FIVE Effective ways of using Custom Fields in your Autoresponder.

Radhika Venkata (c)

One of the common questions I receive from my visitors is - 'can I
use custom fields with your autoresponder?'

So I thought I'd put up an article in this explaining custom fields.

Now every autoresponder script or autoresponder service are coming up
with a feature called 'Custom Fields'.

Custom fields are basically 'data input that is made specifically for
a particular individual'. So that data goes / used / belongs by that
particular person.

Custom fields can be 'Custom Form fields' or 'Custom admin fields'.

Custom form fields:

For example: You ask your subscriber this question - 'What color you like?'
in your subscriber form. John says 'red'. Tim says 'blue'. To allow
input by your subscriber, you need to create an extra Form field called
'Color'. This 'Color' field you create for a particular form is
Custom form field for that form.

So if you sent an email to John and tim -
'Your favorite color is - {color}.'
The tag will be replaced in your email with 'red' in John's email and
'blue' in Tim's email.


Custom admin fields:

Say you want to tell your subscribers that your favorite color is
'green'. Then you will create a Custom admin field in your
autoresponder like 'mycolor' with 'green' as data input.

If you send email like this -
My favorite color is '{mycolor}'.
The tag will be replaced with your color and sent to all subscribers.

BASICALLY, if you want some data from subscribers, you will use
'Custom Form fields' and if you want to tell something to all of your
subscribers, you will use 'Custom admin fields'. Your autoresponder should
have the ability to create these fields for you.


What are the FIVE uses of these Custom Fields:

1. Collect user information:

You can collect unlimited information from your users. If you are doing
a survey on offline advertising, you can collect user address, phone
number and age etc.

This way you can optimize your advertising campaigns or promote your
product to particular group people.


2. Promote your products:

You can send chunks of info that will need to be updated frequently
like your promotional links and coupon codes.

You can send these chunks of content by placing a simple tag in
autoresponder messages. If you want to update these data, Custom fields
are best option for you instead of updating the content in each email.

You can also promote affiliate products based on the interest of the
subscribers. Say if the list belongs to search engines, you can promote
search engine affiliate link.


3. Custom signatures:

Add Customized signatures for your different autoresponders. This way
subscribers see your name with specific web site information from
where they subscribed.

You can also keep private policy, antispam policy links.


4. Custom header and Footers:

Add Custom headers and footers for autoresponders differently. This
way you can customize the layout of each autoresponder and edit them easily.


5. Custom tracking links:

You can track user clicks and group users by using custom form field tags.
This way you are making sublists from your main list and promoting
tightening your advertisement more targeted.


So if you have this custom fields feature in your autoresponder, use
it to it's full potential to promote your products, customize
autoresponders, collect information from users, promote your affiliate
links etc.