May 2002

Computer / Automation Technique
Autoresponders Part I
More techniques

An autoresponder is a piece of software that receives an email and sends back a response or multiple responses automatically. You could equate it to the email version of fax on demand where someone calls a phone number and requests documents to be faxed back to them. The system does it automatically.

Autoresponders are tremendous time savers for you and give immediate gratification to your clients and prospective clients.

SIMPLE AND SEQUENTIAL

There are two types of auto responders. A simple autoresponder receives an email from a person and sends back one email response to that person. A sequential autoresponder not only sends back the initial response, but sends additional responses at prearranged intervals.

Simple
Simple autoresponders are used for various responses to simple and repeated questions. For instance: Let's say you have advertising rates for your ezine. You don't want to have to personally email everyone that is interested in finding out what your rates are. So you set up an auto responder that emails them automatically for you. In my case if you mailto:sponsor@antion.com you will get an email back with the current advertising rates and guidelines. I also give them a web page to visit with the same info http://www.antion.com/sponsor.htm . Remember we want to make it easy for people to do business with us on their terms. Some would prefer email and some would rather visit a web page.

In many cases your web hosting service gives you autoresponders for free. Check with them first. On some of my hosting accounts I get 30 different simple autoresponders included in my web hosting fee. When I say 30 different autoresponders I mean that you can have thirty different automated messages. You would have thirty different email addresses to match. Another one I have is mailto:linktrade@antion.com

Even if they aren't free from your host, they are probably dirt cheap like a dollar a month or something like that. If your host doesn't provide them, there are tons of other companies who will be happy to accommodate your needs. Just type in "cheap" or "free" autoresponders into any major search engine and you'll find more than you need. NOTE: Always keep in mind when I say a service is "free" they are probably going to tie in an ad to your service. To get ad free services you probably have to pay a small monthly fee.

Sequential
Sequential autoresponders are much more powerful marketingwise than simple autoresponders. They can be used to deliver continued followup to prospects urging them to buy. They can be used to deliver either free or paid E-courses and they can be used to give ongoing customer service.

Here's how it works: Instead of composing one response message to be delivered to a person requesting it, you compose several or many messages. You put them in the autoresponder interface screen on your computer and you tell the autoresponder how many days to wait before delivering the next message in the sequence. Usually the first message goes out immediately and then the follow up messages go out at any interval you set.

I use this to deliver my 7 day mini course. The first message goes out immediately upon request and another message goes out automatically each day thereafter for the next six days.

You could have the follow up messages going out once a week or once a month if you want. Better systems allow variable time between the messages. So instead of regular daily, weekly or monthly intervals you could set the first follow up message to go out after three days, the next message after 7 days and the next message after that in 15 days or whatever you want.

When I first started I used http://www.aweber.com as my sequential autoresponder company. In fact, I still do because I have over a million emails out there with the address to that system that I felt it was a good idea to keep it even if it's not the best deal anymore. You can get the course by sending an email to  mailto:minicourse@aweber.com .

Better deal
The reason aweber is not such a good deal anymore is that http://www.kickstartcart.com the high end smart shopping cart system I sell has an unlimited number of sequential autoresponders plus all the really advanced shopping cart, upsell and database features all rolled into one for about the same cost as one or two autoresponders from aweber.

Even better deal
http://www.kickstartcart.com has a feature that allows the autoresponders to be tied to a product purchase instead of an email request. This is an unbelievably powerful feature not even found in many custom programmed shopping carts cost 50 times more.

What this means to you is that when a customer purchases a an item from KickStartCart they automatically subscribe themselves to an autoresponder sequence that can be used to reduce buyer remorse and returns, give extra customer service and upsell the customer to additional purchases, thus extracting more money from the same number of visitors to your website store.

When you purchase http://www.kickstartcart.com I give you an hour long orientation which will save you many hours of figuring the features out on your own.

In Part II I'll tell you the strategies I use to write follow up autoresponder messages to help you gain much higher levels of customer satisfaction and to make more money.