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What is an Email Autoresponder?

Successful online marketing is about building relationships. You can produce or purchase the most incredible product online, but just putting out a sales page with features and benefits isn’t going to make you six figures. Sure, you may get the occasional traffic and impulse sales, but making the big money takes building relationships with your readers. So, along with content-marketing, there is one other tool successful big money marketers use – the email autoresponder.

What is an email autoresponder?

New affiliate marketers always ask me, “P.j., What is an email autoresponder ?” An email autoresponder basically is just a simple set of email messages that you pre-write and is sent to subscribers in the sequence and times (day) you decide.

For example, you can setup a tutorial for helping a reader setup WordPress and tweaking it for SEO and organic traffic. This tutorial or e-course can be a step-by-step setup provided to the readers over a period of a couple of weeks. Again, you can decide the frequency in which they receive each email. It’s all done automatically, even while you sleep. So, the email autoresponder is often called “bum marketing” or the “lazy method”.

What is an email autoresponder going to do for my sales?

Studies have shown that most buyers won’t buy something they see immediately (on impulse). But, if you remind them a few times, your chances of a sale increase dramatically. With an email autoresponder, you can invite your readers back to your website OR simply provide more information and tips and help right to their inbox where they can read at their leisure. This allows you to develop a relationship with them as an authority on a topic and builds trust.

Studies have further shown that buyers are much more willing to purchase from someone they trust.

What is an email autoresponder – Relationship Marketing

Today’s clients are looking for ways to save time, cut to the chase, immediate gratification and how you can help resolve their most difficult hurdles. Email marketing goes hand in hand with relationship marketing. With an autoresponder, you can do both. You can set yourself up as a brand and provide vital information to your readers that develops trust.

Relationship Building Strategies with an Email Autoresponder:

Allows you to communicate frequently
A conduit to offer reader rewards and return them to your website
Pre-launch your products or create any custom events
Build two-way communication
Can help enhance your customer service
Keep your pulse on what’s going on in the trenches

Video – What is an Email AutoResponder:

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What is an Email Autoresponder – The Components

Many existing autoresponder e-courses or subscriptions have given email marketing and relationship building a black-eye. The major mistake many rookie marketers make is to attempt to sell a product on the first email of the autoresponder series.

Do this and you’ll lose a lot of subscribers.

Your autoresponder series needs to be about your readers. The most important goal of an autoresponder is to build a relationship and convert your readers into raging fans looking to spread the word about information that helps them in some way. These emails should encompass tips and tricks that help them perform tasks quickly and effectively.

YES, your autoresponder series should contain your very best content.

Be funny, witty or charming. This isn’t at all required, but it definitley helps pique interest.

But, at the very least, it should be USEFUL! This is the huge key. Provide useful, actionable information and your readers will love you.

Can I Afford an Autoresponder?

Whenever an affiliate asks “What is an Autoresponder” and I reply and give them the average pricing, I always have to caveat it with this – Because an autoresponder helps you build your relationships and create raging fans, can you really afford to not set it up?

You can have a visitor to your site come and go. And, if you used the pay-per-click model, you’re money is gone down the drain. But, the autoresponder allows you to communicate with that same individual three, four seven or ten times more. Thereby, the price you paid for communication with a possible customer has just been cut to pennies per contact. This is also exactly why you should have one in place before your first blog post.

Think about your SEO and backlinking tactics. Will you be paying to build your organic traffic with guest posts, blog reviews, etc? If you do any of these things, I’m sure you want to maximize your advertising dollar. This is what six-figure marketing experts do – Every Time!

What is an Autoresponder? Free and Paid Versions

As with many things in life and on the Internet, you get what you pay for. There are free autoresponders out there such as MailChimp (which I recommend IF you just want to learn what they do) but, they are limited and have certain intolerable thresholds that will catch you later as your business grows.

Also, note, moving your list of email subscribers is NOT easy, regardless of what anyone tells you. I can tell you from experience. Email subscribers must ASK to be added to your receiving email list and ACKNOWLEDGE or confirm this again. It’s a two-step process, usually. There are Federal laws in place to protect website visitors from SPAM. So, trying to just “export” and “import” (although it may be featured on your possible new autoresponder) it’s not as easy as that. Trust me here.

There are two major players when selecting an autoresponder with which to build and grow with your business:

GetResponse
AWeber

I have used MailChimp, GetResponse, Aweber and many others over the years. And, My recommendation is GetResponse. They won’t cancel your account for a certain number of “unsubscribes” and they simply have more to offer with better features.

See My Best Autoresponder Reviews Here

You may not need all of GetResponse’s features, but you should be familiar with what you’re missing out on and how incredibly effective their email marketing campaigns can be:

Contact Manager – The basic necessity and why you are using email marketing

List Segmentation – To help you create separate lists of each of your subscribers such as “Buyers” versus “Non-buyers” – customers that have purchased from you in the past are proven to purchase more Or may warrant special discounts.

Template Selection – with over 500 ready-made templates offered, GetResponse stands out from the crowd of competitors – Take your “newsletter” to the next level – save time and a lot of pain

Template Editor – a feature-rich template editor is provided to let you edit and customize the message templates easily. HTML editing is also possible if needed

Image Hosting – GetResponse gives you the ability to upload files to their servers and reference them within your email sequence or newsletters

Social Media Marketing – a highly beneficial marketing method today that you can integrate with your email campaigns via GetResponse – See Social Media Optimization and Management for more info

A/B Split Testing – a marketing method provided by the app that most of the advanced marketers just love, tweak your email marketing campaigns and improve your conversion rates dramatically – again squeezing every penny out of that advertising dollar.

Surveys – another email marketing strategy to obtain feedback and provide what your readers want – invaluable tool!

RSS Feed Integration – a handy tool for your readers to get email updates whenever you post a new blog post, page or mixed media element.

Google Analytics Integration – Discover which website doorway your clients gained entrance to your email marketing and where to concentrate your efforts so that you’re not floundering aimlessly.

Spam Score Checking – Required FCC component to abide by Federal law and keep your subscribers happy.

Reports & Statistics – GetResponse has the most easy and intuitive interface to discover which of your email autoresponder series is working and which ones need revamping. Will also track “clicks” on each link within each email, easily and presented in exportable reports.

Landing Pages – One of the premier features of GetResponse are professional landing pages to your products or for signups to your lists. Generally, you pay an nice hefty monthly fee to get this separately from places like LeadPages. But, with your GetResponse membership, this nice feature is included.

This is simply a brief list of What is an Autoresponder and how GetResponse can amplify your marketing budget to the max. Here is a glimpse of all the features you can gain access to with their FREE TRIAL:

What is an Autoresponder – Conclusion

As you can see, an autoresponder in it’s most basic definition is simply a series of emails that are automatically sent to your readers when they subscribe (opt-in) on your signup form. Beyond that, it can be taken to many levels such as newsletters, videos and more. Autoresponders and email automation has been around for years and for good reason, these marketing tools are invaluable for ROI and squeezing out the most from your advertising dollar.