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If you ask online marketer how to convert website visitors into buyers, most will give you the same answer: the sales are in the follow-up.

It’s much more than just increasing your traffic volume. After all, most of your visitors won’t decide to purchase your products or your services when they first visit your website. But that’s not to say that they won’t be interested in your offer tomorrow or next week, or that they won’t be interested in future offers.

Therefore, it is necessary to get your visitor’s email addresses so that you can inform them of current and upcoming offers. You do this by using an opt-in system that invites them to subscribe to your mailing list. By gathering their names and email addresses, with their permission of course, you are now able to contact them periodically with information, usually by sending them an ezine as well as an occasional freebie.

There are no problems as long as you’re only dealing with ten or twenty subscribers, as you could just email them individually. However, such numbers aren’t going to make you many sales. You should aim for a mailing list that could reach into the thousands. That number of subscribers would make it difficult for you to prepare individual emails for each name on your list.

The basis of an ideal mailing list, therefore, is an effective autoresponder system that provides the power and flexibility to email your subscribers in a timely and efficient manner.

A mailing list of considerable size powered by a good autoresponder system consistently provides earnings for many Internet marketers. A lot of online businessmen make significant profits from their mailing lists alone.

Okay, but what is an autoresponder system? An autoresponder system is like a digital secretary. It takes care of your subscribers by providing an opt-in system that allows visitors to subscribe to your mailing list. An autoresponder system also takes care of the sending of emails to your subscriber base.

You can prepare your messages in advance, program them into the autoresponder, and preset the intervals by which the messages are delivered. You can even separate your subscribers into various groups. You could have a group for those who have not yet placed an order, for example. You could have another grouping for those who have already made a purchase. This allows you to use two different marketing approaches in dealing with each of the groups.

A good autoresponder system can help you build trust in your products or services. With a good autoresponder, you can also provide an efficient technical support program. If your subscribers email you a question about one of your products, for example, you could preset the autoresponder to reply with a general FAQ to send them the information.

Not all autoresponders are designed the same and much care should be taken in choosing the right one for your particular needs. Here are some questions you should ask before you decide on a particular autoresponder service:

* How many accounts can you create? Some business plans might
require that you have different accounts for different products.

* How many lists can you build? There are also some business plans where you might need different lists for different groups of subscribers.

* How many follow-up messages can you preset? Do you need a lot of follow-up messages or do you know yet? Quite a few autoresponder services provide for unllimited follow-ups.

* How many subscribers can the system hold? And also, how many subscribers can the system respond to?

* How much customization is allowed? You need to be able to personalize your email messages with each subscriber’s name and other customizable information.

* How does the system gather subscriber information? The process should be simple and convenient; otherwise, the visitor will not subscribe.

* Will you be able to send your messages in html and text formats? Most autoresponder services allow both formats.

* Will you be able to track your subscribers for the purpose of target marketing? This my or may not be important to you.

* Is the scheduling system fully automated and flexible enough for your current and future needs?

* Is the autoresponder easy to use? Do they have a demo area so that you can try it out?

Now, does the autoresponder service you are considering provide answers to all of the above questions? If so and if it is offered at a reasonable price, then you should grab the deal as soon as you can.

Remember, if you’re running an online business, a good autoresponder should be one of your primary investments. It could be the key to an excellent conversion rate, more sales and more profits.

An interested visitor who has been strolling through your
site has finally come to just what she is looking for and
is about to make a purchase. It’s a sunny afternoon, and
her cat, who happens to be sitting on the moss under the
visitor’s large fifty-year-old snow-rose bonsai tree,
suddenly jumps down, and the priceless tree topples over.

In the blink of an eye, your visitor exits your site, and
your sale is dust – unless you have had the foresight to
utilize an autoresponder that has captured her email
address. If you have installed an autoresponder, you can
then follow-up with her, and in all probability, make the
sale when the poor woman has finished repotting her
precious bonsai.

Autoresponders are remarkable, versatile programs that do
so much more than just automatically answer your email.
Here are a few ideas that will help you to creatively and
productively use your autoresponder to transform the casual
visitor into a profitable customer. Use your autoresponder
to:

1. Publish a newsletter. Certain quality autoresponders
will manage subscriptions and follow-up with interested
prospects. Your newsletter can keep your visitors informed
about your services or products, while building your
reputation as a credible expert in your particular
business.

2. Publish a newsletter only for your affiliates. Inform
them of current sales you are running and of promotional
material that your affiliates can use themselves to
increase their commissions. Include tips, advice, and
techniques that your affiliates can use to successfully go
out and promote your business.

3. Write reviews. Cover books, software, music, e-books,
movies, etc., and put each review in an autoresponder.
Review your affiliate programs, using a link to your
affiliate’s page in your autoresponder.

