The Autoresponder -Your Million Dollar Employee

By: Jo Mark

One tool that is an absolute necessity in generating income from articles is a good autoresponder. The reason is simple. Very few people will make a purchase on their initial viewing of your article. Most people will not buy until the fifth, sixth, or seventh contact. For that reason, you need a tool to stay in touch with them on a regular basis. That tool is the autoresponder. You can set it up to contact the people on your list as often as you like. I find it kind of annoying if I’m contacted every day, but every two or three days is fine.

The initial goal of the autoresponder is to make your prospects comfortable with you. In the beginning, send them plenty of FREE REPORTS and free gifts that are related to the products you offer. Of course, you can add a short blurb at the end suggesting that they go to yoursite dot com for additional information, but as rule, don’t over-sell in the beginning. In your first six emails, you should make heavy pitches no more than twice.

I like to send out a few three or four page MINI REPORTS. I make sure I send them out one at a time. They are designed to be viral sales pieces. I let prospects know that two or three of these reports make great incentives to get people to opt into their list. I let them know that they have resell and reprint rights for each item. Each mini report contains some good information along with two or three ads for items that I’m currently promoting. They work pretty well because I’m still selling product from Mini Reports that I stopped sending out six months ago.

There are many options available in selecting an autoresponder. Some are free, some can be hosted and operated from your own computer, and some are hosted by companies that charge a monthly fee. The fee based autoresponders range in price from a few dollars per month to over a hundred dollars each month.

Determine how you intend to use your autoresponder before beginning your research. If you will be using it to send out a newsletter to 8000 people monthly, make sure they can handle that many (at no additional charge). If you intend to send out pdf files, make sure your autoresponder can do this and also investigate the maximum download sizes permitted.

After determining how you are going to use it, you are ready to perform a search. By doing a search, you will find a wide variety of autoresponders available. Before making a decision, test them out. Many will allow you to send out test emails to your own email account. Make sure that the test emails do not all wind up in your bulk, or junk email box. If they do, you would be wise to continue looking.

The best thing about your autoresponder is that it will never come into your office and ask you for a raise.