17 features that make your autoresponder an **AUTORESPONDER** - Part 2

By Terry Telford
Posted Sunday, October 31, 2004

In part one of this two part series, we looked at the first nine features that make an autoresponder an **AUTORESPONDER.** In this second part of our report, we will take a look at the remaining eight features that will turn your simple autoresponder campaign into a raging sales machine. The key is choosing the correct **AUTORESPONDER** company.

Here is the rest of the **AUTORESPONDER** necessity list

9. Pop up email capture device. Make it extremely easy for your prospects to subscribe to your newsletter, eZine, eCourse or eBook. With one click, your anonymous visitor is transformed into a valuable subscriber. Your visitor simply clicks "OK" on a pop up window and they are subscribed with no forms to fill out. This popup records the visitor's real email address and eliminates the hassle of finding out that SuperMan@yahoo or DonaldDuck@hotmail are subscribed to your publication.

10. Personalization. Your response rate to your email will increase 30 - 70% by personalizing your messages. People are more responsive to email that addresses them by name and doesn't look like an advertisement.

11. Easy to manage database. Your **AUTORESPONDER** should give you access to a feature rich control panel which makes it easy for you to manage your customer lists. Functions such as easy list back up, manual subscription and removal, and the ability to keep separate lists in a single database, all make your life a lot simpler and save you time at the end of the day.

12. Simple import/export features. This is very important when you are working with lists that you have developed over a period of months or years. The ability to import and export lists to and from other sources allows you to expose your current lists to new offers quickly and easily.

13. Manual add/delete function. Since some email recipients have difficulty understanding the unsubscribe function that is standard with all **AUTORESPONDERS**, you occasionally receive unsubscribe requests in your other email boxes. As a courteous, professional business owner, you need the ability to remove these people from your lists manually to avoid complaints. On the positive side, you also encounter visitors that ask you to subscribe them to your publication, making a manual subscribe feature a necessity.

14. Ability to send a one off message to your list or lists. Sometimes, you have information that applies to everyone on your lists. With a one off email message, you can alert all of your prospects and customers about an important event with one simple email message.

15. Message in text or HTML. Although the vast majority of email users can accept HTML email, there are still some that don't. By offering the capability of sending either plain text or HTML email, all your bases are covered and your email can be accepted by everyone.

16. Formatting. Some autoresponder servers are not configured properly to send mail to all mail programs. If your formatting is lost, and your message arrives as one big block of text, you need to switch from your autoresponder to an **AUTORESPONDER**. **AUTORESPONDERS** format your messages or keep the formatting that you have used, intact.

17. And finally, support. If you end up with an autoresponder company that offers you little or no support, you could be stuck with a problem or question for a long time with no results. This may not seem like an issue now, but imagine if your clients suddenly start receiving your planned two-week campaign all in one day, over and over again! An **AUTOREPONDER** company offers a quality support feature, so this type of problem is taken care of immediately.

There is a great difference between an autoresponder and an **AUTORESPONDER.** There are no questions about the benefits of using an **AUTORESPONDER** in your marketing, the only question is which **AUTORESPONDER** company you will use. After trying out dozens of free and paid autoresponders, I have settled on my two favourites to run my marketing campaigns. My two personal favourite **AUTORESPONDERS** are

SendFree - FREE **AUTORESPONDER** with some of the bells and whistles, (http://www.sendfree.com/affref.php3?ref=39695)

Automarketic - **AUTORESPONDER** with all the bells and whistles at an affordable price, (http://automarketic.com/terry)

In today's business world, the early bird gets the worm. If you are still relying on responding to customer requests manually, you are not offering the fastest possible service to your customers. The scary part is, your competitors are. It's not a question of whether you need to use **AUTORESPONDERS**, it's only a question of which **AUTORESPONDER** company you will use.

Good Luck and God Bless.

About the Author
Terry Telford is the author of the popular ebook, Website Ladder, and the founder of bpc publishing, your resource center for online marketing and traffic tools. Visit (http://www.bpcpublishing.com) today!