Auto Responders and Sequenced eMailing:
There are two types of autoresponders. The first is the basic autoresponder; simply put, when you send an email to a certain email address, it will instantly send you a response back; a pre-defined response.
Those of you that are in the off-line world and have been marketing offline probably know what a fax-on-demand is. A fax-on-demand means when you call a certain number from a fax machine, it will send you back a pre-determined fax instantly. So there’s no work involved, it automates the deal.
Basically, someone thought of the same idea for an autoresponder for email; when you send an email to an address, it will instantly send you back a response. So this way when someone is requesting more information from you, give them an autoresponder and it will instantly send them back the information.
That is the first type of autoresponder and is just a basic autoresponder.
Follow-up Autoresponder: The second type of autoresponder is referred to as a multi-follow-up autoresponder. A multi-follow-up autoresponder simply means this; not only will it follow-up with that person once, but it will follow-up with that person multiple times.
You can follow-up with them on day one and then have it set for three days after that, so it’d be day four. Then you can have it set for three days after that, which would be day seven and then three days after that, day ten and so on and so on and so on.
You can imagine what this can do for your business. When someone requests more information from you, you look like a pro. Looking like you are on top of your business twentyfour hours a day, seven days a week.
I get emails all the time just thanking me for following up with them after they purchase my products or services. These people don’t realize that, hey I appreciate the comment, but I didn’t do it, my autoresponder did. I wrote the autoresponder and set it up one time.
It does all the work for me. It’s the same thing with your business. You can do the same thing. It’s very simple.
Types of Autoresponder Services: There are two types of autoresponders when it comes to the actual software itself. One kind is a service that you pay for every month and this is what most of you probably want to utilize.
The second kind is where you host it yourself on your own server. You have someone install a script on your server and it will work off your server rather than somebody else’s, so you don’t have to pay the monthly fee. It will cost you about $100 or a little bit more to have the autoresponder system sitting on your server.
I personally use both because I’m trying to make the transition from someone else’s to my own, but it’s a hard transition and I’m lazy. I don’t want to move everything so it’s kind of tough to do it. So I still use both at this time. I will eventually move everything onto my own server so that I have more control over what my autoresponders are doing.
Think about this later on as your business grows.