Finding the email autoresponder for
you: Which of the three main
types do you need?
by
Sherry Gordon
You
probably know what they
are... You get those email
messages that are shot to you
automatically - maybe several in
a row. That's done with
one of a host of email
"autoresponders". Need
some help understanding the
differences between all the
different options?
I now think in terms of three
main types, even though you
might say there are only
two: online and on your
computer. ...But it's useful to
divide "online" into free and
paid services, because, after a
good deal of research and many
months of practical application,
I see them as different animals.
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If you're
wondering what the pros and cons of
using the different models are, maybe
I can be of assistance...
Free vs. paid online
autoresponder services
With
an online autoresponder service, it
happens all online, from -their-
servers, 24/7. That's nice for
you - it means that you have nothing
to do after the initial set-up.
(Though it should be easy enough to
tweak your messages if need be.)
A good service allows you to send both
one-off and sequential e-mail
messages... This double facility
is an essential tool for those who do
any sort of follow-up marketing.
There are now many fee and/or paid
online autoresponder services.
One of the easiest to use and
best-featured free services is one
some big-name marketers (and I ;^)
like: http://www.GetResponse.com/?36333
GetResponse offers both a free version
and not-free version (i.e., you pay a
monthly fee for each message
series). Your "payment" for the
free version is the inclusion of one
well-demarcated short ad at the top of
each of your messages.
If you're building a Web business on a
shoestring, free may be what you feel
you need to begin with. And in
any case, you may feel that there are
some types of messages that don't
warrant the expense of paying to
remove an ad - such as articles people
have already read in online article
directories and want to order so as to
be able to easily copy the text for
their websites or e-zines.
(I.e., they're already "sold".)
But that advertising is a bit
of a distraction. (I say "a
bit", where other advisers might say
"a huge"... I think such ads are
comparable to banner ads on websites -
and that people tend to ignore them as
much these days.)
As with websites, if you're going to
share advertising space with others...
- It's
better to be able to choose the
others. (You can do this to
some degree with various types of ad
exchanges, for instance - by
selecting categories of businesses
to accept or deny as advertising
partners. Not necessarily so
with free autoresponder services.)
- It's
better yet, if you're going to set
aside advertising space of some
sort, that it makes money for
you. (People sell ad space in
their own e-zines - why not in their
email autoresponder messages?)
- Even
better is when that "ad space" is
taken up by you! ...If you don't
use a free autoresponder service,
you can put your own ads
(for your own products, website/s,
affiliate programs, etc.) into your
messages.
So, free
autoresponders are cool... but
not nearly as cool as ad-less ones.
If
you think you'll have multiple
autoresponders - for instance, for one
or more courses and/or for other
e-mail applications - you'll probably
want to do one of two things:
Use your own autoresponder software
(we'll come to that in a minute) or
use an online service that gives you unlimited
autoresponders...
The folks who designed this next
relatively new online service have
really positioned themselves to rake
in the customers: http://www.WizardResponderPro.com
It doesn't offer any free
autoresponders... But for under
$12US a month, you get as many as
you want! And other notably
sophisticated features, including
customizable signup forms, easy
scheduling, the ability to contact
your list whenever you want (making it
something of a contact management
database), various demographic
controls, and
an ad tracking system for links you
include in your messages, plus the
ability to split-test mailings if you
wish. (There are some really
useful bonus ebooks, too.)
There are
video tutorials to help you get
familiar with the system (which
includes a very helpful assortment of
statistical reporting visible on the
left side of the control panel)... a
good introduction to which is
available in a video tour on the
website. I suggest you look at
this, as you'll pick up a lot of
information about using
autoresponders this way.
One facet
of this company that's quite
impressive is their dedication to deliverability
of your messages. (And that's
one of the downsides of using your own
software - you'll have to rely on your
own ISP's capability to handle your
messages, and
many of them might be rejected by the
recipients' ISPs as suspected spam;
sigh!) WizardResponderPro claims
to be white-listed with all major ISPs
and
offers an RSS technology option that
bypasses such email problems
altogether.
Really,
I
don't see a downside with this
service. (They've come into the
market late enough to have one-upped a
lot of other companies - that can be a
good thing for customers!)
If you're ready to get to work on your
autoresponders, you can sign up for a
30-day free trial. (I suggest that you
have your first message/s already
written - and a "test" in mind -
before beginning, if you're really
thinking that you need to try this
before committing yourself.) ...Bet
you'll get hooked!
The other option that many multiple
autoresponder users choose is...
Your own autoresponder software
Utilizing
your own software instead of a more
limited online service opens up more
possibilities for your business.
