When a prospect shows an interest in your product, if you don't
deliver what he wants immediately and follow up on him, you lose
sales. No matter what you're selling online, using an automatic
responder to do personalized follow up, can drastically increase
the amount of sales you receive. It can also dramatically cut
down on manual follow up of your prospects.
Once a prospect requests your information there are a million
and one things that can divert his attention from it.
For instance:
His computer crashed, he has to wait several days to get it
repaired. His wife called, her car broke down again. He has to
pick her up. The kids are screaming, the dog is chewing on their
favorite toy. His friend needs a ride to the airport...now!
These are just a few examples of what can happen to cause your
prospect to forget about your offer. That's why it is so
important to get your offer in front of a prospect more than
once. The ideal number is 5-7 times.
How an automatic responder (autoresponder) works
These programs automatically return a prewritten message to
anyone who sends a message to the autoresponder's email address.
They usually allow for one or more follow-up messages.
Types of automatic responders
Single follow up - this one will reply once only to any message
sent to it. These are very useful for letting someone know that
you have received their mail and will get back to them shortly,
or you could inform people you are away on vacation.
Multiple follow up – these are often called sequential
autoresponders. They can be programmed to follow up over a
period of days, weeks, or months with any number of sequential
messages.
Features:
Send multiple follow up messages Messages can be personalized A
copy of each requestors message can be sent to your e-mail
address. Can create an online form to insert in your web page.
Supports both plain text messages or HTML. Broadcast email
updates to your entire customer list Attachment support - your
messages can contain one or more attachments. Tracking URLs -
setup a tracking URL to track click throughs from your messages
Totally Ad Free Automatically adds an "Unsubscribe" link at the
bottom of each message.
Free autorespond-it.com (contains all the above features)
limitlessfollowup.com (free perl script) zipresponse.com
sendfree.com getresponse.com
Paid aweber.com rapidreply.net
How to set up an automatic responder on your web site
1. Create a form on your web site to capture your prospects
information (i.e. name and email address.) You can do this on
one or several pages or use a pop-up or pop-under
(www.isitebuild.com/web-site-promotion.com) on your web page. I
prefer the pop-under because it is less obtrusive for your
visitors (pops up when the prospect has left the main page).|
2. Write a series of 3-7 personalized follow-up messages
regarding your offer. You have the option of spacing these
several days (or weeks) apart from each other.
3. Set up a confirmation page (www.isitebuild.com/success) to
confirm your prospects successful subscription.
4. Set up an error page (www.isitebuild.com/failure) in case
your prospect makes a mistake filling out the information.
Create an email link on this page that will direct him to your
offer. Your autoresponder will still capture his email address
for follow-up.
5. Upload your main page (containing your subscription form),
confirmation page, and error page to your web host. If you are
using a pop-up page, upload this one as well.
6. Check all your web pages before you begin your marketing
campaign. Test the links and check the pages in different screen
resolutions, and browsers.
7. Begin your marketing campaign.
Creating multiple personalized follow up messages to your
prospects, gives them a better chance to respond to your offer,
resulting in increased sales. Using an automatic responder will
allow you more free time to focus on implementing other
marketing strategies.
About the author:
Herman Drost is the author of the NEW ebook "101 Highly
Effective Strategies to Promote Your Web Site" a powerful guide
for attracting 1000s of visitors to your web site.
http://www.isitebuild.com/web-site-promotion
Subscribe to his “Marketing Tips” newsletter for more original
articles. mailto:subscribe@isitebuild.com. You can read more of
his in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles
