#8 – Autoresponders

Turn Visitors Into Subscribers And Subscribers Into Customers

If you have just started an online business, you will need to think about using a professional autoresponder email service to build a relationship with visitors to your website. You will want to keep in touch with visitors who request more information so that you can inform them about your products and services. The best way to do that is by sending out an autoresponder email newsletter to your mailing list.

Most Successful Business Sites Have An Autoresponder

Surf a number of successful business websites and you will notice that in almost every case they include some kind of form which you can fill in to receive some kind of benefit. It may be more information in the form of a free newsletter, report or ebook, or perhaps some kind of software download.

When you fill in the form you will be required to give your email address so the information can be sent to you. When you supply your details you are added to the mailing list and you will start receiving regular messages in your inbox.

Does your website have a lead capture form on it which visitors can fill in and subscribe to your newsletter?

If not, you should think seriously about adding an autoresponder to your website.

Set Up An Autoresponder Opt-in Form On Your Blog

Autoresponders are e-mail marketing tools which can be used to sign up subscribers and send them your messages at pre-set time intervals, track your subscribers and sales. An autoresponder will also provide you with a block of code that you can copy and paste onto your website to create a “lead capture form.”

Place the form in a prominent place on your blog where people will see it as soon as they arrive. Offer them a big free incentive to sign up.

How To Post An Opt-In Form On A WordPress Blog

If you use WordPress, the easiest way to place an autoresponder on your site is to paste the opt in form code into a widget. For example, on this site, I used a “Top Widget” (above) and created a table into which I pasted my Trafficwave autoresponder opt-in form code and a graphic of the cover of the report I am giving away to people who opt in to my list.

What Happens After People Sign Up To Your List Via Your Autoresponder?

When people fill in the form their details are automatically added to the autoresponder. Next, the autoresponder sends the subscriber an email thanking them for signing up and inviting them to “opt-in” to the mailing list in order to receive your messages. This “double opt-in” procedure ensures that you build a permission-based mailing list and protects you against accusations of spamming.

The subscriber clicks a link in the email message to opt in to your service. When that step has been taken the subscriber will begin to receive your messages, which you will have preloaded into your autoresponder and set it to mail them out at pre-determined intervals. That way, each new subscriber receives a similar series of messages from you at similar intervals for as long as the subscription remains active or the last newsletter has been mailed.

Keep Your List(s) Informed About Your Business

You can continue to expand your newsletter series by loading new articles or messages onto the end of your mailing series in the auto-responder.

Autoresponders are powerful tools for Internet marketers. You do not have to limit yourself to just one newsletter. You can build a separate mailing list within your autoresponder for each product you sell and follow up with email messages that focus on that product or market niche.

You can also use your autoresponder to broadcast an email to all your subscriber lists in one shot, which is great for sending out time-limited special offers, or timely advice.

Once you decide to subscribe to an autoresponder email service and write a newsletter you will have put in place a powerful resource to turn targeted traffic into subscribers and subscribers into customers.

In short, autoresponder success = Internet business success.

How Much Does An Autoresponder Subscription Cost?

Here is a list of the leading autoresponder providers and the prices they charge. I personally subscribe to both GetResponse and TrafficWave as a result of how my business has developed over the last few years. However, for anybody setting up a home-based Internet business I would recommend that you go with TrafficWave because you pay a fixed price no matter how large your list grows, as you can see in the following chart: