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Autoresponders should be used for two primary purposes:

1) To build your business mailing list
2) To inform your mailing list members when you have something worth their time and interest.

Frivilous use and overmailing to your list can cause you to lose prospects very quickly. It is imperative that you build a good working relationship with your list before you inundate it with every new program or product that comes along. So here are just a few guidelines to get you started.

First of all, to entice prospects to join your list, you need to have an excellent product that you can give to them in exchange for their names and email addresses. Some over-distributed, out-of-date, recycled ebook/product is not advisable. Seek out a quality product or service that you can offer for free. If you have purchased a product that you wish to give away, make certain that you are not violating the rights for which you have paid before giving it away. Resell rights on products do not necessarily always include giveaway privileges. So read the Terms of Service for the product/service before you hand it out as a free gift.

Secondly, make certain that you have everything in place and working properly before you put your ads out for prospects. Your autoresponder needs to be working completely and you should know exactly where to send your prospects after they give you their information, so that they can get what you promised them for doing so. If you are offering downloadable products, test them BEFORE giving the link(s) to your prospects. They should NOT have to come back to you and complain because they did not receive what they were promised!

Set your autoresponder up according to the instructions given by the service provider. Any good service will give you exact instructions in simple terms so that you do not have to “jump through hoops” to use the service. Be sure that you are familiar with how everything works BEFORE you set up and start advertising. If youa re offered a pdf or videos to read or view, do it! You need to at least have a general idea of what to do before you start the setup process.

If you are directed to the service through an affiliate link, do NOT go back to the person who invited you to join. He or she is most likely simply an affiliate and will not be able to give you instruction as well as the support person(s) for the program itself. So make certain you know how to contact your autoresponder service personnel before venturing into the setup process.

Once you have everything in place, be sure to test the service yourself. Sign up and “walk” through the whole process to ensure that all your links work correctly and that your prospect will indeed be directed to the gift you have offered to him or her.

Also ensure that you add a contact email address to your autoresponder series/emails so that your list members can get in touch with you directly in the event of a problem. You need to make yourself available, or have someone to whom they can reach out, “just in case”. A good business relies on excellent customer care and service if you are “in it to win it”. This should include your availability to your prospects, or your willingness to have someone to be there for them.

Once your prospective future purchasers/members have joined, send them only the “best of the best” offers. Do your “due diligence” before you ask other people to purchase or join anything. If you are new to the Internet Marketing “game”, then reach out to people who have been around for a while and ask questions about products and services that you may be seeing for the first time, but that actually have been around for years. Just because it is new to you does not mean that it is a brand new service or product. So do NOT fill your autoresponder emails/messages with things like “Brand new”, “Never seen before”, “Just released” or any other wording that leads the prospect to think he or she is getting something that has never been offered in the past. I see emails every day from people offering me products and services that I know for a fact have been around for at least a year – most often more than that. So be confident by checking first before you use all sorts of superlatives and “new and different” verbiage in your emails.

Make sure that you have also set your autoresponder up to send a “thank you” note to your prospect after he or she purchases or joins whatever it is that you have offered. Yes, the program/service will most likely have its own “thank you”, but nothing pleases YOUR mailing list member like getting a personal note from YOU for him or her having taken action after seeing your offer. So be sure that you can do this, then and make it happen. A happy customer is a repeat customer and if you are trying to earn money online, you most definitely want repeat customers!

The autoresponder of choice for my business is: Traffic Wave