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Autoresponder Basics
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Author: admin Posted on: 2011-03-10 15:56:48 No. of Views: 219

Follow up messages are a series of messages that your subscriber receives at a specific interval or Follow ups are also be sent to encourage futher contact.

 

When to send follow ups: These are also called sequential emails.

 

* When you are sending an ecourse.

 

Ecourses are mainly focused on delivering large amount of information in small parts. It is like a crash course. Marketer gives of information to the subscriber and educate them with a little sales pitch emails at the end of the series to encourage a purchase.

 

* Following up Your customers.

 

You have a customer database ... You can send a follow up email to see how they are doing with their software/product that they bought from you. Marketers can use this follow up email to send a discount code to their other products or offer a free upgrade etc.

 

When to send one time email: These are also called Broadcast emails.

 

* To send Your Newsletter.

 

You can let your visitors subscribe to your newsletter. Once you can add your newsletter to your autoresponder program, you can send that email to your subscribers. Some autoresponders have the ability to schedule broadcast. So when you go on vacation, you can load them up beforehand, so autoresponder sends it on scheduled date.

 

* Discount offers.

 

You can send one time offers, discount coupon codes to your customers or subscribers to boost your sales.

 

* Upgrades of your products. You can send a broadcast when you want to announce any upgrades, changes of your web sites, your announcements etc.

 

 

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Author: admin Posted on: 2011-03-10 15:53:49 No. of Views: 642

I see many posts in the forums : web based or PC based autoresponder to buy?

 

What is web based?

 

The software is installed on the web site. It may be on your web site or somebody's web site. To install the software the web site server has enabled php or cgi or asp etc based on the type of language the software is written.

 

What is PC based?

 

Software can be installed on your personal computer. You can install it by keeping a CD in your install drive and open it on your computer screen.

 

What are adventages and disadvantages of each?

 

Advantages of web based autoresponder:

 

* Easy to send email to big lists

* You can access your software any where and from any computer

* You can get subscriber details easily like ip, date and time etc. This you can use proof of their subscriptions

* You can integrate your mailing list with your web site easily

* You can use it to send follow ups, scheduled emails easily

* If you have a big list, you can host it on your own VPS

* One time fee structure. No monthly billings like autoresponder services

 

Disadvantages of web based autoresponder:

 

* Little bit technical knowledge will be required like prior installation experience on your web site.

* You are responsible for upgrades of the software

 

Advantages of PC based autoresponder:

 

* Easy to install

* Easy to upgrade

* One time fee

 

Disadvantages of PC based autoresponder:

 

* Sending email to big lists is diificult as your software uses ISP as mail server. (I heard that some PC based software are configured to use your web site mail server. So email seems like going your own web site)

* You can't do real time things like follow up messages, scheduled messages etc.

* Backup is your responsibility

* Difficult to integrate with other web based utilities like your membership site, other databases etc. Though each has its own dis/advantages, its people preference to go with which type of software they need.

 

 

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Author: admin Posted on: 2011-03-10 15:49:52 No. of Views: 214

Follow up autoresponders are very valuable tool for Your online business.

 

* You can offer free email courses

* Send ezines, ezine articles

* Follow up your customer

* Conduct polls and quizzes

 

Five Advanced and Essentials features of a follow up autoresponder:

 

1. Multiple Subscriptions:

 

Sometimes you want your subscribers to opt for your lists more than one at a time. This is best way to target prospects instead of sending all promo email to one big list. Here your autoresponder displays lists of lists selected by you and subscriber selects which to subscribe.

 

2. Email un/subscriptions:

 

Advanced feature that needs some email forwarders to redirect subscribers emails to the php script. In this feature you can offer un/subscriptions through emails apart from form subscriptions.

 

3. Broadcast emails:

 

Broadcast emails also called one-time emails. Means instead of follow up emails at specific intervals, you can send promotional emails, ezines to your subscribers one time.

 

4. Bounced emails:

 

Very good feature. You can use this feature to clean up your lists. Your host will be happy as bounced emails uses the server resources and you delete them with your autoresponder script. Some free email services put your emails as spam or your subscriber no longer at their subscribed email or other problems like your subscriber email server is not working at the time of your emailings... Any of these reasons. The email will bounce back to your server. All these emails should be cleaned up once in a while, to conserve your server resources and to get good response from your list.

 

5. Custom fields:

 

These are the fields to keep certain text in their text areas and if you keep the defined tag, the script replaces it with the text you provided. Great for keeping ads, signatures, links in your emails.

 

 

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Author: admin Posted on: 2011-03-10 15:46:22 No. of Views: 339

If you are not using a follow up autoresponder until now, then it is time to buy it. Follow up autoresponders are very valuable tool for your online business.

 

* You can offer free email courses

* Send ezines, ezine articles

* Follow up your customer

* Conduct polls and quizzes

 

Five Basic and Essentials features of a follow up autoresponder:

 

1. Unlimited autoresponders and email messages:

 

You can set up messages at different intervals and send an email course.Some free services allow you to send only limited number of autoresponders. Most of the hosts provide you autoresponders but these are one time autoresponders.

 

2. Double opt-in feature: (also called Verified opt-in)

 

Most important feature you need, I'd say. People come to your web site, subscribe to your ezine and claim that you are spamming and he didn't actually subscribed to your list and somebody did. This double opt-in feature eliminates this trouble and make them confirm their subscriptions before start receiving emails from you.

 

3. Automatic un/subscriptions:

 

As admin you don't have to add your subscribers and delete subscribers if your autoresponder has this feature. You can also include unsubscription link in emails. So if subscriber don't want to receive emails, he can unsubscribe from your list in one click.

 

4. Import/Export subscribers:

 

If you have a mailing list manager or any other software that has emails in it's database, you can import emails to your autoresponder. Same way you can export your subscribers to other programs.

 

5. Personalization of Your emails:

 

If your subscriber sees his/her name in the subject field, they will stop a second at your email. Well... it's human nature to respond to their names. Once they stop at your email subject, more chances of clicking on your email and go in to the message.

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Author: admin Posted on: 2011-03-10 15:41:14 No. of Views: 160

I get emails asking that our autoresponder(s) send follow up messages based on an image tag, because their host don't allow cron jobs on their web sites.

 

My answer is 'No'. Simply image tag activation and sending follow ups is not a reliable method.

 

How Image tag activation works?

 

Usually script creates a activation path for an image. This image can be a 1x1 pixel image. You have to keep this image path on your web page(s). If a visitor comes to that web page(s), the image tag activates the script to send follow ups. But this is not always the case. If no visitor comes to the page where you kept the tag, follow ups won't be sent.

 

Why this is not reliable?

 

* As I said above the image tag activation depends on visitor traffic. If no visitors, script not activated to send follow ups.

 

* Even though your list is small like 500 or more, image tag activation can't send follow ups efficiently because the script timed out.

 

Best alternatives?

 

* Change to a host that supports cron. Seriously ... Hosts like yahoo don't allow you to run cron. Even they allow it, they restrict them to run once a day or every hour etc.

 

* If your list is big, get a VPS for yourself. VPSes are easy to manage and host deals with all techie stuff for you.

 

* Use web based cron service. This will work only if your autoresponder script allows it. Try searching on Google for 'cron service' or 'web based cron'. You will get list of services that host your cron job. In any case, server side cron jobs are needed for efficient follow ups from you autoresponder.

 

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