Autoresponders are very necessary when it comes



to marketing or taking care of customers. But the

power of an autoresponder, or the lack of power,

can mean the difference between success and

failure.

When you use an autoresponder service, you must

make sure that the domain that the autoresponder

uses isn't blacklisted by the spam watch groups. If

it is, your messages probably won't make it past

the majority of spam filters, no matter how much

you check it with spam checkers.

Also, not having the ability to track responses can

cost you business. If you can't track response rates,

you won't have any way of knowing whether your

messages are doing you any good. A good

autoresponder will provide the ability to track

responses. If yours doesn't, you might want to shop

for a new autoresponder.

The ability to add and remove names to your

autoresponder manually is vital. Often, people will

contact you without going through your

autoresponder. These people need to be put on the

autoresponders mailing list. If you are moving your

list from one service to another, you need the ability

to import names and addresses to your list. Again,

if your autoresponder service isn't powerful enough

to allow this, look for a different one!

Personalizing Autoresponders

Have you ever walked into a store in your town, and

been addressed by name? This has probably

happened to you at stores that you frequent often.

The shop owner knows your name, and uses it. He

remembers you, and he wants you to know that he

cared enough about you and your business to

remember you. In the offline world, this is just one

aspect of customer support.

Customer service like this is almost impossible to

achieve on the Internet, but some semblance of it

can exist when you personalize your autoresponder

messages. Autoresponder messages can be set up

to address people by their first or last name ? or both.

In fact, there is quite a bit of personalized information

that can be added, depending on the autoresponder

that you are using.

The information is included in the autoresponder

messages by using codes. Each autoresponder will

use different codes to insert the information in your

messages. You simply write your message, and put

the codes where you want the personalized

information to appear. For instance, your message

may start out with ?Hello (code for first name)! In this

case, the person's first name will be inserted where

that code is.

Personalizing your autoresponder messages will

most likely improve your response rate. Research

has shown that emails that are personalized with the

person's first name are opened more often, and

those people are generally more receptive to the

contents of the email message. It is usually very

easy to do. You write one message, using the

codes where you want the personalization,

then, no matter who that one email is sent out to,

their personal information will appear where the

codes are.

Of course, the autoresponder must collect the

information first. This is done with the use of forms

that activate the autoresponder. For instance, if you

are giving away a free ebook, and you have your

visitor fill out a form with their email address to receive

the download instructions for the ebook by email, that

form should collect any type of information that you

want for personalization ? such as a first name, as

well as the email address. If that information is not

collected, the autoresponder won't have anything to

insert where that code appears in your messages!

Take a look around the control panel of your

autoresponder, and find out what type of

personalization you can add to your autoresponder

messages. You may be very surprised at the

improved results!