Aug
Understanding Autoresponders
It’s really funny how there’s so much information on the internet, but when you’re looking for something and you don’t type in the right keywords, you can’t find it. I was recently looking for an autoresponder when I should have been looking for a sequential autoresponder. Apparently they are two different things.
An autoresponder sends an email message in response to someone sending you an email. You may have seen these when someone is out of the office or gone on vacation. You send them an email and you get an immediate response saying the person is out of the office and what their instructions are. Most web hosts offer you a set number of autoresponder emails, not very helpful if you want to send a training course.
A sequential autoresponder is a timed series of email messages. Typically you’d have to sign up for a company to send out a sequential autoresponder. There is one more option, you can have someone set this up on your own web server using MySQL. If you choose to do it this way, be extra careful to ensure people double opt in to your mailing list. You don’t want to have your ISP banned from the email companies.
A good use of an autoresponder is that when someone signs up for your newsletter, you can offer a free download. When they sign up, an email is automatically sent to the prospect asking them to click on a link. Once they click on the link, the autoresponder sends a second email. This is the email you put the link to their free download in. You set it up once and forget about it until you want to change the item you are offering.
Because there’s no limit to the amount of emails you put into a sequential autoresponder, this is best when you want to send a series of emails where person A signs up today and immediately gets email #1, then he gets email #2 so many days later, and so on. Person B signs up next week and he also gets email #1 immediately with email #2 coming on the same schedule.
This is different from an ezine. With an ezine, person A signs up today and gets this month’s issue. Person B signs up next week and he doesn’t get anything until the next issue is sent. Like a magazine subscription, person A and person B get the same issue at the same time.
