Email autoresponders can become a vital feature of your online marketing plan. In order to use them effectively, it’s important to understand the different options available, and methods of increasing their effectiveness.
There are important features to look for when choosing your autoresponder program or service. These include:
- Allowed length: be sure to check whether the service limits how long sales letters can be.
- Response time: how long do customers wait for an answer when they visit your site for information? They should be receiving an email from your service immediately.
- Options: you should be able to choose between HTML and plain-text versions of emails, and subscribers should be able to “opt-out” or unsubscribe if they don’t want to receive further emails.
- Daily Reports: since your autoresponder emails are part of your marketing program, you’ll want to know how successful it is (and which ones are working!) by being able to view stats on subscribers, unsubscribe requests and other information. This information will help you target your marketing efforts, and drop or change the emails that don’t generate a good response rate.
- Flexibility: make sure that you can change or personalize your emails, free of charge. You will want the option of making changes to emails, since most marketers like to “tweak” their copy from time to time.
Making Autoresponders Part of Your Marketing plan
Autoresponder emails can be an integral part of any business CRM (Customer Relationship Management plan). Autoresponders let you contact your customers, but without paying for human manpower, and can literally add fuel to a good web site in gathering sales.”
autoresponders are an important part of online marketing, but adds that they don’t replace other methods. “They’re an addition, not really a replacement. Each sale does generally require a “human touch,” however there are some times that the autoresponders will close a deal by itself. They are our “automated follow-up” mechanism, and do that extremely well.”
1) Drive qualified hits to the site.
2) convince a prospective customer to sign up for a free trial account.
3) Send out auto-responder messages frequently.
4) Personal follows up by telephone / email as soon as reasonably possible.
Email autoresponders are an integral part of the follow-up process in this marketing plan.
You do need to make sure that you set up your autoresponder to prevent inadvertently Spamming people. IT HAPPENS! Sometimes autoresonders can hurt you too, so you need to be careful when using them. ”
So How useful Are Autoresponders?
While it’s impossible to generalize completely since email copy varies widely, as well as methods of sending them out (monthly, weekly, or series of ten versus a one-time mail), overall autoresponder emails stack up favorably against other methods of marketing. In fact, they can be less expensive and generate better results than some of the more traditional methods such as direct mail.
In general, direct mail averages about a .5 to 1 % response rate. Email responses are usually higher, around 1.5 to 3% with a decently strong email; some of the really good ones can get a response rate of up to 10%!
Autoresponders are an integral part of the sales process, and yes, they’ve increased sales. Being a small shop, it generally takes us 3+ days to respond to new signups. In the meantime, potential customers are being reminded of our services on a daily basis – each sales letter explains the benefits, new ways to use the service, and gives more bonus items when they purchase. Currently, we are closing about 10-20% of our qualified leads with the auto-responders and new sales method. Before, we were doing about 1 in 100.
In today’s online market, email autoresponders are being used more frequently for a simple reason: they work, and help to save valuable hours in customer follow-up. According to our web marketing experts, it definitely pays to understand how this effective marketing tool works, and to add it to the items that you use to generate inquiries and sales.
