Internet and Businesses Articles

Autoresponders are an important asset to an Internet Marketer. When I heard that statement, I said, “Okay – great! What is it!” For all those new to the Internet arena, I’ll try to explain what autoresponders are, how they can be used, and how it can benefit your online business.

What Are Autoresponders?

Autoresponders automate the process of following up e-mail marketing leads. Email autoresponders are special email addresses that returns a message or set of messages in
response to any email that is sent to the autoresponder’s address. When your business is slow or just beginning you may be hesitate to use this tool. But be assured as your business grows, you’ll find a use.

Who Supplies Autoresponders?

Where do you get autoresponders? Well, they are as close as your web host. Yes, most web hosts have autoresponders – it is only limited by the number of email addresses your
host provides you. For example, my webhost allows me 100 email addresses. Thus, I have the opportunity, if I so wish, to create 100 autoresponders.

However, there is one small drawback to webhost autoresponders –you are limited only to one message per autoresponder, without the possibility of a follow-up email to your prospects.

But there are other avenues in which you can consider. Such as:

1. You can incorporate a free autoresponder. Freeautobots.com offers a free service -- that is free of advertisements, and supplies you with the server to store your leads on.

2. You can purchase the software. This software can be placed on your computer, or again, you can purchase an online service, and all your information will be stored on the server where you purchased the service.

As you can see there are advantages and disadvantages of each. And only you will know which will best fit your needs, circumstances, expertise and budget.

How Do I An Autoresponder?

When I heard the word autoresponder, I didn’t have a clue of how to use them, or if it was relevant to my business. Pretty green, wasn’t I. Well, an autoresponder can be a great automation tool to any business.

Let me give you some examples of the versatility of this tool.

1.Used by people who are away. They use it to notify the sender that they are away on vacation, their desk, etc.

2.Used as a business tool --


a.Gives responders business information – pricing

lists,resumes

b.Collect names and email addresses

c.Use for training

d.Give away free reports

e.FAQ (if appropriate)

f.Auto-send your article submissions

As you can see there are many uses, all of which, keeps you in contact with your visitors and/or prospective leads, and the promotion of your products, services and business. And,
as to free or paid – that assessment will be directly determined by the growth of your business – and of course, your budget.

To conclude, the use of autoresponders is only limited by your imagination and your ethics. Yes, ethics. Do not go crazy with this tool – it is to be used to help your business – so be aware of spam – and it’s dos’ and don’ts – and this tool will work for you.

To your success.

Vickie J Scanlon has a BBA degree in Administrative Management and Marketing. Visit her site at: http://www.myaffiliateplace.biz for free tools, articles, ebooks, how to info, affiliate opportunities, services and products – to meet your budget and needs.

Your e-commerce website relies on its customers to become returning customers in order to develop a successful business. The question you might be wondering, however, is how to make your customers become loyal to you and return. There are plenty of ways you can increase customer loyalty, and the use of email autoresponders is but one.

*Automatically Send E-mails

When you have an email autoresponder, it sends an e-mail immediately to any individual that clicks yes to receiving e-mails and additional information from your company. Since the autoresponder automatically does this it eliminates any problems by human error like forgetting to send an e-mail, typing the address wrong, waiting too long, and other similar errors. The autoresponder sends an e-mail immediately to the address that was given, and it frees up your time to focus on other things, knowing your customers and potential customers are receiving the information they need.

*Saves Time

Since your autoresponder has been sending out e-mails and generating interest you know that when you receive an e-mail from a potential or past customer that they are primed up enough about the product or service and already have a interest without you having to sell them on it. Therefore, you receive customers when they are ready to talk which increases your success rate, and you won’t waste time on customers who are not interested. Not to mention the amount of time you'll save by not having to personally send e-mails over and over and over again.

*Reminders

Of course if you are using an autoresponder you are sending out e-mails to your customers about a variety of products and services in the normal series of 7 e-mails. However, if you really want to boost customer loyalty to your products don’t forget to send out an eighth e-mail that reminds the recipient about your product and that they still have time to buy. This e-mail should only be a reminder and nothing pushy. It should only be sent to those individuals who did not already sign up for your product or service.

*Stay in Touch

Another way to keep your customer loyalty and keep them buying from you is to stay in touch. No, this does not mean you should send them e-mails every week. If you do this you risk annoying a lot of subscribers and ultimately getting unsubscribe requests. Instead, simply keep in touch every month or so with new offers and products. Your target market can’t buy from you if they do not know what you are offering. Also, in these e-mails be sure to offer discounts and bonuses. When you do this you give people yet another incentive to do business with you!

Michael Turner reveals step-by-step how you can increase search engine traffic in his free 7 part mini-series. Grab it now at http://www.powertraffictactics.com/

If only I had known that autoresponders are a necessity to your online business when I first ventured online, I would have saved a lot of time and money. You have to automate in as many areas as possible and if used responsibly, autoresponders can be your best friend.

Your customers expect prompt replies to their email inquiries. But finding the time to answer every inquiry by hand will quickly eat all your time. The good news is an autoresponder is an inexpensive - or even free - method of quickly responding to your customers and prospects email.

Autoresponders are an effective and powerful marketing tool, allowing you to make contact with thousands of potential customers. This is an invaluable asset considering how many potential customers you usually have contact with before you make an actual sale.

Use your autoresponder to:

1. Publish a newsletter. Your newsletter can keep your visitors informed about your services or products, while building your reputation as a credible expert in your particular business.

2. Publish a newsletter only for your affiliates. Inform them of current sales you are running and of promotional material that your affiliates can use to increase their commissions. Include tips, advice, and techniques that your affiliates can use to successfully go out and promote your business.

3. Write reviews. Cover books, software, music, e-books, movies, etc., and put each review in an autoresponder. Review your affiliate programs, using a link to your affiliate's page in your autoresponder.

4. Create mailing lists. Inform subscribers to your articles when you've written new ones that they may want to publish in their own newsletter or website.

5. Automate your sales process. Use an ad to insure repeated exposure of your message. In your ad, put your autoresponder address where a visitor will be exposed to numerous marketing materials. This multiplies the chances of converting visitors into customers. For example, if you're selling a particular product, put testimonials about how spectacular it is on your autoresponder, and add a detailed, enticing description of your product.

6. Distribute advertising rates. Let's say you sell advertising on your website or in your newsletter. Set your autoresponder to send the information about rates and how to place an ad automatically to all prospects email addresses. Then have your autoresponder follow-up. It can also send notification of any special deals you are currently offering.

7. Distribute an email course. Just be sure that each lesson has quality content - not a sales pitch. Your content will do the selling for you, and will do it much more effectively. You can include tips centered on a different topic for each lesson, illustrating how your product will benefit the reader. Include the tangible benefits the visitor will reap by purchasing your product. Make sure to include a paragraph or two at the end of each lesson enticing your prospect to consider making a purchase.

8. Distribute free reports. This gives your visitor an idea of the type of information you can provide and the quality of your product or service. Make sure these reports are not sales letters or you will more than likely lose a potential customer than gain a sale.

9. Create trivia quizzes on your site and place the answers in an autoresponder. Your visitor will then be motivated to request your autoresponder. Or create a contest and have any visitors that enter send their responses to your autoresponder. Your autoresponder can be set-up to send them a confirmation of their entry.

