What is an autoresponder? It is a computer program that automatically answers e-mail sent to it and they can be very simple or quite complex.
Autoresponders are often used as e-mail marketing tools, to immediately provide information to their prospective customers and then follow-up with them at preset time intervals.
If you have been using email for some time, or if you currently run a website, you'll probably be familiar with autoresponders. Autoresponders are those canned messages that you receive when you email someone. They are commonly used to automatically reply to people who emails you that you have received their message and will get back to them in person. Some people use autoresponders for vacation notices, telling their correspondents that they are currently on holiday and will not be responding to the email anytime soon.
An autoresponder may be used for a variety of purposes:
- It can be used to tell your users that you have received their message and will get back to them soon. Such messages are important because it reassures your customers that their support request has arrived at its destination and will be attended to when you are available.
- It can be used to send prospective customers information like the price list of your products, your FAQ (frequently asked questions) and other fixed information. People emailing that address will automatically get that message in reply.
- A variation of the above is used by some webmasters to sell their products. They advertise a particular address by which customers can receive a free sample of their product (or book). The autoresponder then sends (say) 3 chapters from the book to the customers over three successive days. On the fourth day, the message asks the customer to sign up for the rest of the paid book if they wish to continue. Since the customer has sampled three segments (or chapters) of the book, he/she is able to decide whether or not to continue. If the book was particularly good, the autoresponder segments can be an effective sales tool to draw the customer to buy that product.
- Some of the more sophisticated autoresponders are now being incorporated in what are called "nuturing" programs where a series of emails are preconfigured to be sent based on how a prospective customer responds or not. For example if you send out an offering to one of your confirmed subscribers and he/she does not respond then a series of emails are set up to follow based on the non-response, however if the subscriber does respond then another series of emails are sent out over a predetermined period of time. Some of these programs can last for upwards of a year and are becoming more popular due to their high level of automation.
If your autoresponder needs are simple, such as merely sending a single message reassuring your customers that you'll get back to them, you can probably use the free autoresponders that usually come as part of your web hosting package, email marketing provider or desktop email solution.
If you need an autoresponder to send more than one message, or if you need to schedule messages to be sent at certain intervals over a period of time, you will either need to program your mail system on your domain, or use one of the free (or commercial) autoresponder systems (some of which are listed below and on the previous page).
A few of the free autoresponder services are listed below. Visit the sites listed below to find out more details.
- SendFree provides statistics on the performance of your autoresponders and advertisements. You also get to place free targeted advertisements on other people's autoresponders. For example, for every two advertisements published in your autoresponder, one of your advertisements is published in someone else's autoresponder.
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- GetResponse is a web based email autoresponder service that automates the task of sending scheduled, follow-up email marketing messages. It offers both a free version and an upgraded no-ad pay version “GetResponse Pro”.
- Aweber is an email autoresponder service that also gives you the ability to creates customer relationships for you with custom email newsletters ,email campaigns, email web analytics, top notch email deliverability and RSS to email.
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