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E-Marketing Engine Articles
How to Use an Automatic Responder
for Effective Prospect Follow-up
Copyright 2003 Herman Drost
When a prospect shows an interest in your product, if you don't deliver what he
wants immediately and follow up on him, you lose sales. No matter what you're
selling online, using an automatic responder to do personalized follow up, can
drastically increase the amount of sales you receive. It can also dramatically
cut down on manual follow up of your prospects.
Once a prospect requests your information there are a million and one things
that can divert his attention from it.
For instance:
His computer crashed, he has to wait several days to get it repaired. His wife
called, her car broke down again. He has to pick her up. The kids are screaming,
the dog is chewing on their favorite toy. His friend needs a ride to the
airport...now!
These are just a few examples of what can happen to cause your prospect to
forget about your offer. That's why it is so important to get your offer in
front of a prospect more than once. The ideal number is 5-7 times.
How an automatic responder (autoresponder) works
These programs automatically return a prewritten message to anyone who sends a
message to the autoresponder's email address. They usually allow for one or more
follow-up messages.
Types of automatic responders
Single follow up - this one will reply once only to any message sent to it.
These are very useful for letting someone know that you have received their mail
and will get back to them shortly, or you could inform people you are away on
vacation.
Multiple follow up – these are often called sequential autoresponders. They
can be programmed to follow up over a period of days, weeks, or months with any
number of sequential messages.
Features:
Send multiple follow up messages Messages can be personalized A copy of each
requestors message can be sent to your e-mail address. Can create an online form
to insert in your web page. Supports both plain text messages or HTML.
Broadcast email updates to your entire customer list Attachment support - your
messages can contain one or more attachments. Tracking URLs - setup a tracking
URL to track click throughs from your messages Totally Ad Free Automatically
adds an "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom of each message. Free
automatic responder
autorespond-it.com (contains all the above features)
limitlessfollowup.com (free perl script) sendfree.com
getresponse.com
freeautobot.com
Paid automatic responder rapidreply.net Subscribe FREE to Marketing Tips
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How to set up an automatic responder on your web site
1. Create a form on your web site to capture your prospects information (i.e.
name and email address.) You can do this on one or several pages or use a pop-up
or pop-under (www.isitebuild.com/web-site-promotion.com) on your web page. I
prefer the pop-under because it is less obtrusive for your visitors (pops up
when the prospect has left the main page).|
2. Write a series of 3-7 personalized follow-up messages regarding your offer.
You have the option of spacing these several days (or weeks) apart from each
other.
3. Set up a confirmation page (www.isitebuild.com/success) to confirm your
prospects successful subscription.
4. Set up an error page (www.isitebuild.com/failure) in case your prospect makes
a mistake filling out the information. Create an email link on this page that
will direct him to your offer. Your autoresponder will still capture his email
address for follow-up.
5. Upload your main page (containing your subscription form), confirmation page,
and error page to your web host. If you are using a pop-up page, upload this one
as well.
6. Check all your web pages before you begin your marketing campaign. Test the
links and check the pages in different screen resolutions, and browsers.
7. Begin your marketing campaign.
Creating multiple personalized follow up messages to your prospects, gives them
a better chance to respond to your offer, resulting in increased sales. Using an
automatic responder will allow you more free time to focus on implementing other
marketing strategies. *********************************************************************
Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com
Affordable Web Site Design and Low
Cost Web Hosting
Subscribe to his “Marketing Tips” newsletter for more original
articles. subscribe@isitebuild.com.
You can read more
of his in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles
***********************************************************************
Article reproduced with kind permission from Herman Drost
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