10. Link to hidden pages on your autoresponder. For example, a hidden page could be your affiliate page that contains graphics, promotional articles, and text links that interested affiliates can make use of. Inform visitors that they may have free access to your affiliate page by simply requesting your autoresponder. You will then gather a list of visitors who may be interested in becoming your affiliates.

11. Use an autoresponder on your order page. Post a request form for visitors to be notified of special offers or discounts in the future. This creates a very effective mailing list that contains the names of people who are already your customers.

12. Put your links page on your autoresponder. It should contain up to fifty links that would be of particular interest to your visitors. Make sure to add your own promotional copy at the top or bottom of this page.

Now that you have proof that autoresponders can be used creatively to take you to the TOP, can you see how you will implement them to benefit your business?

Copyright (c) 2005, Melanie Burns -- All Rights Reserved Worldwide

Melanie Burns, founder of Internet-Business-How-To.com, has passion and dedication to assisting You to make Your Internet Business a Success! Join the weekly "Abundant Success Online" newsletter,mailto:aso-subscribe@internet-business-how-to.com (Permission to reprint this article in its entirety, including byline, is expressly granted.)

If you've reached the point of exhaustion trying to keep up with answering the mountain of emails that threatens to bury you alive every single day, you're ready to learn about autoresponders.

The bad news is that people expect prompt replies to their email inquiries. However, unless you can figure out how to work continual twenty-four hour shifts, or hire enough people to constantly monitor incoming emails (while they're eating up your revenue), you have a problem. The good news is an autoresponder is an inexpensive - or even free - method of quickly responding to emails. What these programs do is automatically respond to incoming emails as soon as they are received.

Emails are essential to your business for many different reasons. Most importantly, these invisible email voices give you their feedback about your website - for free! However, if you spend all your working hours answering these emails, how are you supposed to run your business? The answer is simple: use autoresponders. Autoresponders are programs that automatically respond to your emails without you so much as having to click on your mouse.

There are a number of good reasons why you need an autoresponder besides just answering your email. For example, autoresponders can be used if you need a way to send information about your services or products, price lists, or if there are repeated questions asked across large numbers of emails. Maybe you want to offer your site visitors a special bonus of some kind, such as advice or relevant articles. All of this can be handled by an autoresponder. Additionally, you can advertise your business and then build stable relationships with your customers by using autoresponders.

Autoresponder programs vary from software that runs with your email program to a specialized script that runs on your web hosting company's server. This kind of script may use a web page form or simply operate with your email account. This kind of script is programmed to send out a standardized message whenever an email is received. The message is sent to a particular script or email address.

Some autoresponders can do more than simply send out standardized messages. They can send out an unlimited number of follow-up messages sent at predetermined interval of time. For example, you can set your autoresponder to send out a new message every day for as long a period as you desire.

There are numerous companies who offer autoresponders free of charge. Your website hosting company often provides autoresponders as a free service. If this is not the case with your web hosting company, there are numerous companies who offer this service for a small fee, or free of charge, providing you attach an advertisement for their company to your emails.

To personalize your autoresponder messages, you can attach a signature. Signatures in this case are much like business cards. You can include your name, company, all your contact numbers and addresses, and a brief message.

It's a good idea to attach a signature to every email that is sent out. This works as a repeated reminder of your business identity every time a customer sees it. The more they look at your signature, the more likely your company will spring to mind when your particular service or product is needed.

You can create a standardized signature that every employee in your business uses, or you can go wild, and let every staff member create their own personal signature. Of course, like everything in life, there are some rules and guidelines to creating a personal signature.

Keep the length of your signature between four to six lines of text, with no more than 70 characters in a single line. Make sure that your email program does not cut off your text! The content should include your name, your company name, your email address, fax number, and any other contact details, such as 800 numbers. Lastly, always include a short personal message about your company. It should be a subtle sell of your services or your products, and possibly your company's reliability and longevity.

Another specialized use of autoresponders is to create courses that you can then offer your site visitors for free. You must choose a topic in which you are an expert and that precisely targets your potential customers.

Once you have carefully chosen your subject, divide it into a number of different sub-topics. Then offer your site visitor a free 10 or 15 day course, each day offering a different sub-topic. The first topic should always be a welcome message to your site visitor and an explanation about what is to follow. Your explanation should be enticing, getting the point across that you are offering free, quality information that your target audience will find of great value.

With every lesson, include the number of the lesson, the topic title, information about your company and its services or products. At the end, include a few blurbs about the next lesson to entice the subscriber to continue on.

Make sure each topic is packed with essential and valuable information, and leaves the visitor lusting to know more. Otherwise, you may lose them in the very beginning.

Of course, you have to write up your course before you can offer it. Once you have done this, and gone over the material carefully, employing a professional writer or editor if necessary, you must transfer your text to your autoresponder.

There are a number of free autoresponders you can use. Try http:/www.getresponse.com, or http://www.fastfacts.net. Or go onto Google and you will find a long list of free autoresponder companies. Then sign-up for your chosen autoresponder. Once you do, you will receive instructions as to how to set it up and transfer your text.

Email is an excellent marketing tool; it is inexpensive and it is fast. Use it to advertise your business by choosing your email address carefully. Your website should contain different email addresses for different contact requests. For example, use info@yourdomain.com for information requests, or sales@yourdomain.com for questions about sales. It's a good idea to set up one for the owner, such as president@yourdomain.com. This presents your company in a personal, approachable light and insures that direct contact is provided.

Autoresponders are an effective and powerful marketing tool, allowing you to make contact with thousands of potential customers. This is an invaluable asset considering how many potential customers you usually have contact with before you make an actual sale. Essentially, an autoresponser allows you to automate part of your marketing campaign.

Chris Geldof

Chris Geldof is owner and publisher of the free special report "How To Build Your Own Profitable Opt In List". Get this report for free at http://www.reach-for-money.com

Autoresponders are, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the most powerful and important tools available to anyone marketing on the internet today. They allow you to automatically send out a sequential series of email messages to prospects who have signed up to receive your information and who you therefore know are interested in what you’re offering.

They make it easy to build a relationship and establish interest and trust with your prospective customer or recruit and they minimise the amount time you need to devote to busy work. By the time your prospect has got through your series of messages, if they feel the need to make further contact with you prior to making a decision, you are at least assured that they are sufficiently interested to merit your manual input and the time taken to communicate.

It depends very much on the type of product, service or opportunity that you’re marketing but it is generally accepted that somewhere between 5 and 9 “contacts”, or messages, are required before a customer is comfortable enough to make a decision. Seven is often quoted as the ideal number but it does vary and this should not be taken as gospel.

I am constantly surprised by the number of marketers, some of them very experienced, who load up their autoresponders with 7 messages, capture the email addresses of interested parties, send them their message series and leave it at that. If that’s what you’re doing then there are a couple of very simple tweaks you can make to improve your return on the time and money you spend to collect those valuable email addresses.