4. Distribute your articles. Writing and distributing
targeted articles is a powerful tool to build your business
credibility, bring traffic to your site, and increase your
sales potential. If your articles contain valuable
information, many editors will print what is known as a
resource box for you. A resource box contains your bio and
a brief description of your service or product. It can also
contain your autoresponder address. Let’s say you’ve
written fifty articles. Put them on separate autoresponder
accounts and create a master list that contains the titles
of each article, the autoresponder address, and a brief
abstract. Then promote your master list. Additionally,
include your publishing guidelines so your affiliates can
add their articles to your list, increasing the number of
writers who are represented in your article list.

5. Create mailing lists. Inform subscribers to your
articles when you’ve written new ones that they may want to
publish in their own newsletter or website.

6. Automate your sales process. Use an ad to insure
repeated exposure of your message, which has been proven to
effectively increase sales. In your ad, put your
autoresponder address where a visitor will be exposed to
numerous marketing materials. This multiplies the chances
of converting visitors into customers. For example, if
you’re selling a particular product, put testimonials about
how spectacular it is on your autoresponder, and add a
detailed, enticing description of your product.

7. Distribute advertising. Let’s say you sell advertising
on your website or in your newsletter or e-zine. Set your
autoresponder to send the information about rates and how
to place an ad automatically to all prospects’ email
addresses. Then have your autoresponder follow-up. It can
also send notification of any special deals you are
currently offering.

8. Distribute an email course. Each day, have your
autoresponder send out another lesson. Just be sure that
each lesson has quality content – not a sales pitch. Your
content will do the selling for you, and will do it much
more effectively. You can include tips centered on a
different topic for each lesson, illustrating how your
product will benefit the reader. Include the tangible
benefits the visitor will reap by purchasing your product.
Make sure to include a paragraph or two at the end of each
lesson enticing your prospect to consider making a
purchase.

9. Automate a reminder about your service or product after
a visitor has completed your course. This will increase the
possibility of sales from visitors who have taken your
course but are dragging their feet about actually making a
purchase. You can also use these reminders to promote new
products or services, and the products and services of your
affiliate programs.

10. Distribute free reports. This gives your visitor an
idea of the type of information you can provide and the
quality of your product or service. Make sure these reports
are not sales letters or you will more than likely lose a
potential customer than gain a sale.

11. Create trivia quizzes on your site and place the
answers in an autoresponder. Your visitor will then be
motivated to request your autoresponder, and you will have
a record of the visitors’ email addresses who took your
quiz. Or create a contest and have any visitors that enter
send their responses to your autoresponder. Your
autoresponder can be set-up to send them a confirmation of
their entry.

12. Offer a trial version of your product. Give your
prospects a sample of your ebook, course, software,
membership, etc. People who are exposed to a little taste
often end up wanting the whole pie. You can also capture
their email addresses when you offer them a free trial from
your website. Set up your autoresponder to give
instructions on how to obtain their free trial, and then
make sure to follow-up to try and close the sale.

13. Link to hidden pages on your autoresponder. For
example, a hidden page could be your affiliate page that
contains graphics, promotional articles, and text links
that interested affiliates can make use of. Inform visitors
that they may have free access to your affiliate page by
simply requesting your autoresponder. You will then gather
a list of visitors who may be interested in becoming your
affiliates.

14. Use an autoresponder on your order page. Post a request
form for visitors to be notified of special offers or
discounts in the future. This creates a very effective
mailing list that contains the names of people who are
already your customers.

15. Put your links page on your autoresponder. It should
contain up to fifty links that would be of particular
interest to your visitors. Make sure to add your own
promotional copy at the top or bottom of this page.

Now that you have proof that autoresponders can be used
creatively, see if you can come up with some brilliant
ideas of your own!

There are a number of different ways you can use autoresponders
to market to your visitors

One of them – confirmation emails

Using autoresponders to send instant confirmation emails to your
Customers and subscribes after they have made a purchase or signed
up for your newsletter is a great way to provide people with an
additional level to customers service

Autoresponders also free you from having to manually send out
confirmations – giving your time to focus on more profitable areas
of your business. But you also know that these confirmation
autoresponders ar a great marketing opportunity

Because instant confirmation do a lot to boost the credibility of
your company, they are the perfect place for a marketing message.
You`ve responded immediately to your customer`s request , letting
them now that yours is a reliable , professional company. Why not
take advantage of that by offering them a specia price on one of
your best-selling products ?

Suppose you own a web site that sells cycling equipment. Of course ,
you offer a free weekly newsletter packed with tons of great
cycling tips. Every time someone signs up for your newsletter , they
receive an instant autoresponder thanking them and confirming
their subscription.

