What is an Autoresponder ??
Well, when I first heard of autoresponders, I instantly thought of the most common yet sometimes annoying use that you may be envisioning like I did….
When I first heard the word autoresponder, I instantly thought of that annoying “Out of office” or “Vacation reply” message. You know the one I am talking about, you email someone that you were hoping to hear from right away, only to get their autoreponder saying, “I am out of town til Tuesday and won’t be returning any calls or messages” or “I won’t have access to email so Please call Miss Vandercamp if you need immediate assistance.”
Arrggghhhh………..I hate those messages and maybe so do you.
Another type of autoresponse message could be the “more information button” or various “contact us buttons” you see on a website that instantly replies by saying
“Thanks for your interest, one of our representatives will get back to you soon.”
……..and sometimes you wait forever and never get anything further from the company.
or worst yet, you get a call or reply 3 weeks later when you no longer care about that company or the information you wanted weeks ago.
All of this happens all too often, mainly because the company simply wasn’t using the technology properly.
Unfortunately, the examples above are both essentially what can be called autoresponders……but these poor examples above really give the term autoresponder a bad name.
They surely are not good examples of what an effective autoreponder is and can do for you and your business.
Autoresponders could soon become the best marketing tool you could have. They can easily be such an effective tool now that the autoresponse software is so advanced and intuitive. You will be amazed to learn the full power of an autoresponder and how it can transform your business. Let’s take a minute and go deeper here as this could be the best 10 minutes you ever could invest in your business.
I am here to help you explore the true power of an autoresponder and hopefully offer some insight into how you should be implementing these into your business right away.
But first we need to clarify the real meaning to the term autoresponder……
Aweber is the company that I hold in highest regard as being the best of the best having anything to do with email marketing. This is the one company truly deserving the right to clarify the meaning of the word autorepsonder for us…..
….so without anymore rambling, here is aweber’s definition of an autoreponder -
“An autoresponder (sometimes called an autoresponse) is an email message that is sent to someone who requests information.
Typically the autoresponder is the first in a sequence of messages that are sent to someone (the later messages may also be called autoresponders, or sometimes are known as “follow ups”).
AWeber helps you to create and manage autoresponders, so that you can easily communicate with people who are requesting information from you.”
Definition courtesy of Aweber
So that should hopefully clarify what an autoresponder is, now lets explore what they can do for you or your business.
Typically you should be utilizing autoreponders to instantly answer, connect or respond with a client/customer/prospect that finds you online. But you can even have autoresponders tied to an 800 information line, social media, a call to action on your business card, tied to a landing page and countless other creative combinations of online and offline marketing.
For now, let’s just explore the uses of implementing an autoresponse system or autoresponder into your website or online marketing.
Typically your goal online either with your blog, website, landing page or social media is to connect with your visitor and capture their name and email address. One of the most important tools that should go hand in hand with an effective autoresponder is the “Opt in box” or “Opt in form” that we spoke about the other day. If you didn’t read the post I suggest you go back and read about Opt in forms - http://relevantmarketing.org/opt-in-forms
The opt in form places and implements your visitors name and email into your autosponder system. We can elaborate more about your Opt in Form later, but just acknowledge that your main goal is to capture your visitors name and email and to place that name and email into your autoresponder system.
I have seen plenty of people gather long lists of names and emails that just sit and collect dust because they are doing nothing with the list. Conversely, I have seen plenty of effective autoresponder software systems sit empty and wasted because they don’t have any names and emails to utilize with the software.
So as important as an autoresponder is, it can only be effective if it has a valid name and email address to communicate with. So before you get all hung up on having the latest and greatest software, you should first figure out who your ideal client is.
Then you need to create a series of messages or thoughts you wish to communicate to them, and then combine the power of an effective autoresponder software system with the awesome power of properly placing your opt in form into your communication and marketing efforts. This is when it really gets fun as you start your automatic marketing machine.
This completes part I of autoreponders……….stay tuned for part II where we will delve in and explore creating your series of autoresponse messages and implementing them into a system…
Dedicated to your success,
Your Team at Relevant Marketing LLC
This article published on ezinearticles.com
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