The first is simplicity itself and requires very little effort on your part – no need to even change your message series. Let’s assume that your message series consists of the standard 7 and that this suits the type of product your promoting perfectly well (it probably does). You send out these messages spaced one day apart over the course of a week, messages 1 to 5 are probably largely informative and messages 6 and 7 may well contain a “call to action”, possibly with a sense of urgency being introduced – although you may have introduced a call to action earlier in the series depending upon the product type.

Your prospects go through this series of messages and a percentage of them will take your advice and sign up for whatever your promoting. The majority of them won’t – that’s just statistics I’m afraid.

However, you can increase your sign up rate by something as simple as introducing an eighth and ninth message. Send message 8 a week after they receive the last in the main series of messages and send message 9 about 3 weeks after message 8. Just give them a gentle reminder about your offer and see if they’re still interested. Keep the wording generic and don’t repeat a hard sell – your original message series should have done all the selling – this is just a reminder.

This is a very simple technique and if it seems obvious to you – congratulations, you clearly know your stuff. Nevertheless, you’d be amazed at how many marketers omit this easy memory jogger. Speaking from personal experience, I get about 20% of my signups this way, either after message 8 or 9. Some prospects were waiting for pay day, some were going to do it after they came back from holiday, some just plain forgot. Whatever reason they may have had for not signing up at the first or second call to action, this technique boosts my return by 20%.

The second simple tweak takes advantage of the ability of most modern autoresponders to send out a “broadcast” to those prospects on your mailing list. This can be considered as a supplementary message and you can use it to either update your prospects on your original offer or introduce them to a new, but related product or opportunity.

This needs to be used with a little more care. I send out an update at least once every 6 months and preferably once every 3 months (it depends upon the nature of the individual list). I make sure these broadcasts only go to people who have been on the list for at least 3 months. My earlier emails will have already highlighted the fact that they would be provided with important updates in future.

There are plenty reasons for you to communicate. If you are promoting a product you can advise of any feature upgrades or special price promotions. If you are promoting an opportunity then you can update them on any new features which might make them think again. One technique which works very well with opportunity seekers is to update them once about any new benefits they should know of and then, if they still don’t sign up, follow up 3 months later with details of a slightly different opportunity.

Both of these techniques work and will produce a welcome boost to your signup rate. Certainly you can expect to get a few unsubscribes, but if they’re genuinely not interested that’s no great loss. There’s no point in making the effort of building your list and then not communicating with them – both you and your prospects stand to gain from a little extra communication.

Hamish Hayward
Discover the key criteria you MUST evaluate to ensure business success - now available in e-book format.
http://www.perfectsystem.co.uk/

Hi you may or may not know that your Autoresponder in your first few months promoting your service, product or opportunity, is the most important tool in your box!

So, you have just joined your new business or taken on a new product that you would like to make you a few $ or a lot of $ on the net, first thing you must do is get yourself an Autoresponder.

You can get them free from lots of places on the net if cash is tight, but remember if it’s free then there will be a down side, like their ads on your mail, to your subscribers so think carefully on what you decide, as it’s probably your single most important decision you will make!

Right, let’s get started.

You need to pre-load your Autoresponder with informative articles related to your business this will give you credibility with your readership, write some of your own it’s not that difficult once you get started.

Try to pre-load your autoresponder with 52 messages/articles, that’s one per week for a year. If this sounds a bit daunting, don’t worry there are lots of places that you can get stuff to fill your autoresponder with for free try EzineArticles.com, so in a few days your ezine should be ready to go. Even if you have only 3 or 4 messages/articles at this point you can add more later.

Now that’s out of the way add your [[sig]] file at the bottom of every article on your autoresponder, this should contain your name and URL of the business you are promoting and a short description of the business,you do this once the software puts it on ever e-mail automatically

Now you have set this up your autoresponder will automatically deliver your messages to your subscribers every week or month depending how you set it up.

How to build your subscriber list

Visit Google and do a search for “ezine directories” the last time I did this, there was about 88,000 listings.

This is where the work starts and where most fail, you can buy software to help with submitting your ezine but it costs. But if you want your ezine to be a success then its time to get busy and I mean busy, you should submit to at least 200!

Another way to promote your ezine is through Announcement Lists

Done correctly Announcement Lists could get you upto 800 new subscribers per week!

If you visit Google and search for”ezine announcement lists” and sign up to a few yourself, you will then see how it works.

Start announcing your ezine to as many annoucement lists as you can, spend a whole day to get of to a good start!

Your aim is to have at least 3000 subscribers to your ezine, at this point you can virtually make money on demand,

Sign up to a few ezines yourself to get an idea of how people run their ezines, this will give you an idea how to run yours.

OK so you don’t have the time for the above, then you can buy leads from a pay-per-subscriber service, try lead factory.com.

I hope the above is enough to get you started with your list, there are a lot of people that make their living on line with only their list and autoresponder, so can you!

If you drop by my site you can sign up for my free 7 day email marketing course, it's a step by step guide to help you get started with Autoresponders and email marketing.

If you drop by my site you can sign up for my free 7 day email marketing course, it's a step by step guide to help you get started with Autoresponders and email marketing.

Ken Smaile.

start your own internet marketing business: http://www.internet-marketing-and-software.com/

So, autoresponders allow you to automate the process of instantly replying to someone who either 1) asked for more information or 2) did something (such as buying from you).

Friend, when you start putting the wheels in motion to consistently follow up with your prospects, you'll start seeing the incredible results this amazing tool brings!

For example, you can use your autoresponder to...

1. Send instant information to people who request it;

2. Follow-up automatically with your HOT prospects;

3. Deliver a multi-step course or offer lessons by email;

4. Publish your ezine by broadcasting to your opt-in list;

5. Convert inactive or "dead" leads in your current list;

6. And promote (i.e., "upsell") backend products!

Why Put Your Business on Autopilot...

Let's say you place a simple classified ad on the Internet for your product. It carries your offer and your email address so that your prospects can contact you for more information.

Great. Now, let's also say that your ad is viewed by thousands of people and, conservatively, generates over 300 queries on the first day of publishing. That's pretty good, right?

But here's the kicker...

Every information request you receive has a specific question to answer. Now, how in the world are you going to be able to handle 300 information requests without going nuts?

For example, answering just one email may take you anywhere from 10-15 minutes! If you do the math, you have 75 hours of work ahead of you... And that's only for the first day!

That means, on the first day you'll only be able to answer just a third of those requests — that's just 100! The other 200 will still be waiting and likely lose all interest by that point!

Your HOTTEST prospects have now gone ice cold! And this doesn't account for all the future requests you are bound to receive on the second or third day your ad is published!

You Must "Hit the Iron While It's HOT!"

Prospects want information fast. But they will lose interest if they have to wait for your response! Heck, some of them won't probably even remember you by the time you respond!

And a bigger problem is, this is just for the initial reply — you haven't even begun following up with them, yet! Can you see the damage — and the frustration! — this can cause you?

It's impossible to manually handle such a large volume of requests... At least, to do it all, and on time, particularly when the prospect is "hot!" (Unless you have a staff of workers!)

If you think that hiring staff is the way to go, don't forget that on the Internet, people from around the world are seeing your ad, 24/7, around the clock. Can you afford overtime?

You advertise with your classified ad again. But this time, however, you insert your autoresponder's email address for offering more information instead of your personal one.

When someone sends email to that address, they receive a reply within seconds! Not in minutes, hours or days, but NOW!

Going a Step Further...

To this point, I'm sure you understand the concept. But now, let me show you how you can start seeing the immense profitability in using "smart" autoreponders specifically.

Let's say that the people who requested your information got it, read it over but pushed it aside... They're just undecided at this point and want to "think about it." It's understandable.

But if you leave it at that, here's what can happen...

They're too busy and never go ahead,

They lost or misplaced your email,

They became swamped with other emails,

They deleted your email by accident,

They forgot about your offer,

They lost interest in your offer,

They found a better offer elsewhere,

They forgot how to contact you,

And so on.

By increasing the number of exposures to your message, your prospects will likely never forget or lose your email, and your prospect will think of you first when they do go ahead!

If, out of those 300 initial information requests, 10 people go ahead, the remaining 290 are kept for you, added to your autoresponder cycle and automatically followed up with...

... As many times as is necessary!

Moreover, they're instantly added to your database, so you can contact them at any time, in the future, when you want! That way, you can start building a targeted opt-in list!

On top of getting automated, sequenced follow-ups, you can use it to publish an ezine, promote offers from JV partners or affiliate programs, or make special announcements!

Doing so, you've not only raised the chances of selling that customer but also increased that customer's lifetime value by increasing the number of sales... With the same customer!

For example, let's say your business is about car parts. Your initial reply sends information about your business, or perhaps about a specific part a person wants more information on.

They then get an email follow-up, once a week. They finally decide to buy. But in a few weeks down the road, you email them about, say, another part to go with the same car!

In other words, you can get them to buy again and again! They bought from you once, so trust is already established... Your client acquisition costs are virtually non-existent!

How to Structure Your Follow-up Sequence

In addition to sending email to an address, autoresponders can be triggered from a form on your website, where the visitor will enter his information and receive an instant reply.

But now you want to set up a sequence of "autoresponses," so you can send further messages to your prospects at intervals you specify (such as two, five or seven days later).

Here is an example of an initial autoresponse message...

> Dear John Doe,

>

> Thank you for requesting more information on our

> products earlier. I have attached to this email a

> document containing our price listings for

> August's catalogue of products.

>

> Please read through it at your convenience, John.

> I will get back to you the same time on Wednesday

> with our special offers.

>

> Feel free to send me an email or call me, toll-

> free at 877-555-1212, if you like to discuss your

> needs in greater detail.

>
> Thanks again,

> Joe Bloggs

> Bloggs Business Supplies Inc.

By the way, the words in red have been automatically added by the autoresponder for you. It can capture and add a first name, full name, month, year, a few days ahead, you name it!

You can also attach documents!

Then, a series of follow-up messages are sent over time at intervals you choose! Here's one example of a sequence for following up with prospects who have requested information:

1st message is sent immediately

2nd message is sent 2 days later

3rd message is sent 5 days later

4th message is sent 8 days later

5th message is sent 12 days later

6th message is sent 16 days later

7th message is sent 20 days later

(Also, keep in mind that the timeframe may be different, depending on your type of business, product or market.)

An Example of a Follow-up Sequence

Below, I will illustrate how to set up your autoresponder with a sample sequence suitable for following up with people who have, say, requested information on a particular product.

Autoresponse: A "Thanks" for Requesting Information

The aim is to thank your prospect for requesting information and introduce your website or product to them. It's important to outline the major benefits and what's in it for them!

Follow-Up #1: Introduce a Deadline or Time-Limited Offer

After a few days, your prospect can easily forget about you. Don't just remind them of your offer but also make them feel a sense of urgency, like, "I better get this before it's too late".

Use scarcity, such as time-limited or quantity-bound offer. Perhaps there are only a 17 seats left at a seminar you are promoting, or maybe only 200 copies of your book printed.

Follow-Up #2: Reinforce Benefits to Persuade Prospects

Sent 3-5 days after the original request, elaborate on the offer by reinforcing the benefits. Stress the benefits they get from buying your product or doing business with you.

Follow-Up #3: Pile on the Bonuses to Get Them Excited

Stress the bonuses or premiums (many people buy products just for the bonuses). Remind them that bonuses are limited and guaranteed for a number of days. Again, use scarcity!

Follow-Up #4: Build Value by Comparing Your Product

Demonstrate the value by comparing "apples to oranges." If you're selling a report on how to create websites, compare it to paying an experienced (and rather costly) web designer!

Follow-Up #5: Boost Desire with Glowing Testimonials

Build trust. You're totally unknown to your prospects. But they will trust you far more if you give examples of what other people have said about your company and product.

Follow-Up #6: Demand Action and Remind of Deadline

This final step of your sequence is what makes or breaks the sale. Remind your prospect of the benefits of your product, and especially the urgency and scarcity, like a deadline.

(Potential) Follow-Up #7: Do Market Research

Remember that even when the follow-up sequence is complete your prospects are still very valuable to you, whether they bought or not. First, you can contact them for research.

Ask them why they haven't bought from you. The information they provide may help you change your offer or even rewrite (or add something to) your autoresponder sequence.

Second, contact them on a regular basis thereafter (using your autoresponder's "broadcast" feature) to let them know of website updates, new products, special offers, etc.

Learn more about internet marketing, search engine marketing, email marketing go to internet marketing and website promotion.

What the heck is an autoresponder?

An autoresponder is much like a fax-on-demand system, where you call a number — or, in this case, email a specific email address, fill out a form on a website or do something, like buying something online — and get an instant reply.

Internet marketing and online business people agree that email autoresponders are the greatest marketing tool ever invented. Why? Because it gives people instant access to information!

Think about it.

People are more likely to send an email to autoresponder than to a real, say, sales department. The reason? People want information NOW! They don't want to wait nor ask for it.

But the reason why marketers love "smart" autoresponders specifically is because, when prospects request information, their inquiry gives you permission to follow up with them!

"Smart" or "intelligent" autoresponders go further than just a one-time reply, because they allow you to correspond with personalized follow-up messages after the initial reply...

The beauty is that they can all be pre-written, pre-set and pre-programmed... Only once! You decide how many emails, write the messages and set the intervals between them...

And that's it! In other words, smart autoresponders are like automated salespeople working for you, in the background, around the clock, so you don't have to! But there's more...

If you don't have a professional, personalized, systematic and timely follow-up approach that hits your prospects with your message at least four to eight times, you're losing money!

The bottom-line is this: following up can increase your sales significantly. In fact, sending multiple follow-up messages can increase sales by 80% and as much as 400% or even more!

Learn more about internet marketing, email marketing, search engine marketing go to internet marketing and website promotion: http://www.sharehobby.com/

Autoresponders return previously stored messages or sets of messages in response to any email sent to that autoresponder address. Almost all paid web hosts and many of the free ones provide autoresponders as part of their hosting service.

When do you use autoresponders? Normally, they are used to follow up with a visitor who has made an inquiry. If a customer does not initially buy, you can utilize their email address to follow up later. It could lead to future business.

