The Most Important Features For Selecting An AutoResponder For Your Business

What Exactly Is What Is An Auto Responder?

An auto responder is probably the most important tool for online marketers. Auto responders will automatically inform, train, and remind a potential customer he needs your product or service. Auto responders do this by sending a series of pre-written emails based on a schedule you define in advance. 

For example, you could use the first email to immediately send a free report to anyone that completes the registration form on your web page. Then the next day, your auto responder could send another email explaining the benefits of your product or service. Two days later, your auto responder sends another email, and so on. Meanwhile, you could be soaking up the sun at the beach or boating on the lake next to your second home in the mountains.

Why Do You Need An Auto Responder?

When you are in business, consistent communications with your customers is critical to keep them coming back. Auto Responders are a great time-saving way to do this so your customers won't forget you. It's much less expensive to re-sell an existing customer than it is to get new customers. For this reason, it is important that your auto responder allows you to "broadcast" emails to your entire customer list. With an auto responder broadcast, you can send on announcement, holiday greeting, or special offer o thousands of customers with the click of a button, and each email will be personalized with your customer's name, email, and pretty much any other information you collect. Compare that to sending the same email by hand to just 10 friends, and you should be able to see the power of auto responders.

Consistent communications is also crucial for courting new customers. If a potential customer visits your website, you need to remind him of the value you are offering and invite him to come back and buy. Statistics say you need to contact new customers an average of 7 times before they buy. This means auto responders are critical to your online success and you need to make each "campaign" (i.e., series of pre-written emails) at least 7 messages long.

3 Types Of Auto Responders

You have basically 3 options to meet your auto responder needs:  free auto responders, pro auto responders, and your own auto responder software. Later in this article, I will present the what I consider to be the best of each auto responder type and why. There are obviously pros and cons for each type of auto responder. 

The primary advantage for free auto responders is they're free. However, free auto responders often put ads unrelated to your message in your messages which is not good for your business. The other really big downsides to free auto responders are (1) they normally limit the number of subscribers you can have on your list, and (2) they often limit the number of messages you can use per campaign.

Your second option is to use pro auto responders. In my personal opinion, this is the best option for most online marketers. Pro auto responders tend to offer all the best features with zero maintenance and installation issues and no extraneous advertisements. This frees up your time to focus on marketing and product development. The primary downside is the cost ... which varies widely. We'll discuss this more in a moment.

The third option is to use your own auto responder software. If you use good software, this is also a good option. The price is a one-time expense, but you have to know a fair amount about software and fixing it when you Internet Service Provider changes settings can be annoying and sometimes baffling. 

What Features Are Important In Selecting Your Auto Responder? 

Regardless of which type of auto responder you choose, the important features are the same. The difference is in which features are available for any particular auto responder. In this section, I will identify and briefly discuss the important features to consider.

# of Campaigns: 
This and the next 3 features are by far the most important features to consider for any auto responder you consider. The number of campaigns is how many different series of emails you are allowed to create. For example, if you offer 3 products and/or services, you might need 3 campaigns (one to sell each  product or service) or you might need 6 campaigns (one to sell each product or service and one to train your buying customers on each product or service). Ideally, your selected auto responder will allow unlimited campaigns.

# of Messages: 
The auto responder you select must have no less than 7 messages allowed per campaign to be really useful. The good thing about this is I have never seen one that limits you to less than 10 messages ... even including the free auto responders. Ideally, your selected auto responder will allow unlimited messages or emails per campaign.

# of Subscribers: 
Another extremely important features for your auto responder is the maximum number of subscribers allowed per campaign. This is one of the truly discriminating features of all types of auto responders. Free auto responders tend to have a fixed limit on the number of subscribers. Auto responder software is typically NOT limited by the number of subscribers, but your web host probably limits the number of emails your account can send per hour (which is effectively a subscriber limit for your auto responder software). Even many pro auto responders have a virtual limit on the number of subscribers by charging you a monthly fee based on the number of subscribers (either per campaign or total across all your campaigns). Ideally, you want an auto responder with unlimited subscribers allowed per campaign ... with no increase in price.

Broadcasting: 
I mentioned "broadcasting" earlier in this article. Broadcasting is an important feature that allows you to send impromptu, one-time emails to everyone on your list. As previously stated, this is invaluable for announcements, special offers, and just "keeping in touch". I wouldn't buy an auto responder without the broadcasting feature.

