Infostructure Part 3 AUTORESPONDERS! (Part 2 of 2)

Why is an autoresponder is a 'must have' for any internet business?

Marketing studies have found that it often takes 5 or more contacts before a prospective customer will purchase a product or service from you, especially if you are not well known. This is why major corporations run continuous ads in numerous media, even if solely for name recognition.
The first time a person views your website, or ad for your product or service, they may not be ready at to make a purchase. You need to show them "what is in it for them." They are also likely to soon forget your name.

You must establish your expertise and show people that you and your products can make a positive difference for them.

An autoresponder is the needed solution to these problems to dramatically increase your sales and customer retention. Simply - an autoresponder keeps you name and product or service in your prospective customer, or existing customer's, mind.

The autoresponder enables you to keep in constant contact with your "list" and helps you to build your list , while continuously letting your existing and prospective customers learn more about you and what you can do for them.

Most web based autoresponders such as Aweber and Constant contact give you unlimited responders and messages per account. These are web based services and are totally different from an autoresponder that may be part of your web hosting package.

If you want more capability than the web host autoresponder can provide,you should consider purchasing autoresponder software. Such software is available from several sources, and is divided into two main types.

One type is installed on the web host server. The second is installed on the user's computer. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Software installed on the server may complicated enough to require the services (and cost) of an installer, and may be limited to providing a single autoresponder address on that server. Server-based autoresponder software maintains the list of autoresponder addresses and is backed up with other web site files, taking that burden off the user. Also, the process of sending emails to a large list is handled by the server.

PC-based autoresponder software, on the other hand, is generally easy to install, but imposes extra burden on the user to back up the list. Sending broadcast emails to the list may strain the capabilities of the ISP, or may simply exceed the allowable limits of messages the ISP imposes. PC-based software can provide the feasibility of integrating the email list with other marketing functions on the PC which would be difficult or impossible with server-based software.

But no matter what type of autoresponder you utilize, you should always have a print copy of your entire list. Don't forget Murphy's law, won't allow for any "Mulligans" if you loose your list.

Leading software based autoresponders include:

ULTIMATE AUTORESPONDER PRO

This program enables you to send your messages in html, audio, text and video. This software is very reasonably priced at $97 and is very powerful.

FOLLOWUP AUTORESPONDER PRO

This program claims to deliver more than 92% of e-mail to your "list's in box", and is a full powered, feature rich program. This program is available for $99.

Next in our third part of Infostructure we will cover "opt-in" products.

Infostructure Part 2 AUTORESPONDERS! (Part 1 of 2)

Infostructure may be a boring topic but it is neccesary one to discuss. Choosing an autoresponder is an extremely important decision. The success or failure of your business will depend to a large part on the autoresponder.

What is an autoresponder? Wikipedia, the free internet encyclopedia website defines autoresponder as:
"An autoresponder is a computer program that automatically answers e-mail sent to it. 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 " But there is a lot more to autoreposnders than that simple definition.

Your autoresponder is your lifeline to your list. This is the primary way that you will communicate with your list. First write out a series of e-mail messages for your autoresponder to deliver to the people on your list, then you must determine the intervals that your message will be sent to your subscribers who make up your list. Next, you need to determine if you want to have a seperate "autoresponder campagin" for people who have made a purchase from you recently and a different one from those who have not.

As I said earlier your choice of an autoresponder is extremely important. There are two main types of autoresponders, web based autoresponder services, such as Aweber, Get Response and Constant contact or software autoresponders, which you will run based on your computer. There is also a third type, which is supplied by your web hosting company.

There are pros and cons of each. A web based autoresponder will charge a monthly fee, either based on the number of your subscribers or the types and amounts of messages you send out. Software based runs on your own computer and has no monthly fees to use it. But what happens to your list if your computer crashes? Same question applies to the web based services. In addition how much "traffic" can your computer and internet connection handle? Do you want to run your computer 24/7? Consider what features of an autoresponder you actually need and will use and what your budget is.

If you use an autoresponder provided by your web hosting company and you change the host or they go out of business, you can loose your entire list. All the links that you set up everywhere will no longer work and you may frustrate and "alienate your list" if they have problems caused by your autoresponder.

If you are on a tight budget, you might want to do a search on your favorite search engine for free autoresponders, but buyer beware, you get what you pay for(or not)!

Next time, we will go further in depth into this very important topic of autoresponders.