There's so many autoresponders to choose from nowadays isn't there? But what might sound good might not always be the best. Are less than 30% of your emails getting delivered?
Before you even consider paying for an autoreponder, whether it be an autoresponder service or your own software script, you need to know these facts I'm about to reveal to you first.
Firstly, what's an autoresponder?
An autoresponder basically automates much of your email responses. Here's an example...
Have you ever sent an email to a commercial email and got a reply, almost instantly, containing "We've received your email and will respond shortly" ? Well that's what a basic autoresponder does. It only comes handy for a once off reply.
With email marketing and list building we need a special autoresponder called a "sequential autoresponder". A sequential autoresponder can store several, even 100's, of email messages into it's system and each email message can be set to send out each email on predetermined days. Example -
When someone subscribes to "ABC newsletter" they might receive the first email straight away. Then the second in about two days later and another five days later and so on.
So that's what I'm going to get into more depth on with you.
At the end of this short report you'll gain more knowledge on:
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The different types of autoresponders you can use
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The advantages and disadvantages of each.
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Choosing the best autoreponder that's right for you
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My personal recommendations
Ok to start off, here are the different types of autoreponders you can use.
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Basic autoreponder
I've briefly explained what this type of autoresponder is at the beginning of this report.
This type of autoreponder only allows you to send one autoresponded message. Meaning that if someone were to send an email to your autoresponder enabled email, they'll receive an email instantly and that's it -- no other emails following that.
This is not widely used and will not be much use for you. Why? It doesn't capture the contact's email address. You'll need to add that yourself to the system.
The advantage of the basic autoresponder is that it's quick, easy and free to setup via your web hosting control panel. Only use this if you have a special customer support email address. But be aware that it may become a disturbance to your contacts.
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Autoresponder Software
No this isn't the autoresponder software script where you upload it to your own web host. These are actual software just like any other program which you install onto your computer.
One autoresponder software is MailListKing (maillistking.com/)
This is a great tool because it's powerful and gives the admin a lot of control over how it works.
The drawback of it is that it only runs on your computer. Which means if you were out of your home then you won't have access to your list unless you bring your computer with you. Everything is stored onto your computer. What if you wanted to send out an urgent email to your list? What do you do then?
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Autoresponder Scripts
This is one of the main types of autoresponder's people use.
Basically you purchase an autoresponder script from somewhere like ecom24.com (the script's called Autoresponder Pro) and you upload and install it onto your own web host server.
The advantages of this type of autoresponder is that you purchase the script once off and can use it as much as you can without worrying about monthly fee's.
It's feature rich and gives you the control you need.
There are numerous issues though when you use this type of autoresponder.
If the script does not include installation then this is a problem to a novice user. They then either have to do it on their own or outsource the work.
Email deliverability is poor. Why? Because you're sending out emails from your own web hosts. So why's this a problem? It's called "blacklists". If by any chance your domain/IP is "blacklisted" then only 30% of your emails will get delivered (typical rate).
Let me explain in more detail. There are many reasons why your IP/domain is blacklisted in the first place.
You're using a shared account or reseller account.
Shared accounts are the most common types of web hosting packages you get. Did you know several other people share that same server and IP with you?
If you go to your email account such as Hotmail and Yahoo mail, you can see a special folder called "Junk Mail". Once there's enough clicks from people that treat it as "junk mail", then that IP will be considered "blacklisted".
On the other hand, if you have your own dedicated IP address then that will reduce the risk of getting your IP address blacklisted but it's still not 100% OK.
Even if you have your own dedicated server, it's very hard to get your IP "whitelisted" (the opposite of blacklisted) from majoy mail servers and ISP's such as AOL.
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Autoresponder Services
These types of autoresponder's are services such as EmailAces, Aweber & GetResponse.
You basically pay a subscription fee to use their autoresponder. They maintain and service everything for you.
These companies are dedicated to getting your emails delivered, unlike autoresponder scripts. They do the hard work for you and get as much as 99.4% of your emails delivered to your list. That's exactly what you want.
There's no software or scripts to install. The only hard part is actually setting up the autoresponder which is simple. Create a new account > Name it > Email address > Generate HTML form code. Easy.
The only bad thing about it is that if you want to broadcast an email to your list now then it is placed in a que. A que of other member's emails. It could take half an hour, an hour and sometimes even two hours depending on the load.
It's not as feature-rich as autoreponder scripts and doesn't give you as much control as the scripts.
OK. So those are the four types of autoresponders.
So which one's right for you?
It depends on what type of business you're in. If you're in the Internet Marketing field then cross off the first two types of autoresponder (Basic & Software).
You need a sequential autoresponder. Period. You'll know why in the next few parts of this email marketing series.
Here's my personal recommendation.
If you want to get your emails delivered & don't want to waste time then I'd go straight to Autoresponder services. No doubt about it. It's what I'm using at the moment and believe me, I've tried many autoresponder scripts which ended up in tragedy and horrow. Less than 30% of my emails were delivered. I kept getting emails saying that my email's "bounced". Which of course means that it's blacklisted.
I switched over to Aweber straight away and now I'm getting so much more responses than ever before.
Aweber allows you to backup your list and actually download the list of subscribers to your computer.
EmailAces on the other hand, is owned by Gary Ambrose. He's a well known Internet Marketer and specialises in Email Deliverability. Why's this so great? He understands Internet marketing so he's created an autoresponder that's made exactly for that. He makes sure that your emails get across to your subscribers almost 100% of the time.
If you're on a budget and don't have money for a subscription based autoresponder then you can use autoresponder scripts. But only temporarily. I want to emphasise that. Because once your list(s) grows bigger, you'll find that you're database starts to slow down because of the number of subscribers you have and also email deliverability once again.
If you don't want to waste time installing and maintaining your own autoresponder, I'd highly recommend you go for autoresponder services. Aweber to be precise.
Aweber is responsible for making me over six figures so far this year and I stand by it 100%.
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Visit Aurelius Tjin's Official Profits Blog at: http://www.UnstoppableInternetMarketing.com
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