The reason for following up with the client is that you want to refresh their memory about having been to your place of business. Remind them that they viewed your products. You can use this opportunity to boast your product’s advantages. You could offer special discounts or other bonuses to entice them to purchase. Don’t give up easily just because they didn’t buy the first time. This is your lead-in to a possible sale. Rather than approach each of these potential customers individually, an autoresponder does it for you. This saves you time, stress, and effort. It is done for you automatically.

There are several types of autoresponders. Each type has different capabilities. For this reason, they range from free to very expensive. It’s up to you to choose the autoresponder that best fits your business needs.

If you want more advanced capabilities, you can always purchase autoresponder software. There are two types of autoresponder software. The first is installed on the web host server, and the second is installed on your computer. There are advantages and disadvantages to purchasing each.

First, the software installed on the server isn’t always user-friendly. If it’s really complicated, chances are that it will require services of an installer. It also may be limited to providing only one autoresponder address on that server. However, sending emails in a big list is handled by the server. The server-based software manages the autoresponder addresses and is backed up. This takes that stress off the user.

If you opt for autoresponder software installed on your own computer, you have the advantage of it being easy to install, but you are responsibility of backing up the list. Sending mass emails might exceed the limits of your internet service provider. This software, however, might offer the possibility of combining the email list with other functions or marketing tools that would not be possible via server based software.

Whichever autoresponder you choose, it is most likely to your benefit to incorporate this marketing tool into your business. It saves you time, effort, and in some cases money. Let technology work for you. This is an effortless way to increase sales.

Copyright 2005 Paul Jesse

Paul Jesse is a retired government employee and author of numerous home business articles. If you are interested in starting a home business visit: http://www.plug-inprofitsite.com

Autoresponders, or responders, are simply programs that allow you to send out pre-written emails which have been pre-loaded into the responder. Prospective customers or recruits either input their email addresses into a signup form on a website or send a blank email to a trigger address. They are then entered into a database and receive your emails at the intervals you specify when you set up the responder.

This is an extremely powerful marketing techinque as it allows you to send repeated messages to people who have positively displayed their interest in whatever you're promoting.

Numerous studies have shown that the majority of consumers will not buy, or signup to something, at the first exposure. Prospects typically need to have somewhere between 5 and 12 exposures to the product or service before they feel comfortable enough to commit. The ideal number of follow up contacts is often said to be 7, but this will vary depending upon the individual consumer and the product on offer.

Since the recipient of your emails has given you permission to contact them, you won't be accused of "spamming". You may need to provide full contact details in your emails to be sure of this - it varies from country to country, but err on the side of caution. An added bonus is that you will have their email address in your database - or "list" - so that you can keep them updated with any new offers you may have in future.

Many internet marketers already appreciate the awesome power of automated follow up using an autoresponder loaded with well crafted sales messages. However, there is one enhancement that is often overlooked, even by relatively experienced marketers: The "Thank You" page. Used properly, this can boost your signup rate by as much as 20%, it can help promote your other programs, products and opportunities and it can even earn you some money.

It's easy to overlook this aspect of autoresponders. After all, you've probably spent a good deal of time crafting your email messages and loading them into the responder. It's only natural that when the last one is input you want to get the messages out to the big wide world ASAP - right? But take just a few minutes - and that really is all it needs - and you could benefit hugely.

First of all, whatever you do, don't use the Thank You page that your autoresponder company so kindly provides for you. Why do you think they provide this? Certainly, it is a service to their customers. Normally it gives a polite (if generic) thank you and contains a few reassurances about spam along with brief details of the opt-out procedure. However, when you look at it closely, it is a full page advert for the autoresponder provider isn't it? A full page advert which you have provided for them.

As an absolute minimum, if you can't be bothered to spend a few minutes to generate your own custom Thank you page, redirect your new signup to one of the other pages on your website, or to the home page of one of your other sites if you have more than one. However, it's much better to take the time and produce your own full page advert. Some of the items you might want to consider including are listed below:

1. A polite thank you (mandatory).
2. A brief statement that you only send emails with permission, that they may unsubscribe at any time and that you will never pass their contact details to a third party (also mandatory).
3. A link to another website that you own or promote.
4. An advert for another opportunity that you are involved in.
5. A "Tell A Friend" form or link.
6. Adverts from Google Adsense or some other source.

Items 1 & 2 are only common courtesy. Items 3 - 6 could give your performance a real boost. Remember, this is a page that your viewer will automatically click away from. They are "ready-to-click" so at least give them the option of making a click that will benefit you rather than just clicking on their "favourites" or home page buttons. Not all of them will click - but some of them will and you need every advantage you can get!

Hamish Hayward
http://www.selfstarters.co.uk/

What is an Autoresponder?

An Autoresponder is a program or service that allows you to automatically send pre-written emails to anyone at anytime. It is basically a sequential automated email system. You write messages, load it on your Autoresponder, set the time difference between emails being sent out, then leave your Autoresponder to finish the job. You can then get people to start the email sequence by sending a blank email to your Autoresponders email address or complete a form at your website.

How you can automate your business using autoresponders

Let’s see why Autoresponders are important to those who own internet businesses.

Consider this; your visitors would only have 3 options when they visit your site.

1)Buy your product or service.

2)Leave their email & other information for follow-up.

3)Click away.

You wouldn’t want prospects to click away right? You and I know that if they click away, they probably would never come back again.

So, what is next? What are the chances prospects will make purchases on their first visit? Chances are rather slim right? That leaves you to focus on trying to make visitors choose option no.2… to leave email addresses and other contact information. You can create a subscription form and place it at a strategic location inviting visitors to subscribe. You can then increase subscription rates by throwing in a free Ebook or report in exchange for their email address. You may give them a freebie today, but as your messages build relationships with them, you will end up earning money from them for years to come.

When they have submitted their email, you will send them messages on a regular basis. This is where you will need an Autoresponder. You can write a series of follow-up emails or good training materials and load it up on the Autoresponder, and then leave the Autoresponder to send out those emails at a specified time.

Besides sending out follow up messages, Autoresponders could also accomplish other tasks. Consider another scenario. You have a lot of people asking the same questions about your product or service over and over again. If the same questions are being asked too many times, you probably would grow frustrated answering them. Setting up an Autoresponder to reply to all these messages while personalizing each email sent pretty much solves the problem.

Where to get an Autoresponder?

You can find a free Autoresponder service at http://www.freeautobot.com/ or if you do not mind paying a little fee you might want to consider using Getresponse at http://www.getresponse.com/ or Aweber at http://www.aweber.com/.

In conclusion, having an Autoresponder will save you a lot of precious time. It helps by automating part of your business so that you can spend time focusing on expanding your business.

Find out how you can FULLY set up and run your own internet business within a few days at http://www.ebizmodelsyoucancopy.com

Visit E-Biz Wiz Blog for proven ideas, tips and information on starting your own Internet Business and subscribe to the 12 Day Internet Marketing Success Course. http://ebizmodelsyoucancopy.blogspot.com

It's true that "content is king," but equally important to success in online marketing of any kind is contact. Not just the one time "flash in the pan" type either. You need to form relationships with your potential customers, and maintain it on a day to day basis. Remember, just as with content, good solid contact will get you good solid sales.

Developing relationships with your clients is paramount in any successful campaign, and to do this, you need more than a series of advertisements hitting the airwaves. You have to "lock" your readers in so that you can get assurance that the highest number of people are reading anything you send out.

