An autoresponder, simply put, is an email program that can automatically reply to an email that is sent to it. You’ve seen it at work when you’ve emailed somebody and got “Sorry, I’m out of the office until such and such date and will respond to your email then.” This is one way to use an autoresponder, but we’re going to cover autoresponders the way internet marketers use them.

Autoresponders are like personal secretaries. They reply to every one of your customers who’ve just bought your product by giving them the thank you page and/or the download page with instructions on what to do.

Did you have to sit by your computer and wait for every order to come in so you could send out your digital product? No. Your personal secretary/autoresponder did it. Instead of being tied to the computer in order to respond, you can do other things like… sleep at night.

An autoresponder can send out a sequence of emails to your specifications. For example, if your customer just purchased a 10 part ecourse from you, they will get each part every other day or however often you set it up for. Let’s say someone signed up for your free report. You can send them support emails and other info in any sequence you want – the first one today, the next one in three days, etc. This is the ultimate in hands off.

Do you have a list? If you don’t have an autoresponder and you want to send the people on your list an email, you have to send it out individually. If you send too many in an hour, it can send up red flags to your email provider and they might think you are a spammer.

Autoresponders allow you to follow CAN-SPAM Act guidelines by having double opt-ins. A double opt-in gives people a chance to opt-in, then confirm that they did indeed opt-in. The whole process is done automatically with your autoresponder of course.

You can also use an autoresponder for your help desk, should you have one. When someone sends you a support ticket, your autoresponder can automatically confirm receiving the ticket and tell the person when they can expect an answer.

Another benefit of using an autoresponder is you can keep it personal when sending out information by using personalization fields. Hi (!firstname) at the top of your email will ensure the email goes out to each person with their first name at the top.

Your autoresponder can also respond automatically when someone unsubscribes from your list. It confirms they’ve unsubscribed and lets you know. Some will even ask them for feedback as to why they’re unsubscribing.

Did you notice how many times I used the word “automatically”? This is an important word to an internet marketer who has more than enough things to attend to every single day. An autoresponder can make your business run smoother and professionally, and give you back some time to do other things, like create new products.

Are you looking for an easy way to boost sales? E-mail marketing was highly popular several years ago, but with the growth of spam many people have decided that it’s not worth the effort. Although e-mail messages’ open-rates are lower than they were several years ago, email is still a highly effective sales tactic.

Here’s a combination you may not have considered — use a blog and autoresponder combination to reach your contacts and to make sales.

1. An Autoresponder Builds Your Relationship With Prospects and Makes Sales

Getting traffic to your website takes time and energy, as well as money. If you don’t have a way of capturing the e-mail addresses of your site visitors you’re throwing a lot of money away.

Use an autoresponder to capture e-mail addresses. You’ll need to give your site’s visitors an incentive to give you their e-mail addresses, so ensure that the incentive is valuable in itself because people are becoming more wary and won’t give their e-mail addresses as willingly as they used to do.

2. Why You Need a Blog: Because They’re Indexed Faster

A blog can do a great deal for your static website. While it can take a static website up to 12 months to become indexed by the major search engines, blogs are typically indexed very quickly. Your blog should be indexed within a week to a month, and from then on you can use your blog’s organic search engine traffic to direct visitors to your static site.

3. Combine Both Autoresponder and Blog for an Increase in Sales

Now you have both an autoresponder and a blog, it’s time to combine the two.

Most of the commercial autoresponder programs have an option which will send any blog posts you make to your e-mail list. Check the autoresponder’s help file for the instructions.

This process is very easy to set up. Once you have it working, any blog post you make will be sent out to your e-mail list. This happens automatically, you don’t have to do anything special. You still have the option to send out additional broadcast e-mails to your list whenever you wish, as well as sending out other messages.

It’s not uncommon for marketers to see an instant uptick in sales as soon as they make a blog post, because the blog post is sent to your email list at once, bringing traffic to your site and generating sales.

Need a fast flood of traffic? Try this great new social bookmarking and blog commenting tool. It works great if you’re using a blog and autoresponder combo.

You can profit from giving away stuff for “free” with an autoresponder. It’s an often-used Internet marketing strategy, simply because it works.

Here’s how.

Step 1: You need to set up another project directory on your Internet site. Come up with a universal password and user name which your present opt-in list folks will use and the new subscribers to your list. Name your new project “My Magic Steps To Astounding Weight Loss …” or something else which makes them want it. The next step may be the hardest part of the whole sequential autoresponder marketing tactic.

Step 2: Take the time to find some really valuable reports, eBooks, articles, scripts (are good), videos or perhaps software (Of course it must fit your niche market). Upload to your new directory for your subscribers. Make sure it’s free.

Step 3: Very Important! Prepare a short series of autoresponder messages (3 or 4) to go out to your list. They should create a buzz about what’s coming from “My Magic Steps To Astounding Weight Loss …”. If possible each of these messages should have a tidbit of good solid information. Naturally they will be in sequential order with the buzz building to crescendo. Space them out over a week. In fact your sequential autoresponder will distribute them in the order you set them up in.

Step 4: Write an intriguing and curiosity arousing conversational “sales page” about “My Magic Steps To Astounding Weight Loss … You must include the fact that this information/whatever are free. To make this tactic really work for you set a time limit or the number of people you are going to release this to. Make subscribers feel they are taking part in a very personal and private event.

A word of caution here! Don’t make the mistake of not shutting down your offer when you reach the total number of people or the deadline date. You could damage your credibility with your new subscribers and your old subscribers. When that happens you may find yourself losing leads instead of gaining them.

Now here’s the payoff…

Once all these good folks have opted in to your new list you can send out new notifications to them of what’s going on with your “”My Magic Steps To Astounding Weight Loss …”. You can also include information about other products which are in the same “niche market”.

Go ahead and try the sequential autoresponder marketing tactic. It still works and it can be very profitable when used properly.

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