Setting Up Your Email Autoresponders
For those who really don't know much about e-commerce (like me!), here is a little mini-course about the subject. Every time you subscribe to an email newsletter, or you purchase something online, the website that you utilize will send you what is known as email autoresponders. This is an automatic, pre-written message; the first message generally thanks you for your order or gives you instructions in how to further access your subscription or unlock your product key, etcetera. Companies that make their living on the Internet rely heavily on mass email autoresponders to keep the flow of information going. Imagine, if you will, that you are selling a Web-based course and you have 11,000 people subscribed on your website. How on earth can one person respond to all those requests? The smart ideas that entrepreneurs have come up with include email autoresponders. The website automatically generates these, one at a time, to respond to each new subscriber. Rather than send out a mass email - which many ISPs will perceive as spam or viral emails - generating one reply at a time gives the web entrepreneur the opportunity to engage the new consumer and take care of customer needs in a more individual manner, while avoiding the spam label. Let's say that your web based course has twelve segments or lessons. Well designed email autoresponders will send out an introductory email, which says "Thank you for subscribing to XYZ Company's new course, "How To Sell Anything On The Internet". The first email response will give you a log in and further information for the next lesson. Each time you receive a lesson, the email which announces its availability is generated by the email autoresponders set up for the website. This allows the course providers the time to go about their daily business and frees them from the necessity of responding to 11,000 email requests. Email autoresponders can be used on your tech support page. The idea is to let the new subscriber know that you have received their email and will get back to them within a short time frame. Believe it or not, this is a personal touch - people need to know that someone has received their request and cares about it! Another approach to marketing a web based course is what I call the teaser approach. Using your email autoresponders, you send each subscriber the first three lessons of your course, and after the third email, the subscriber receives an inquiry email asking them if they want to sign up for the rest of the course and gives them the option of paying for the course at that point, or canceling. In other words, it makes good e-business sense to use email autoresponders. It simplifies your life as an Internet marketer and allows you to sell your programs at a lower cost than setting up in a traditional storefront shop. |