Autoresponders are a huge advantage for your business. They allow you to automate a whole range of electronic product information. They keep you in touch with your clients, building your brand and helping your business, even while you sleep or take a vacation.
However, the array of autoresponders available now can be quite dazzling. You need to get the right one for your particular needs, especially as autoresponders vary in price from absolutely free to quite expensive.
Here are a few considerations when shopping for autoresponder service:
You must have personal control over your autoresponder files. In other words, you should have the ability to upload new autoresponder documents any time you want. This allows you to change your documents 24/7, instantaneously.
The autoresponder must be user-friendly. For some autoresponders you need to specify an exact “subject” or “body” message in order to retrieve your document you want. These are difficult to use and you risk losing the sale as people who might have been your clients just won’t bother to work it out.
So, you should use an autoresponder that will send a specific message back to the requester no matter what is in the subject or body of the e-mail message that was sent.
Most autoresponders will only send up to 32 K of information. This is really important to know, because if you are using an autoresponder for your business, you don’t want one of these. Ideally, your autoresponder should have the capability of sending any size of email and attachment. This will give you the freedom to sendgraphics, software, and detailed ebooks, etc.
Find out how fast your server will set up additional autoresponders if necessary. You may have need of more autoresponders, to allow you to trace advertisements for split testing; this means your ISP must set up these quickly or allow you to set them up for yourself.
Will the autoresponder capture/log all the email addresses that request a response? This is vital to enable you to follow up on every one of these potential customers. Ideally these logs will also show you the time and date of the request to allow you to track activity. Avoid autoresponders which don’t allow you to do that.
Make sure the ISP’s autoresponder software will allow you to download the autoresponder log (I download mine every 21 -30 days) and rebuild a new log automatically so you don’t wind up with duplicates. This allows you to strip out e-mail addresses from each log and correspond with the potential customers again.
You should avoid autoresponders that:
charge high set up fees (i.e.: $25-75 is unacceptable),
charge high monthly fees,
charge a “per hit” charge each time a document is requested,
don’t allow you the ability to upload and change an attached document yourself.
The most common use for autoresponders is to send out free information products like articles, sales letters, etc, or post ads in newsgroups, discussion lists, forums and classified ads.
I know, you just wanted to create your beauty products. Well without some organization of your list (hope you’ve got one or at least you’re building one) how will you communicate with them.
A word from you on a weekly basis helps to establish a bond between you and your list. You can send them announcements of new products, update them on product ingredients and so forth.
Being creative is a beautiful thing but being organized keeps you much more sane.
To Your Success,
Robert & Juliette
juliette@beautybusinessblueprint.com
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