In other words, you need to get yourself a mailing list of people who have signed up to get information from you. These people have agreed to hear what you have to say, and so will be more likely to open your emails than, say a cold contact would. You give them a taste of the area of sales you're focusing on, and no doubt, they have similar interests.

So how do you go about getting a mailing list, and how do you keep track of it?

Obviously, you'll need a place for your potential customers to sign up. You can do this a few different ways:

1. You could create a simple sign up page on your website with a form on it that'll let you gather names and email addresses. Then place a link to that sign up page on your main site with a brief statement about what they'd be signing up to.

2. You could create what's called a "landing page" that also has a sign up form on it. Landing pages are good when you're working with Google AdWords or a similar advertising method. You could create an ad that simply states, "Get some free information about (your marketing focus) and be on the road to success in no time." As the link URL, you'd supply your landing page, where people could sign up. Add some pertinent info about your offer and you're on your way.

3. Or you could build the newest form of page used to develop a good mailing list called the "squeeze page." A squeeze page can be a stand alone web page that offers your readers some information about a product much like a sales copy page does. However, the difference here is that you'll be splitting the information into two separate pages thus giving only half of the information along with an, "If you'd like to learn more, simply fill in the form and you'll be immediately given a much better idea of what it's all about."

Which ever way you choose to get sign ups, you've only won half the battle however. Now you have to keep track of your new customers and give them something to read that'll get them to buy from you.

This is where autoresponders can come in handy.

Autorepsonders make it easy to build relationships with your customers because, as the name suggests, they are automatic. Most autoresponders can be tied into any sign up form and harvest names and email addresses for you, so you don't have to keep track of them manually.

They're also used to send out mailings automatically whenever you schedule them, so you could load something into your autoresponder today and have it emailed out several days or weeks later. Or, if you have something exciting and new to tell your readers, you could have the autoresponder mail it out right away. It's all up to you and how you want your mailings scheduled.

Many autoresponders also keep track of how many readers open each email you send out, giving you an idea of which mailings are the most popular. This way you can find products through your affiliate programs that get the best responses and not waste time and effort promoting things that aren't received as well. You get to keep your customers happy, you become more popular with them, and at the same time, create an efficient selling machine.

Another handy feature of most autoresponders is that they allow you to personalize your emails. With a click of a button, you can add each reader's name to your message and give them the sense that you're talking directly to them. Who wouldn't rather open an email and see, "Hi Fred," than "Dear Reader" any day? And which emails do you gravitate to when you open your email client, those that have headlines that read, "Important Information for You," or "Hey Fred, Here's Something You Might Like to See"?

Yes, autoresponders can help you achieve a highly personal and efficient sales machine, building relationships between you and your customers for weeks, months, and even years to come. They can help you put your best foot forward and give the impression that you are a professional online affiliate marketer that can be counted on to give regular and valuable information. This will gain you trust from those who read your messages, and trust always leads to more sales.

Fred Farah

copyright 2005

Fred Farah is a long time business man who is willing to share his expertise from his web site http://www.bestaffiliateproducts.com/

It's all about affiliate marketing to niche markets. Lots to learn from the Niche Madness 7-day eCourse, as well as the Niche Market Strategies newsletter.

A powerful reason for making the switch from using the unlimited autoresponders that come free with your web hosting account to paying a monthly fee for an autoresponder service is the building of customer relationships through sequential autoresponders.

Although many web hosts offer unlimited autoresponders, each autoresponder is only capable of sending one response. Building business relationships that will increase your sales begins with the use of sequential autoresponders from a paid autoresponder service.

For example, if you want a copy of this article e-mailed to you, an ordinary autoresponder will do the job. But, what if you want me to send you a seven-part e-mail course? At the end of each autoresponder, I could refer you to the next autoresponder, but having you request all seven e-mails with just one action makes more sense.

Additionally, marketing experts generally seem to agree that a person needs to be exposed to your message multiple times before they respond or buy. If someone subscribes to your autoresponder because of their interest in a subject, you can then supply them with helpful information on a regular basis.

Thus, you establish trust and a relationship with your prospective customers. When they trust you, they are more likely to act on your recommendations and buy from you.

This type of relationship is pretty hard to develop with just one e-mail. However, several e-mails from a sequential autoresponder will help you to build such trust as your prospective customers get to know you over time.

As well, people have so many things clamoring for their attention that many just forget about you and your products and services unless you periodically remind them.

So, by paying a modest monthly fee, you can have unlimited, sequential autoresponders working for you. Yes, a paid autoresponder service can help increase sales by building trust and business relationships.

RESOURCE BOX:

J. Stephen Pope, President of Pope Consulting Inc., has been helping clients to earn maximum business profits for over twenty-five years.

For profitable Work at Home Small Business Ideas, visit http://www.yenommarketinginc.com

To see how autoresponder services can improve your profits, visit http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/autoresponders.html

A chained auto-responder is a sequence of emails that gets delivered automatically when someone subscribes to this autoresponder.

It is used in marketing to deliver mini-advertisements, teaser courses, demo extracts, testimonials or stepped sales letters, and all of this is designed to get the client eventually to click on the "buy me now" link for the main product that is being promoted.

There are three main problems with chained auto-responders. Avoid these, TEST your linked auto-responders before you inflict them on the general public, and you should see significant increases in your sales.

Problem No. 1 - No Content Beyond Selling

This is THE most VIOLENTLY annoying class of chained autoresponders - message after message from the same place, trying to sell you something, in so many different words. YUCK!

What marketers who don't THINK seem to forget is that folk who own and manage PCs and email aren't that stupid.

They can read and write, you know, and they are not IDIOTS.

After two or three repeats, they will immediately delete such messages from their inbox and probably put a spam block on the sender domain for good measure.

That's not what the marketeer had in mind, I should wager ...

Problem No. 2 - Too Little Content

I remember one "mini course" which contained nothing but teasers and virtually no useful information whatsoever.

Once again, look, marketeers!

If you want people to "try" the product, you need to give them at least a little taste of it.

Don't hold the glass with the sample wine under their nose, and when they reach out, oops, that'll be $875 dollars please ... but we do have a "money back" guarantee ...

This is just ANNOYING, it's even dishonourable and an angry person does not make a good customer.

Problem No. 3 - Too Much, Way Too Much ...

I subscribed to another auto-responder teaser mini course just a few days ago, and here, the folks in charge had done a 180' U-turn on the two points above, most likely because they got it that those content less/content poor efforts don't work to sell more of their product.

In their desire to have it be known how marvellously content packed the main item was, they created this huge long document, of at least 20, 25 paragraphs for the first installment of their chained auto-responder.

Gee.

Now I don't know about the rest of the planet, but I'm actually quite a busy person and I get STACKS of emails every day.

I try and cut down the time I spent on dealing with email because it does get out of hand, and on this occasion I was into something else anyway.

I took just *one look* at the plethora of writing and went, "Oh god, I don't have time for that right now ..." and left it.

Have you ever left a non-priority email for later ...?

Yeah, you know what I mean.

But then, the very next day, the 2nd installment arrived. I opened it and damn me, there's another REAM of goodness knows what, but now I've missed the boat because this is No. 2 and I haven't read No. 1 yet!

