Using Your Autoresponder to Generate Leads

Autoresponders are one of the most important marketing tools that you can have if you are doing business online. In fact, the only thing more important that the autoresponder is your opt-in list! But all autoresponders start out without a list – the list doesn’t exist until your autoresponder mailing list starts filling up with names and email addresses!

The easiest and fastest way to build up an email list is to give things away for free. Some marketers will tell you that this is a waste of time – and if you already have a list of one hundred thousand people that you can market to, then it probably is. But for those who do not already have a list, this is the way that it gets built! You simply pay for advertisement to promote your freebie. Don’t think of this as lost money, think of it as an investment in future earnings.

Give away an ezine, free reports, free ebooks, free access to private websites, or anything else that you can think of. The object is to get people to sign up to receive that freebie, and to agree to receive email from you in the future! It is a win-win situation for everyone, but you get more than anyone else in the deal. The person gets a freebie. You get their name and email address, and permission to email them in the future.

But if you do it right, you get even more than that. The freebie that you give away should also be used to promote your products or services. Even if it just has affiliate links for products or services that are related to the topic of the freebie, it is a way to generate extra revenue. Then, when you send email in the future, you can again promote your products or services. Just be sure to include valuable information in the email as well, or you will have people dropping off of your autoresponder mailing list like flies!

Using every opportunity that is presented to you in the world of Internet Marketing is vital to your success. You have the opportunity to earn money in the freebie that you create, you have the opportunity to earn money when you send the ‘thank you’ email after a person has requested your freebie, and you have the opportunity to earn money every time an autoresponder message is sent out to that list in the future! Don’t waste those opportunities, and put it all in automatic mode with the use of an autoresponder.

Tracking Autoresponder Responses

As an Internet marketer, it is vitally important to know how well your advertising campaigns are doing. Advertising campaigns cost a lot of time and money, and campaigns that are not doing well need to either be changed or scraped. When using autoresponders for purposes of Internet marketing, you will be able to tell how well your autoresponder messages are doing by using response tracking.

Autoresponder response tracking is usually easily set up with the higher quality paid autoresponder services. Using the tracking set up tool, you simply enter the web site address that you want your readers to visit, and the software generates a brand new URL. This URL is used track the number of clicks that you have from the autoresponder message to the website that you are promoting.

When a person clicks on that special URL, the click is captured, and they are automatically redirected to the website that you intended them to arrive at. The visitor does not know that they have been redirected in most cases. You can monitor the results through the control panel of your autoresponder service account. The control panel will tell you how many messages were delivered, and how many clicks were received. Most quality autoresponders will even include a feature that allows you to track how many of the emails were opened. This is a great marketing research tool for mass email marketing.

Not all autoresponder services offer tracking abilities such as this. If tracking is important to you, you need to make sure that this is one of the features of the autoresponder service before you sign up. This feature gives you the ability to know whether the message you are sending out is effective, or if changes need to be made. It also allows you to see if the sales copy on your website is effective, in a ‘round-about’ way. For instance, if you are gettingthousands of clicks from the autoresponder message, but very few clicks from the sales page to the order page, you know that the autoresponder message is working, but the sales copy is failing.

If you have never tracked your autoresponder responses before, you should definitely consider it. Again, this information allows you to find out what is working, and what is not working. It will essentially make your autoresponder marketing much more effective and profitable. You will most likely be very surprised at the results of the tracking!

The Difference Between Autoresponder Programs and Autoresponder Services

Many newcomers to the Internet marketing arena are not aware that there is a vast difference between an autoresponder program and an autoresponder service. Not knowing the difference, they often purchase the wrong type of autoresponder, and find out too late that they have wasted money on a program that is useless to them.

An autoresponder program is a program that is set up on your web server. This is usually a free autoresponder that comes with your web hosting account. Many people don’t like to use autoresponder services; so instead, they use an autoresponder program that they have more control over. Some of those people don’t like the autoresponder programs that come with their hosting accounts either and purchase autoresponder programs or scripts that must be installed on their web server.

Other people are quite happy with using an autoresponder service. This is a service that is usually paid for on a monthly or yearly basis. The fees are ongoing, and everything is browser based. In other words, you can set up your autoresponder messages and manage your opt-in list through your web browser – just as you can with an autoresponder program that is installed through your web hosting account. The difference is that the service runs on the autoresponder service’s web server – not yours or your web hosts.

