Autoresponders
Autoresponders are a great help in converting leads to sales.
When a visitor to your site is enthusiastic enough to leave their
email address you have a lead or subscriber which in time could
become a loyal customer. Autoresponders capture these email
addresses into a database and automate the process of following up
on the leads.
To appreciate their benefits lets consider what happens without
one. Good customer service requires at the very least that you
answer emails where necessary. Whether its the same question that's
been asked over and over again, a thankyou for an order, or welcome
to new subscribers you need to send a reply email. To do manually is
both a huge waste of time (your most precious resource) and an
extremely boring and frustrating exercise.
Autoresponders can be set to automatically answer emails either
with a single reply or set of messages. For instance you can program
the autoresponder to send a welcome message as soon as the visitor
enters an email address at your site. You could set it up to send a
sequence of emails at regular intervals with tips or training
courses etc to all the names in the database.
Very few people respond to the first massage especially if it
involves them having to part with hard earned cash. Most need some
subtle reminders of the offer. Experts have shown that it often
requires 7 or more follow-ups before prospective customers actually
make a purchase.
With an autoresponder you can personalize messages to your
subscriber base e.g. you can address the message recipients by name
etc which is of great benefit when establishing relationships with
your subscribers. You are far more likely to read something
addressed to you personally instead of some obviously mass produced
message.
Another giant plus with autoresponders is that you can track what
happened to the message. Was it delivered? was the email opened?
Emails must give the recipient the option of removing themselves
from your database and you can track who exercised that option. See
at what stage of the series of messages they ditched your offering.
"Free" autoresponders.
There are many free autoresponder services available. Most web
hosts offer limited feature autoresponders. Normally you are limited
to one response message rather than a sequence and off course if you
change web host you lose the autoresponder too. Other "free"
services send your emails out with adverts or links to their
services on them which is not desirable or professional looking.
Personally I think you are crazy to even contemplate using free
autoresponder services but in case you disagree I'll even point you
in the right direction. Take a look at freeautobot.com
Autoresponder Services.
Two of the top Autoresponders are Getresponse and Aweber. I think
they are both very good and either one will do a very good job.
Their basic offerings are much the same e.g. both offer no limits on
the number of autoresponders, personalized follow up messages,
message length, changes and campaigns. They both handle plain and
HTML messages.
Both are hosted services which means that their servers and staff
manage the program, maintenance, handling of bounces (emails that
couldn't be delivered due to an invalid or temporary out of action
recipient email address) etc. They ensure that all email recipients
are opt-in to prevent abuse of the service with unsolicited emails
or spam.
You can log into your account on their site to do whatever needs
to be done 24hrs a day 7 days a week.
Both offer payment plans on a monthly, quarterly, 6 monthly or
annual basis with financial incentives to encourage longer
membership. Getresponse is generally cheaper than Aweber unless you
intend sending to more than 1000 subscribers per day.
Both autoresponder services offer free unlimited technical
support. With Getresponse this includes weekends.
Getresponse offers a free version as well as a pro version while
Aweber offers a try before you buy facility. Aweber also has a 30day
satisfaction guarantee.
I find Getresponse site easier to navigate but Aweber allows me
to personalize my senders email address which is very handy. Aweber
also removes duplicates when multiple lists are being emailed to
simultaneously.