I hastily closed it, feeling guilty and moved on.

But then, No. 3 arrived - another book length installment. I just couldn't handle it anymore.

I deleted the lot.

Now that's a terrible shame because there may have been valuable information I never got, and the guys who wrote this spend AGES doing it.

So, here are my suggestion for chained auto-responders copy.

1. Head it with, "Busy? Save me! I contain important information!" or words to that effect.

2. Keep it SHORT. Pick out ONE USEFUL thing and just - tell me THAT. So I can glance at it and say, "Hey, that's useful! Cool! Thanks, guys!" When I mean short, I mean anything above three paragraphs is way, way too long for an autoresponder email in this day and age.

3. Keep it TOTALLY FOCUSSED on the product you are selling. I'm on autoresponders where you wouldn't begin to guess for all the waffle, testimonials, side tracks and "personal messages" what I'm supposed to be BUYING at the end of the day!

4. Give people a chance to keep up. Space your messages three days, don't inundate us. Or better still, test this for yourself. A lot of "internet marketing wisdom" is completely out of date now because it was researched back in the days when we got four emails a week, and not fourteen thousand each. Time has moved on and requires NEW thinking, and different strategies.

My last tip on chained autoresponders is as follows.

5. Subscribe yourself to OTHER PEOPLE'S efforts.

Don't look at them as a marketeer would, but as though you were a human being in front of their computer, if you know what I mean by that.

You can learn what pleases and what works, and what doesn't.

Mark out to yourself what you like and use this in your own efforts, and avoid what really turns you off.

Lastly, keep working at your chained autoresponder copy until you have something that really works, and really brings in lots more sales.

They are a great resource - if you handle them right.

Silvia Hartmann

Author, "MindMillion"

Now that you see that articles are the number one way to promote your business, think again about how people can get them even more efficiently.

Knowing that your targeted potential customers go to Web site in their field, you’ll want your articles posted ready to show that you are the savvy expert in your topic. After you submit 30 or more, your articles will eventually put you in the top ten listings for search engines, as well as increase your own ezine subscribers from 10-25 per article submission.

Using autoresponders for each article submission allows automation to keep your word out in Cyberspace. People who visit the Web sites in your business topic as well as your own Web site who are looking for free information can get any article immediately by autoresponder. You don't have to do a thing. You sell while you sleep. Your signature box or bio included with each submission and the autoresponder number makes it easy for these targeted potential customers to buy.

While some Web sites accept your articles without an autoresponder number, most sites and opt-in ezines want an autoresponder number for each article you submit. Visit a few sites in your business category to see how they operate.

A non-techie, I delegate the article autoresponders know how to my assistant. Ask your Web master or hosting company to assist you.

1. Check with your hosting company, such as Value Web to see how many autoresponders they include in their price. Value Web limits theirs to 500 with an 80-character limitation for title/subject line, and 8000 characters for body--around 1200 words. As your business grows and you use autoresponders for many other marketing campaigns, you may want to get a hosting company that has unlimited autoresponders. In 2004, I changed to a new host for this reason.

I personally have over 170 articles on autoresponders as of March 2005. You can build from just a few to 20, then 30 or more to help promote your business or products.

2. Ask your Web master to create autoresponder links for you.

My Web master has created "Book Coaching Utilities" on my Web site that include these important things to include for each submission:

He taught this to my computer assistant, and now we can submit with autoresponders conveniently in the home office.

-Category

-Title

-Date

-Keywords

-Description

-Autoresponder Number

-Word Count

-Article Body

Even if this is new information, stay open-minded and ask for help from techie people. Autoresponders really make your business grow.

Judy Cullins ©2005 All Rights Reserved.

Judy Cullins, 20-year Book and Internet Marketing Coach works with small business people who want to make a difference in people's lives, build their credibility and clients, and make a consistent life-long income. Judy is author of 10 eBooks including Write your eBook or Other Short Book Fast, Ten Non-Techie Ways to Market Your Book Online, The Fast and Cheap Way to Explode Your Targeted Web Traffic, and Power Writing for Web Sites That Sell. She offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, "The BookCoach Says...," "Business Tip of the Month," blog Q & A at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml and over 170 free articles.

===============
Email her at Judy@bookcoaching.com. Phone: 619/466-0622 -- Orders: 866/200-9743

Congratulations, you just made a sale!

Congratulations, you just made a sale!

Congratulations, you just made a sale!

Wondering how those Super Affiliates make so many sales overnight selling someone else's products?

Well, you shouldn't be anymore, because here's how they actually do it...

...they have their own opt-in list...

Yes, a Super Affiliate like Allan Gardyne has more than 15,000 people in his opt-in list, subscribing to his newsletter. More than 14,000 people subscribe to Anne Ahira's newsletter. Jim Daniels sends his gazette regularly to approximately 15,000 people.

Those thousands of people are their precious opt-in lists. Whenever a great product comes up, they just write a review on the product, paste it to their automatic responders broadcast page, make some personalizations and with a single click, the follow up automatic responders would blast those personalized broadcast messages to thousands of loyal subscribers...

Of course it takes months or sometimes even years to build a huge number of opt-in list, but once you have one, your Affiliate earnings will increase rapidly!

So, if you already have a website, start building your own opt-in list! Write to them every week or once every 2 weeks. Send them valuable informations that could solve their problems. The main concern is to maintain a good relationship with them.

A good-maintained opt-in list will result in a huge Affiliate earnings in a long term...

Copyright 2005 Farid Aziz.

Farid Aziz is the author of "How to Make Money Onine with Your Hobby". Visit http://Internet-Marketer.blogspot.com to grab your FREE copy of "Internet-Business-In-A-Box", a kit worth US$ 497.00.

People like to get immediate responses to requests. Autoresponders are great for letting people know you are on the job and that their requests are being taken care of. These are much better than thank you pages.

Below is one example of how you can use an autoresponder to save time and make your customers feel a little more at ease until you can handle their request. Along with being an example it is also a guide to actually setting up the autoresponder in your mail account.

Customer Service - Time Saving Tip

Use an autoresponder to answer your customer's questions. You can anticipate or add answers as you go for your customers. If you have a support page you can include a number of e-mails for each question. Each e-mail can have an autoresponder answer sent to the customer. This can cut down dramatically on the number of e-mails you need to answer, and your customer gets an instant answer to their question, instead of waiting for you to reply.

For example a question that a client may have is "How does mail forwarding work?" You can answer this question beforehand in a text file. On a support page you could list "Answers To Questions". Indicate that when they click on the link an e-mail box will open where they ask their question, or they are directed to a page with a mail form. You may have to make a number of form pages but once done could save you hours of time.

About The Author

Bob Power has been an Internet entrepreneur for longer than he would like to remember. He is the president of http://yourfuturelifestyle.com.com/ a company that guides people on the relaistic way to create multiple streams of income online. Get our free eBook.

This article may be reproduced exactly as shown above. No revisions or changes are permitted.

With autoresponders, you never have to lose money advertising again! That's right, every ad you place from now on can be a winner -- even when you lose money!

I know, I know, you're thinking, "Okay, now you've lost it Glen." But I haven't. Let me explain.