Beginners are usually better off using an autoresponder service. These services are very easy to understand and to use, and no technical knowledge is needed to set things up. As a newcomer to the field, however, you might be concerned about the costs of an autoresponder service. If this is the case, you have the option of signing up with a free autoresponder service.

Free services make their money by placing advertisements in each autoresponder message that you send out. Sometimes these ads appear at the top of your messages, and sometimes they appear at the bottom. Some of the free services are simply an enticement to purchase the professional version, and have many of the more advanced features, such as tracking, disabled.

More advanced users often choose to use autoresponder programs, simply because they have more control over the autoresponder, and they don’t have to follow some of the stiffer rules imposed by autoresponder services, such as sending confirmation to each and every person who is entered into the autoresponders list.

The autoresponder that you choose is strictly up to you, but in most cases, an autoresponder service should suit your needs. If you are unsure, look for a service that offers free signups, with the option of upgrading to the professional paid version at a later date.

Powerful Autoresponders – Does Yours Measure Up?

Autoresponders are very necessary when it comes to marketing or taking care of customers. But the power of an autoresponder, or the lack of power, can mean the difference between success and failure.

When you use an autoresponder service, you must make sure that the domain that the autoresponder uses isn’t blacklisted by the spam watch groups. If it is, your messages probably won’t make it past the majority of spam filters, no matter how much you check it with spam checkers.

Also, not having the ability to track responses can cost you business. If you can’t track response rates, you won’t have any way of knowing whether your messages are doing you any good. A good autoresponder will provide the ability to track responses. If yours doesn’t, you might want to shop for a new autoresponder.

The ability to add and remove names to your autoresponder manually is vital. Often, people will
contact you without going through your autoresponder. These people need to be put on the autoresponders mailing list. If you are moving your list from one service to another, you need the ability to import names and addresses to your list. Again, if your autoresponder service isn’t powerful enough to allow this, look for a different one!

aspect of customer support

Customer service like this is almost impossible to achieve on the Internet, but some semblance of it can exist when you personalize your autoresponder messages. Autoresponder messages can be set up to address people by their first or last name – or both. In fact, there is quite a bit of personalized information that can be added, depending on the autoresponder that you are using.

The information is included in the autoresponder messages by using codes. Each autoresponder will use different codes to insert the information in your messages. You simply write your message, and put the codes where you want the personalized information to appear. For instance, your message may start out with ‘Hello (code for first name)! In this case, the person’s first name will be inserted where that code is.

Personalizing your autoresponder messages will most likely improve your response rate. Research has shown that emails that are personalized with the person’s first name are opened more often, and those people are generally more receptive to the contents of the email message. It is usually very easy to do. You write one message, using the codes where you want the personalization, then, no matter who that one email is sent out to, their personal information will appear where the codes are.

Of course, the autoresponder must collect the information first. This is done with the use of forms that activate the autoresponder. For instance, if you are giving away a free ebook, and you have your visitor fill out a form with their email address to receive the download instructions for the ebook by email, that form should collect any type of information that you want for personalization – such as a first name, as well as the email address. If that information is not collected, the autoresponder won’t have anything to insert where that code appears in your messages!

Take a look around the control panel of your autoresponder, and find out what type of personalization you can add to your autoresponder messages. You may be very surprised at the
improved results!

Motivate Your Downline with Autoresponders

Many affiliate marketers have a hard time building a downline – and an even harder time keeping downline members motivated and selling. If your incomedepends on the sales of others, you should strongly consider keeping them motivated with autoresponders.

You can load your autoresponder with positive messages, sales tips, and news related to the
product or service that is being sold. Many affiliates fail simply because they don’t know how to market a product, and they have little or no support from affiliate managers or up line members! With the use of autoresponders, all of that can change.

You should definitely write on some marketing tips, specific to your product or service, and set you downline members up in the mailing list for that series of messages. Send broadcast messages once a month congratulating the top sellers. Send short motivational articles that will keep your downline member upbeat.

Failing to communicate with your downline members is the same as ensuring that they fail at the business in most cases. If you want to succeed in affiliate marketing, you have to take steps to help your downline succeed!

Invoicing with Autoresponders

If you have recurring invoices that you send out, you can easily automate this process with autoresponders. Many business owners find that they spend a good portion the day sending out invoices, or trying to collect on unpaid invoices! This can easily eat into the time that you
could be spending generating new business.