Once you`ve seen for yourself how autoresponders can boost your
profits , you`ll be working them into just about every aspect of your business.
Here`s one example of how can use a network of autoresponders to
capture sales like wound`t believe.

Step 1 A visitor come sto your site and decides to sing up
to your free newsletter or free report.

Step 2 That visitors is instantly sent a confirmation e-mail
via autoresponder thanking them for their subscription .
This e-mail also includes a discount offer on one of
your best-selling product.

Step 3 The subscribes orders your product. This purchase triggers
another autoresponder , which
contains an offer for an add-on o the product their just bought.

Step 4 They decided to purchase the add-on , which triggers another autoresponder.

Step 5 And so on …….

Can you believe that this process is 100% automatic? Once you`ve
written to autoresponders,you can literally forget about them and just
start watching the sales roll on. With almost no effort on your part,
you`ve turned a casual visitors to your site into a repeat customers.
And you barely had to lift a finger.

And don`t limit yourself to just placing marketing messages in
your confirmation messages.You can ( and should) advertise your product
and services just about every time you send a message to yourcustomers
and subscribes.Remember , once you`ve put an advertising message into
your autoresponders , your sales will be generaye automatically.

1. Pick 4 or more articles you’ve written that have a common theme and put them in an autoresponder series. Announce it on your site as an e-mail course on the go.

2. If you have a page for related links, create a related links file and put it on autoresponder. This can be a one-page e-mail containing 15-50 links that are of interest to your visitors. Put your own promotional texts or blurbs at the top, middle and bottom of the e-mail.

3. Create a fun or trivia quiz, put it up on your site and put the answers in an autoresponder that your visitors can request. This way, you’ll know the people who took your quiz.

4. Write reviews of books, music, e-books, sites, software or anything you can think of and put each review (or related reviews) in an autoresponder. If what you are reviewing have affiliate programs, use your affiliate links in the autoresponder.

5. Run a contest on your site or e-zine, then have your visitors or subscribers send their responses to your autoresponder. This way, you won’t have to worry about manually sending them a confirmation receipt.

6. Create a frequently updated autoresponder and let your visitors and/or subscribers know about it. You can put in weekly tips or links to useful resources in the autoresponder and a reminder to the people who request it that you update it every week or on a regular basis (e.g. tell them to request for the same autoresponder again a week from now). You can use this method instead of using autoresponders with limited follow up messages.

7. If you’ve written 20 or more articles and you have them on separate autoresponder accounts, create a master list for your articles. In this master list, list the titles of your articles, their autoresponder addresses and their short descriptions. You can then just promote this master list.

8. Put excerpts or free chapters of your e-book, book or paid e-mail courses in an autoresponder series, then include your follow up sales letters at the end.

9. If you’re selling your own products, put your testimonials on autoresponder, along with the description of your products, an excerpt or a free chapter. This will increase your credibility.

10. Keep track of people who download your free e-book, e-report, or free software by putting their download links in an autoresponder. When you promote your free product, you can just promote the autoresponder address.

11. Put links to your hidden pages on autoresponder. A hidden page could be the affiliate page where you have all the graphics, text links, promotional articles that interested affiliates can use. Let people know they can have free access to your affiliate page by requesting the autoresponder. This way, you can have a list of people who are interested in becoming your affiliates.

Imagine going to bed and waking up in the morning to find that you made sales while you slept – all because of your autoresponder!

What exactly is an autoresponder? An autoresponder is an automated email program that responds to an incoming email with a message written by you. The message can be written once and loaded in the autoresponder and forgotten about. It’s as easy as that.

Some Uses for Autoresponders

1. Use autoresponders as an immediate acknowledgement to those who send you information. Let the recipient know that you have received their message and when to expect a reply.

2. Create a FAQ document to answer commonly asked questions about your product or service. Use the familiar question and answer format.

3. Collect names and email addresses by using a capture form. This allows you to build a list and as marketers keep saying, lists lead to repeat sales.

4. Make all your articles and newsletters available via autoresponder.

5. Offer free reports or e-courses to show your expertise to your customers. This is a great way to capture prospects’ name and email address for future follow-up.

6. If you publish an e-book, put the different chapters or excerpts in your autoresponder.

7. Archive issues of past ezines and put some of the best ones in an autoresponder and let your prospects access them.

Before you send out information via an autoresponder you should always check the content for spam triggers that may prevent your messages being delivered. To have a free check on your emails/messages go to: http://www.merchant-account-service.com/stop_spam_mail.html

If you are not using an autoresponder already you may be losing up to 400% of potential sales. Research shows that autoresponders increase your exposure to your prospects and this increased contact with them leads to higher sales.

Remember if you’re not using an autoresponder and gaining these sales, your competitors will!