Autoresponders allow you to automatically send a reply to a customer on completion of a form or the sending of an email to a given email address. You might have come across out of office responders. Well this is the same thing.
But the beauty is, autoresponders can become a very powerful tool to convert prospects into clients in an automated fashion. You can place either:
- a short form on your site that users complete to receive information;
- a bespoke email address that users can send messages to and they will get an automated response from you.
This means in the 24hour Internet culture we have, clients get the info they need when they want it, without the need for you to be sat at your desk all the time.
The autoresponder can be anything you want – maybe a free report, or some product info. It also means the information they have submitted such as email address and contact details are stored in the system, thus making it easy to follow up with them. This again means contact with your potential customers will be consistent and automated.
You can also set up multiple responses so the user fills in a form once. For example, they have signed up to a 7 day course, so you automatically send then the course at the same time each day. Over the week, they see your expertise and branding as well as any marketing messages you wish to include. This will give you more opportunity to engage with them.
There are a number of autoresponder systems out there that you can use. They all run online so it is a simple case to configure your account to have responses and campaigns set up. You could for example have multiple campaigns:
- a 7 day course on saving money on Insurance;
- a campaign to send a free report;
- a campaign to sent out a FAQ;
- a campaign to send out product PDFs.
The system can handle as much as you want it to. It can also make you look bigger and more efficient than you actually are as users will see emails coming back to them straight away.
Some of the main systems are Getresponse, Aweber, or Mailchimp. We have been using and recommending Getresponse for nearly 10 years now as it handles everything we throw at it and have run multiple branded campaigns for both our own business and that of clients too.
As you can see, autoresponders can be a great way to reduce the amount of time you take following up enquiries. At the same time, using autoresponders can help bring valid leads into your business by following up automatically and consistently.
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