If the amounts invoiced are the same each month, and due on the same day each week or month, you can easily automate the invoicing process with the use of an autoresponder. Many shopping carts that have autoresponders built in work well for this. Others may take a little time to set up, but in the end, they will save a great deal of time overall.

Get extra usage out of the automated invoicing process by adding small messages to the invoices that alert these clients to new products or services that you offer. Think about your phone bill – doesn’t your phone company send out additional sales material with each bill? There is no reason you shouldn’t use this same marketing technique with your autoresponder invoices!

Improper Uses of Autoresponders

Autoresponders are wonderful! They can be used for a variety of things, but there are several ways that autoresponders should not be used. Using autoresponders in improper ways will make things a bit more difficult for other people, and it could make things really bad for you!

Having one autoresponder respond to another autoresponder creates chaos, and in some cases, it can overload servers. This happens when you sign up for something, using yourautoresponder email address. You sign up, and a message is sent to someone else’s autoresponder, which responds to your autoresponder, which responds to that autoresponder – and this continues on and on until it is manually stopped and straightened out.

Some people use their autoresponder address on purpose when they sign up for discussion lists. In effect, this causes an their autoresponder message to be sent to the entire list, or to one person on the list, each time a person sends a real message to the discussion list. Needless to say, discussion list members and owners frown on this practice, and the autoresponder owner gets banned.

Avoid these problems and use your autoresponder in ways that it was meant to be used. Do not use the autoresponder irresponsibly! Not only will you create problems for others, but you may find that you get reported for spam!

How Important are Autoresponders to Internet Marketing?

Internet Marketing and autoresponders essentially go hand-in-hand. In today’s online business world, you simply cannot succeed at Internet marketing without the use of autoresponders. Autoresponders are used to achieve many of the marketing tasks that are essential to a successful online business.

Internet marketing can be very time consuming. Whether you do affiliate marketing or market your own products, an autoresponder is a big part of your marketing arsenal. Autoresponders are used to keep in contact with your past customers, and to develop a relationship with potential customers.

An autoresponder can be used to deliver sales messages to your opt-in customer list. It can be
used to deliver email courses, to send reminders, and even to help you build an opt-in list if you don’t already have one. There are many creative ways you can use your autoresponder to make more sales and to build customer relations.

Any successful marketer will tell you that there are two tools that are vital to any type of online
marketing – an opt-in list and an autoresponder. In fact, most marketers will agree that you could take away all of their other marketing tools, but they would fight to the death to keep the list and the autoresponder!

Give Potential Customers A Preview With Autoresponders

Building customer interest and excitement is the first step to successfully marketing many products. Autoresponders play a vital role in building this interest and excitement. For instance, if you were developing an ebook, you may want to start telling your website visitors and opt-in subscribers about it. Start building interest; tell them what this product will do for them, and how soon it will be available.

Do more than build interest by telling them about it. Use an autoresponder to let them preview your product! Even though you will be selling the product, you can allow your potential customers to preview the information. Have you ever seen previews for movies that will be playing intheaters soon? It is the same concept.

Load one chapter of the ebook into an autoresponder, and put a form on your website where your visitors can enter their name and email address to receive the preview chapter free of charge. This gets their name on your list of potential customer. Each week, send a reminder email, letting them know how close the release date is, and what they can expect from your product – keep building interest and excitement.

Finally, a couple of days before you are ready to launch your product offer those that received the preview the option to buy a pre-release copy. You canopt to offer a discounted price, or leave the price as it will be on launch day – the choice is yours.

Take a look at the list of people who signed up to receive the preview. How many of them are still ‘ subscribed’ to that list? They’ve had the option to stop receiving notices about your product, but they chose to keep receiving the information you were sending. These are highly targeted prospects for your product. They have already shown you that they have an interest in your product, and a large number of those people are simply waiting on the autoresponder broadcast message that will let them know that it is time to pick up their copy of your product!

Isn’t automation a wonderful thing? Using an autoresponder, you are able to see how much of a
market there is for your product, and build a great deal of interest in it before it is ever released. This isthe key to making sales on launch day. Use autoresponders to build the interest. Get your prospects excited about what is about to come – andon launch day, give them what they are waiting for andwatch the sales pour in!