For example, did you recently ask for on line help by submitting a form with your contact information and question? After submitting the form, did you receive an email confirming receipt of your question - you know something like "Do not respond to this email. It has been automatically generated. We're sending this message to you to let you know we received your inquiry and we'll get back to you in 24 hours."

That is an email sent to you via an auto responder.

An auto responder service can be useful in any business for a number of reasons. Here are 7 tips on how using an auto responder service might benefit you:

1. Use an auto responder when you need to send information to your customers or prospects about your products.

2. If you update your price list, notify your customers with an auto responder.

3. Do you receive repeated questions across a large number of emails? Guess what? You can use auto responders to handle these inquiries.

4. Use auto responders to offer your site visitors a special bonus, such as advice or relevant articles.

5. You can advertise your business and then build stable relationships with your customers by using auto responders.

6. Do you need to communicate with a group of people, say a target market, over a specific period of time, say, by way of a particular campaign? Set-up your campaign using auto responders, with your follow-up messages being sent at a predetermined interval of time

7. Another specialized use of auto responders is to create courses that you can then offer your site visitors for free. Choose a topic in which you are an expert and that precisely targets your potential customers.

Once you have carefully chosen your subject, divide it into a number of different sub-topics. Then offer your site visitor a free 10 or 15 day course, each day offering a different sub-topic.

The first topic should always be a welcome message to your site visitor and an explanation about what is to follow. Your explanation should be enticing, getting the point across that you are offering free, quality information that your target audience will find of great value.

With every lesson, include the number of the lesson, the topic title, information about your company and its services or products. At the end, include a few blurbs about the next lesson to entice the subscriber to read the next lesson.

Make sure each topic is packed with essential and valuable information, and leaves the visitor lusting to know more. Otherwise, you may lose them in the very beginning.

Of course, you have to write up your course before you can offer it. Once you have done this, and gone over the material carefully, employing a professional writer or editor if necessary, you must transfer your text to your auto responder.

There are many auto responder services available. Prior to choosing the service I currently use, I looked at 10 different companies. I chose the company that I did because the service is packed with all of the tools that I needed, at an affordable price, with excellent customer service. So, do your research to find the service that is best for you.