What is an Autoresponder and Why Do You Need One?

If you are new to Internet marketing you may wonder what an autoresponder is and if you really need one. If your experienced you have at least one and possibly more.

As an internet marketer you probably know by now that getting the email addresses of people who have shown any level of interest towards products you're marketing is like gold.

That's because it's well known that most people don't make a decision about joining a new business or buying an online product the first time they see it. And without getting someone's email address it's impossible to follow up with them.

Trying to follow up with people without an autoresponder is very tedious and time consuming. You need to have a very organized system and then the time to do it properly.




In fact you may need to follow up multiple times before you get a negative or positive response. The beauty of an autoresponder is that it allows you to follow up as often as you need or want to to a targeted market.

So when you ask "What is an auto responder and why do you need one?" the answer is pretty simple. Autoresponders are an electronic method for following up via email automatically to target audiences.

Once you have a potential customer's email address you simply enter that address into a database with all your other addresses. You then set up the autoresponder with pre-programmed messages to go out at preset intervals.

Your addresses are from people who have agreed to receive these emails from you (known as "opt ins") so you are allowed to send as many as you want. Because they have subscribed to your messages your emails should not be sent to spam.

Can you see the beauty in this? Once you get this set up it will work for you around the clock. You're communicating constantly with your contacts and building a relationship with them. Over time you will become very familiar with them making you more appealing to do business with.

Some of your messages and advertisements will hit home with some subscribers and some won't. But you don't have to worry about that. Your auto responder just sends to everyone and if someone wants to unsubscribe they can. That responsibility is theirs.

There are free autoresponder services and there are those you pay for. The difference is that with paid services you will get technical support. The monthly cost is fairly cheap so that's probably the way to go if your budget can handle it.

A good autoresponder should allow you to personalize messages with the subscriber's name and send unlimited emails to them. It should also allow you to pre load a series of messages that can be sent out at planned intervals.