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An autoresponder is an application that collects email addresses and sends emails out to those addresses.  Just as the name implies, autoresponders do this automatically once the system is set up and configured correctly.

The essential features of an autoresponder that digital marketers should always look for are as follows:

Form Customization

Email Personalization

Email Scheduling

List Creation

Spam Checks

Form Customization

Good autoresponders should afford the user with the ability to create or customize forms that they can place on their websites, or optin pages

Forms are used when certain information is collected from the visitor or potential client. Forms are used to collect information like Names[ First Name, Last Name, Full Name], Email Addresses, Phone Numbers, Postal Addresses etc.

A standard form would contain name and email address, however with a good autoresponder one should be able to customize the form with any information they require based on their needs. This could include Postal addresses, Gender, Age etc. When looking for an autoresponder make sure that this feature is available and easy to use.

It is always best practice not to make the form too long.Keep the form short and succinct but still add some customized fields so you can get the information you want.

When you have hundreds or even thousands of emails on your list, it will be extremely difficult and tedious to personalize each email manually.

With the right autoresponder, personalization can be applied in a matter of seconds.  You will just need to insert codes and the software will place the proper personalization in the email.

This feature is an excellent email technique for get your emails opened.

You want to personalize the emails so you can speak directly to each person.  To do this you will first personalize the emails by name. You can choose to include the name in the subject line, the body of the email, or both.

To do this you will simply  insert a code in place of the name and then the autoresponder will fill the name in for you, this code is already provided by the autoresponder so there is no programming required whatsoever.

Good autoresponders will let you personalize your emails with all kinds of options including interests, dates, email addresses even IP addresses and the respective codes are always provide. Personalization of email is an excellent way of getting your prospects to open and read your emails. People will like that the email speaks directly to them, so they will be more likely to click on the link and check it out.

Typically Email and digital marketers tend to send out 2 types of emails;

Broadcast Emails

Follow-up Emails

Broadcast Emails,

Broadcast emails are one-time messages sent out to your list.  You can send a newsletter, a blog like this, a special time sensitive offer or anything you want in a broadcast email.

Follow-up Emails,

These types of emails consist of a sequence of emails. This could be part of a campaign that a prospect joins when he/she signs up for your email list. He will become a part of your list and that will trigger your follow-up sequence.

Now that you know about the two types of emails you can better understand the importance of scheduling.

You can have as many emails as you want in a follow-up sequence, and you want these emails to be sent out at specific intervals.  
 
However, your follow-up sequence will start at different times for different people.
 
For instance assume Joe goes to your website and signs up for your email list on January 21st.  He would be enrolled in the follow-up sequence. Jack also goes to your website but signs up on the 30th of January.

With a good autoresponder you can create your emails, save them, and set them to be sent at certain intervals. For instance, you could create the first follow-up email to be sent as soon as someone signs up for your list and the second one to be sent after four days.

Both Jack and Joe would receive the second email four days after they signed up for the list, even though they signed up on different dates.

Over time astute digital marketers  will have different products and websites.  Because of that, you will want to build different lists with your autoresponder.

For example you run a pet shop that provides pet food for Dogs and Cats.

Ideally you should have a list for Dogs and Cats, this will enable prospects to build lists for Dog and Cats and enable the digital marketer to create follow-up sequences for b0th sets of  lists prospects

Spam is an email marketer’s worst nightmare. If a marketing message ends up in the spam folder, the recipient will never see it. That means the email will not help you sell products or services.

Good autoresponders have spam checkers in place. You can run emails through the spam checker before sending it.  The checker will see if your email will likely be flagged as spam. This will prevent a lot of issues down the line.

In Autoresponders Part 2, we will now look at the various autoresponder options on the market, this should enable you choose the best one to suit your needs, I have used a number of them and for a beginner would recommend Aweber as it currently h provides me with all the functionality for my email marketing pursuits click this link for the 30 day free trial.

To your digital marketing success,

Ian Allen