Let's say you place an ezine ad, which costs you $200. and you make $20 for every sale made. If you make 8 sales with the ad you will earn $160.

Gosh, you just lost $40. That's a bad ad right? The answer to that depends on how you wrote your ad. Let me show you how losing $40 can actually be a win.

When you create your ad, don't advertise directly for your product. Advertise something that will "bring them in the door". Freebies like this mini-course, sweepstakes or items at exceptionably low prices work well.

The job of your advertisement is to create leads. That is, to get the readers e-mail address with permission to follow up Yes, that's that one to one marketing thing happening again.

Using autoresponders that automatically follow-up will give you the ability to set up a completely automated follow-up system for your product or service. You can use three, eight, or even thirty e-mail follow-up messages to generate sales for your product.

Instead of only having one chance to sell your prospect, you can have thirty opportunities to sell them -- all for the price of one ad. Which do you think will make more sales?

Marketing guru Jay Levinson figures the average person needs to see an ad twenty-seven times before it has the desired impact. Twenty seven times! Now you know why you see Coca-Cola everywhere you look.

Okay, so let's do the math again. You paid $200 to run your ad with a link to your automatic follow-up system. Let's say you send seven follow-ups. You made $160 on the first ad. Don't forget what the guru says -- the more a person sees an ad, the more likely they will buy. But for argument sake, let's say your conversion rate stays at $160 per follow-up. $160 times seven follow-ups equals $1120. Now you've made a profit of $920! Pretty cool isn't it?

Try to use some element of viral marketing in your offer. I give this mini-course away for free to people who sign up for my ListOpt List Builder Program and I allow you to give it to your friends and even offer it to your prospects in your ezine or on your website as something to "get them in your door".

Yes, that's right, you can offer this mini-course to your prospects for free when they sign up for your ezine. All you have to do is give them this link (mailto:ezinemoney@fetchreply.com) in your welcome message that you send out when they subscribe to your ezine. You could say something like:

"Thanks for subscribing to MyEzineName. You will receive your first issue shortly... blah, blah, blah...

As our gift to you for subscribing, please send a blank e-mail to mailto:ezinemoney@fetchreply.com Within seconds, you will receive for free, the marketing mini-course, "The 7 Secrets of Making Money with Ezines".

Best regards,

Your Name"

This is a win-win situation.

You Win because:

You offer people this mini-course which will increase the number of people who sign up for your ezine and will drive traffic to your site.

Your Subscribers Win because:

You gave your subscribers this mini-course which will not only teach them how to make money with their ezine, but also they can use it to produce more traffic and sales at their web site. This my friends will please your customers and create loyalty (which is another win for you).

And I Win because:

A traffic virus is being created with this mini-course! Wow! A win-win-win situation. Everyone is happy.

To sum it up, using an autoresponder follow-up system with an element of viral marketing will reduce your advertising risk. If you have a traffic virus in place, then your ad will continue to work for you for many years to come.

You have permission to reprint this article provided you include the following resource box:

About The Author

Glen Hopkins is the director of ListOpt Publications Inc. If you're looking to build your newsletter subscriber base quickly, easily and inexpensively, visit Glen at: http://www.listopt.com and learn what hundreds of other publishers are saying about ListOpt's amazing List Builder service.

Running a contest for your e-zine subscribers or web site visitors is one way you can generate interest and give more exposure for products or services you want to promote.

A contest could be as simple as spotting a word or a set of words within an e-zine's issue or searching for a graphic on a site. A contest can run for one issue, or it can last for a month or more.

If you plan to run a contest, make sure you have a "contest management response system" in place.

This could be as simple as an automated e-mail receipt to let your participants know their entry has been received.

Run a contest that asks your participants to send their responses to specific e-mail addresses. Then create an automated receipt confirmation for each account.

Include a link to your products, affiliate links, or services in your confirmation receipt.

Every time someone enters your contest and sends her entry, she receives a confirmation message. Thus, you've just exposed your products to your contestant.

Encourage multiple entries and your contest participants get exposed to your promotional texts multiple times.

Ok, what about contest prizes?

If you publish an e-zine and you sell advertising space, you can give away free ad space to the winners.

If you have your own product, or a product you have resell rights to, you can give away free copies of it to your winners.

If you have a service, why not put that up as a prize?

In any case, though, let your prospective contestants be interested in the prizes. Yes -- put the complete prize descriptions, along with the contest mechanics, on autoresponder too.

And then include links where they can purchase the prizes. Hey, some people might not want to wait to win your contest! So it's good to cover all bases.

Run a contest that lets autoresponders handle entries and confirmation receipts and you'll have a promotional tool that can bring in profits for you!

About The Author

Copyright (c) 2004 Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ

Shery is the developer of creative, motivating and fun e-mail courses for writers. Sign up and take an e-mail course today...free! http://writingbliss.com

1. Pick 4 or more articles you've written that have a common theme and put them in an autoresponder series. Announce it on your site as an e-mail course on the go.

2. If you have a page for related links, create a related links file and put it on autoresponder. This can be a one-page e-mail containing 15-50 links that are of interest to your visitors. Put your own promotional texts or blurbs at the top, middle and bottom of the e-mail.

3. Create a fun or trivia quiz, put it up on your site and put the answers in an autoresponder that your visitors can request. This way, you'll know the people who took your quiz.

4. Write reviews of books, music, e-books, sites, software or anything you can think of and put each review (or related reviews) in an autoresponder. If what you are reviewing have affiliate programs, use your affiliate links in the autoresponder.

5. Run a contest on your site or e-zine, then have your visitors or subscribers send their responses to your autoresponder. This way, you won't have to worry about manually sending them a confirmation receipt.

6. Create a frequently updated autoresponder and let your visitors and/or subscribers know about it. You can put in weekly tips or links to useful resources in the autoresponder and a reminder to the people who request it that you update it every week or on a regular basis (e.g. tell them to request for the same autoresponder again a week from now). You can use this method instead of using autoresponders with limited follow up messages.

7. If you've written 20 or more articles and you have them on separate autoresponder accounts, create a master list for your articles. In this master list, list the titles of your articles, their autoresponder addresses and their short descriptions. You can then just promote this master list.

8. Put excerpts or free chapters of your e-book, book or paid e-mail courses in an autoresponder series, then include your follow up sales letters at the end.

9. If you're selling your own products, put your testimonials on autoresponder, along with the description of your products, an excerpt or a free chapter. This will increase your credibility.

10. Keep track of people who download your free e-book, e-report, or free software by putting their download links in an autoresponder. When you promote your free product, you can just promote the autoresponder address.

11. Put links to your hidden pages on autoresponder. A hidden page could be the affiliate page where you have all the graphics, text links, promotional articles that interested affiliates can use. Let people know they can have free access to your affiliate page by requesting the autoresponder. This way, you can have a list of people who are interested in becoming your affiliates.

About The Author

Copyright (c) Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ

Shery is the developer of creative, motivating and fun e-mail courses for writers. Sign up and take an e-mail course today -- free! -- at http://WritingBliss.com. She also authored the e-book that lets you create your own original and profitable E-mail Workshops, eCourses and Tutorials in only 3 days! Visit http://EmailWorkshopsHowTo.com for more info.