I've done quite a bit of research on
the choices, and I feel that
Postmaster Express is the best bet in
this category. (You may have
heard of Mailloop, which has been
around for a few years... It's
good - but Postmaster tops it, in
features, ease of use, and reported
customer service issues, and
it costs about $100 less!)
Postmaster Express manages any number
of autoresponders, filters contact
information from your email and any
web forms directed to you from your
site/s, and can automatically handle
deletes and undeliverables. It
lets you send text or HTML messages
(and if the recipient can't
read HTML, the text version will
automatically be chosen for them).
It even includes a contact manager and
appointment scheduler... Which
make it extremely handy for
salespeople and others, who wish to
bring an added layer of automatic
online follow-up to their business.
...Or for webmarketers who wish to
bring an added layer of contact
management and appointment scheduling
to their business. ;^)
Visualize having these capabilities...
- You can set up filters for
incoming emails and shift chosen
bits of information directly to one
or more designated autoresponder
series. (For example, a new
customer might be entered into a
generic customer category, a
specific product category, and a
monthly opt-out e-mail tips category
all at the same time. These
are all listed in the customer's
record, along with any other
information you had the filters pull
from the email message:
contact info, demographic data,
comments... whatever.)
- You can also easily manage
e-zines with this same
software - just send a one-off
message to the appropriate group of
contacts. (Unlike an
autoresponder series - of
e-course lessons, tips, or sales
letters - most e-zines are
real-time, so no one would be
starting at the beginning of a
canned series of messages...
Each is "broadcast" to the e-zine
subscribers' group.)
- You can store all kinds of
information about the individual
contacts in the records (e.g., note
what type of business/website they
own, that they're joint venture
partners, that you sent them
articles or e-books for their
review, what their favorite color
is, etc., etc.). ...Information you
input by hand as well as that
extracted from a webform-generated
email... Very useful!
- ...And you can take any relevant
bits of information from the contact
record to use in an outgoing email
message. ...Good stuff in, good
stuff out! (So you can create
demographically-differentiated
messages for John in California and
Jackie in Washington, DC, whose
needs for, say, winter lawn products
are quite dissimilar. Or use
your imagination to dream up
situations in which you might like
to reflect people's own words back
to them... I get an e-zine
from someone who reminds me what my
once-stated goals are - that's a big
help to me.)
Really, this
is highly effective stuff! Still,
because this is software that resides on
your computer, there are some
possible downsides to going with this
over a monthly online service...
- Your computer must be on, and your
internet connection accessible, 24
hours a day to run your
autoresponders such that they'll be
sent out immediately.
(You can set up the software to
automatically connect to the
internet and check every so often
for new incoming messages to filter
and new outgoing messages to
send. Or you could just
"manually" make it check once or
twice a day when you're online.)
- If you have an "iffy" ISP, the
automation of your outgoing emails
(even with your computer on
continually) might get hung up when
your email connection dies.
- And there's the message
deliverability problem, over which
you have no control.
- If you need to travel while you
work, you'd have to install the
software on a laptop to take with
you if you need to have "fingertip
control".
- And, of course, you have to pay a
larger amount of money up
front... But only once!
These
issues might be unimportant to some.
...You might have a great satellite or
DSL internet connection. Maybe
you use a laptop anyway. Or, you
might be home all the time with your
computer always running (and really
have fun playing around with this
powerful software)!
See the very informative Postmaster
Express site (and try it risk-free -
when you can set aside some time to
delve into it) at: http://post-master.net/rs/autoresponder/
(I have used this software - and even
after many months, I still got a kick
out of the things it can do...
The things I could do because
of it. Though perhaps I should
say too... it does make life more
complicated. :^)
The best of both worlds?
Some
people might actually want to use a combination
of such versatile at-home software and
an online service.
...You might have some types of
autoresponder messages that you feel
can wait a few hours, or even up to a
few days - and some that can't.
For instance, if your website e-zine
or affiliate program signup already
confirms the new contact's
registration, somewhat delaying a
longer welcome message might be
okay. And the spacing of
messages in a multi-part autoresponder
series might not be very
critical. But in other cases,
you want to make certain that the
person who expects to receive
an immediate response can always do
so.
It usually puts my back up when the
webmarketing gurus say "you've got
to do so-and-so"... But about
adding email autoresponders to your
promotional mix, mmm - yes, I'd say
that it's almost a "got
to". It's very, very smart,
anyway.
Maybe this comparison has helped you
see "what" and "how" as well as "why".
Gordon
Pioneering - Copyright
7-2002,
1-2010
REPRINTING
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=======================================
Sherry Gordon is the
learn-it-and-pass-it-on creator of
"The Affiliate Marketing Primer", at http://www.AffiliatePrimer.com/
=======================================
Many
thanks for your interest!
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