What is an Autoresponder and Types of Autoresponders

What is an autoresponder?

Autoresponders are probably the best advertising tool on the internet. They were designed to automatically reply with an automatic response to any email message it gets. They are also known as email on demand, mailbots and automatic email.

What do autoresponders do?

The ’auto’ obviously stands for automatic, and the main intention of an autoresponder is to automate the response to emails people send to you via your website. It allows you to operate on a 24 x 7 basis. And all the responses are sent within minutes.

Let’s discuss its function in detail. Suppose someone sends an email to you; rather than having to write a reply yourself, the auto responder formulates and sends a response automatically. It will have various pre-written messages (which you set up earlier) and depending upon the email it receives, decides on whether an automatic response is required, and if so, which specific message it should send.

A simple basis of whether the autoresponder meddle the email address of the recipient. For instance, I set up two email addresses for a particular website. Say they are info@website.com and subscribe@ website.com.

I could set my auto responder to capture all email addresses of messages sent to subscribe@website.com, but ignore the ones sent to info@website.com. Anyone who sends an email to subscribe@website.com will automatically be sent a response saying something like "Dear so and so, Thanks for subscribing to our newsletter. Youve been successfully added to our subscriber list and youll receive our newsletter.. Sincerely etc".

Types of Autoresponder

Usually there are two types of autoresponders which are described below:

Standard Autoresponder

One is the standard autoresponder that is designed to work with your email program and automatically answer your emails to a script running on your server. This script may run with your pop email account on your server or a web based system in form of a web page. It is programmed to automatically reply a preset message to any message that is received to a specific email or script address.

Advanced Autoresponders

Besides the standard autoresponders, there is another type of autoresponders that is programmed to send an unlimited number of follow-up messages. These follow-up messages are preset to automatically be sent out at a specified time. In other words, an autoresponder can be set up to automatically send out a fresh message every day for as long as you would like.

Use of Autoresponder

Autoresponders can be used to send out the followings:

Welcome Letters
Order Confirmation
Messages Special
Offers
E-courses

The top online marketers are using this powerful tool to reach thousands of potential customers. As you may know, a potential customer may refer seven more contacts even before closing a deal. So, by setting up an autoresponder and offering a free autoresponder course, you can completely automate a big portion of your marketing efforts. (Ill guide you how to create an autoresponder course in coming pages.)

Hence, autoresponders can do many of your routine follow-ups with your clients. However, they cannot eliminate the support requests received from your customers and your future mailings. Your autoresponder is your golden goose: the marketing tool that will sell your well-developed product far more effectively than any other form of advertising. Few sales are made by impulse buyers, particularly on the internet. But if you are able to get your message out repeatedly to people who are already interested in what you have to offer, you will see an explosive sales response