HTML Capable: 
HTML is the language of websites, and using it in your emails tends to capture your customers' attention better than simple text emails. If you can build a webpage ... or even just format text in Microsoft Word (e.g., bolded, underlined, and colored text) ... HTML is an important feature to consider. I find the easiest way to use HTML in your auto responder is to build your email in Microsoft FrontPage as a "website", and then click the HTML tab and "Select All". Then copy it and paste it into the HTML message field of your auto responder. 

Importing & Exporting: 
The auto responder you select should have the ability to import and export your customer list. Importing is important for adding customers by hand, and exporting is important to backup your customer list in case the computer system fails.

Personalization: 
I think every auto responder under the sun offers personalization, but verify before you buy. Personalization means you can enter a wild card field in your emails, and the auto responder will read that field from your customer's data and insert it in the email (preferably in both the body and the subject of the email). For example, if your prospect's name is John Doe, the auto responder will insert "John" everywhere you use the wild card field, **FIRSTNAME**.

Customer Support: 
This is another really important feature. I recommend you send an email or call the customer support for any auto responder you are considering Before you buy just to verify they are responsive. I haven't used customer support very often, but when you need it, it's very frustrating when you get no reply for several days. Make sure it's unlimited and free;  Run ... don't walk ... away from any auto responder that charges you for customer support.

Spam Check Analyzer: 
At least one pro auto responder offers the "Spam Check" analyzer feature. First, you write your email and then run it throught the spam analyzer. The spam analyzer will highlight any words or phrases likely to get classified as junk mail by a spam blocker. This is a nifty feature, but most auto responders do not have it.

Track Email Open Rate: 
This is a slick feature that tracks how many of your auto responder emails are actually opened and compares it to when people drop out of your sequence. A noticeable drop-out trend can flag you to take a look at the email where most people get out so you can assess why ... and then correct the problem.

Referral/Affiliate Program: 
This is a really nice feature where you can refer others to the auto responder service and you get compensation for the referral. Some of the pro auto responders are essentially free after you have sponsored three referrals. You can even make a monthly profit if you sponsor enough referrals. The best plans offer a substantial referral compensation on multiple levels; in other words, you get compensated when people you refer sponsor others.

Lead Generation or Capture Pages: 
When you create a campaign, your auto responder should allow you to create a sign-up form you can put on your web page(s). This is the primary way you will get people on your customer list. Every auto responder I ever seen provides this feature.

Email Registration Links: 
Some auto responders (generally only the pro auto responders) allow you to embed a simple link in an email that will automatically add customers to your list when they click on the link. This is a nice feature not available on all auto responders.

Traffic Options: 
Some pro auto responders allows you to purchase leads to add to your auto responder campaigns. Some auto responders also offer other free ways to get sign-ups on your email campaigns. This is always a nice option to have.

Works With Your ISP: 
An ISP is your Internet Service Provider (i.e., the company that provides your Internet access). I've only seen two pro auto responders that offer this free service. Basically, what they do is work to keep ISP's from blacklisting emails sent from the auto responder company's domain name. For example, TrafficWave works with ISP's to keep emails sent from TrafficWave accounts from being blocked as spam. This is a fairly rare, but very valuable service.

Price: 
The last, but certainly not the least, feature I am including here is the price. Prices range all over the place in auto responders ... primarily because many of the pro auto responders charge per campaign and/or by the number of subscribers. Some of them can cost thousands of dollars per month for very large customer lists. However, you can get the exact same service ... and in some cases much better ... with much lower cost auto responders. Once again, however, the trick is to assess cost versus # of campaigns, # of messages per campaign, and # of subscribers allowed.

********************************************
Written By: Dr. Bryan Stoker
webmaster@LifestylePublishing.com
www.Autopilot101.com/index.htm

FREE REPORT: How To Turn Your Auto Responder Into A 5-Figure Monthly Income Fast … & Almost Free”
Click Here Now: http://moneymakersystems.org/

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT AUTORESPONDERS?
=======================================

WANT TO KNOW MORE?
* How To Determine The Best AutoResponder For Your Business
* 17 Powerful Ways To Use A Professional-Grade Email AutoResponder To Build Your Business
* Email AutoResponders: The Most Important Marketing Tool On The Internet
* How To Generate A 5-Figure Monthly Income Using Your AutoResponder

CLICK HERE NOW
http://moneymakersystems.org/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Recommended “Best AutoResponder” For Most Businesses:
http://www.trafficwave.net/members/rbstoker

Other Good AutoResponders:
GetResponse: http://www.GetResponse.com/index/rbstoker
Aweber: http://www.aweber.com/?291423
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~