Aside from being the single most powerful and effective communication tool that every business owner and professional should be using in their business...
An autoresponder is a powerful marketing tool well understood and implemented by online marketers and computer gurus, but for some reason this tool is still not completely embraced and utilized by the average professional or business owner.
An effectively implemented autoresponder will further develop your relationship with your clients and automate the follow-up process. Autoresponders make your follow process more streamline and almost always more successful.
Let us for example say your business cycle can take as long as 9 months or even a year before you ultimately make a sale with your client or prospect. Imagine if you had a marketing tool that would contact them at regular, pre-chosen intervals over the course of the buying cycle. This would help you steadily and effortlessly follow-up with your client or prospect...until that prospect raises their hand and says,
"Mr. Business owner...I want more information about your product and I am now ready to purchase from you."
That is the power of a well scripted and effectively implemented autoresponder. So please read on as this article could really transform your mindset and automate your business in an entirely new way.
In simple terms we can take the word autoresponder and form a basic definition just from the two words composing it.
Auto = for automate, automatic or automatically.
and
Respond = for reply or answer.
Simple enough, right? So, why such a big deal?
Well, when I first heard of autoresponders, I instantly thought of the most common yet sometimes annoying use that you may be envisioning like I did.
When I first heard the word autoresponder, I instantly thought of that annoying "Out of office" or "Vacation reply message." You know the one I am talking about, you email someone that you were hoping to hear from right away, only to get their autoreponder saying, "I am out of town until Tuesday and won't be returning any calls or messages." Or another one you may have received would be, "I won't have access to email so Please call Miss so & so if you need immediate assistance."
Arrggghhhh...I hate those messages and maybe so do you.
Another type of autoresponse message could be the one following up after you hit the "more information button" or various "contact us buttons" you see on a website that instantly replies by saying,
"Thanks for your interest, one of our representatives will get back to you soon."
...and sometimes you wait forever and never get anything further from the company.
Or worst yet, you get a call or reply 3 weeks later when you no longer care about that company or the information you wanted weeks ago.
All of this happens all too often, mainly because the company simply wasn't using the technology properly.
Unfortunately, the examples above are both essentially what we can call autoresponders. But these poor examples above really don't give the term autoresponders proper justice.
They surely are not good examples of what an effective autoreponder is and can do for you and your business.
Autoresponders could soon become the best marketing tool you could have. They can easily be such an effective tool, now that the autoresponse software is so advanced and intuitive. You will be amazed to learn the full power of an autoresponder and how it can transform your business. Let's take a minute and go deeper here as this could be the best 10 minutes you ever could invest in your business.
I am here to help you explore the true power of an autoresponder and hopefully offer some insight into how you should be implementing these into your business right away.
But first we need to clarify the real meaning to the term autoresponder.
Aweber is the company that I hold in highest regard as being the "best of the best" having anything to do with email marketing. This is the one company truly deserving the right to clarify the meaning of the word autorepsonder for us today.
So here is aweber's definition of an autoreponder,
"An autoresponder (sometimes called an autoresponse) is an email message that is sent to someone who requests information.
Typically the autoresponder is the first in a sequence of messages that are sent to someone (the later messages may also be called autoresponders, or sometimes are known as "follow ups").
AWeber helps you to create and manage autoresponders, so that you can easily communicate with people who are requesting information from you."
Definition courtesy of Aweber
So that should hopefully clarify what an autoresponder is, now lets explore what they can do for you or your business.
Typically you should be utilizing autoreponders to instantly answer, connect or respond with a client,customer or prospect that finds you online. But you can even have autoresponders tied to an 800 information line, social media, a call to action on your business card, integrated with a landing page and countless other creative combinations of online and offline marketing.
For now, let's just explore the uses of implementing an autoresponse system or autoresponder into your website or online marketing.
Typically your goal online either with your blog, website, landing page or social media is to connect with your visitor and capture their name and email address. One of the most important tools that should go hand in hand with an effective autoresponder is your "Opt in box" or "Opt in form".
The opt in form places and inserts your visitors name and email into your autoresponse system. You can learn more about your opt in form later, but just acknowledge that your main goal is to capture your visitors name and email and to insert that name and email into your autoresponder system.
I have seen plenty of people gather long lists of names and emails that just sit and collect dust because they are doing nothing with the list. Conversely, I have seen plenty of effective autoresponder software systems sit empty and collect dust just because they don't have any names and email addresses to utilize with the software.
So as important as an autoresponder is, it can only be effective if it has a valid name and email address to communicate with. So before you get all hung up on having the latest and greatest software, you should first figure out who your ideal client is.
Then you need to create a series of messages or thoughts you wish to communicate to them, and then combine the power of an effective autoresponder software system with the awesome power of properly placing your opt in form into your communication and marketing efforts. This is when it really gets fun as you start your automatic marketing machine.
To your success with this powerful communications tool,
