Autoresponder: 4 Reasons It’s The One Internet Marketing Tool You Should Never Be Without

When starting an Internet business, you’ll probably be trying to cut costs, and that makes sense; after all, one way to maximize your profits is to minimize your costs. But there are certain tools that you absolutely must have, and I’ll tell you right up front, the number one essential is an autoresponder.

In case you’re not sure what an autoresponder is, it’s an application that will help you capture the names and addresses of your website visitors and make it simple to keep in touch with them after they leave your site. There are two main scenarios:

1. After they’ve made a purchase, in which case, as long as you’ve done a good job, they’re a candidate for future purchases if you send them newsletters.
2. Before they make a purchase, perhaps because they are undecided about the purchase, or because they are interrupted or distracted from the buying process. If you remind them of your interest, you can turn it into a sale.

You can only keep in touch if you create a list of names and email addresses of (ideally) everyone who is interested enough to visit your site. Obviously, you can’t force people to leave their details, but if you don’t give them the chance, they’ll likely leave their contact details on someone else’s site, and you’ve probably lost that lead or sale forever.

So how does autoresponder help?

First, You just need to add a simple form to your website that people can sign up for. Say it fast like that and it sounds so easy. Maybe you are, or know, a whiz-bang website coder and that’s easy for you. Even after several years online, this would be totally beyond my web design capabilities if it weren’t for my auto responder.

Second, You need to record the contact details you have collected so that you can keep in touch with your prospects and customers. It’s wise to at least segment them into different categories, otherwise you risk sending a discount offer to a customer who bought at full price.

Third, you must be scrupulous in complying with requests to remove your list; otherwise, he could be accused of spamming and blacklisted.

Four, the autoresponder team will have all the resources and skills to improve the deliverability of your email. If it doesn’t happen, it can’t be read!

In my cost-cutting innocence, I imagined I could manage these functions from an Excel spreadsheet. And I did, until my client list hit 100 and then it started to get out of hand. Of course, he only knew about the clients; I had no idea of ​​the prospects. Those details didn’t even make it into my spreadsheet because I had never given them a chance to leave their information.

If I had implemented using an autoresponder to build contact lists from day 1 of my business, I would be in better shape now. Fortunately, I learned my lesson from a training course and started adding name capture or squeeze pages (as they are called) to my main websites. I have already been rewarded with an increase in sales.

Although I started this article with the implication that an autoresponder might be a cost, the good news is that there are very affordable and even free autoresponders available. You can also request free or low-cost trials from the best contenders on the market.

The choice is not a decision to be taken lightly. A free system can be a false economy when your business is bigger. Once you’ve made your choice, switching brands is a hassle you can do without.

However, whichever brand you decide to use, for the 4 reasons above, don’t be tempted to try to build an online business without using an autoresponder to build your list.