects and further develops the one you have with your customers. And autoresponders can send email messages through various stages of the marketing process.

Like once an online sale has been made i.e. when the payment information has been authorized, the autoresponder can be programmed to send an immediate thank you for the sale, a payment identification and a confirmation of the order to the customers email address, possibly with a download link for the product bought.

Autoresponders could also be set up to send one or more email messages to a customer every week for any number of weeks.
Thus you can give your visitors detailed instructions for a product they’ve bought. This essentially takes away the guess work from follow up. After all, it’s fully automated!

Then, of course, there are the backend products.
Once your customer follow up service has done its work, you can use the autoresponder to broadcast pitches for other products.
Mind you, these visitors already have bought from you, so they kind of trust you already.
It’s much easier to sell to a customer than it is to a prospect.

And of course you can also use autoresponders for follow up in lead generation.

When your visitors sign up for your newsletter for instance, you can welcome your new subscriber and provide control functions for changing the subscription and instructions to download a valuable report.
Afterwards, you can send them as many broadcasts as you like, thus turning your autoresponder into a powerful mailing list management service.

Or, you can give them a step-by-step e-course or send a number of timed emails that provide an overview of your business.

Autoresponders provide a feeling of fluidity of communication with the customer.
The customer likes the feeling of quick responses that autoresponders provide. It is like someone from the selling company is always there to look out for the customer. This big C (communication) results in a greater volume of sales and better customer relationships.
It helps in building customer loyalty and a better sense of interaction with the customer.

Autoresponders are the next big thing in email marketing and they have arrived big time.
Don’t get left out, follow this series to successfully implement your autoresponder system!

Now, in the next issue we’ll discuss how autoresponders work and which parts you definitely should use.

Share this post using these icons:

Related Posts