Marketing? Consider an Autoresponder Service

While you are marketing your business and/or products, here's a useful service that you may want to consider -- an autoresponder. Why? Glad you asked!

An autoresponder is a service that:

• captures leads
• puts them into a database
• automatically sends them information on your product or business

This alone is pretty neat, but if you are only using an autoresponder to send out your initial automatic information, you are missing the beauty of the system....one that can market for you 24/7.

Consider this -- most people do not buy on the first pass. They see your product or business, but they want to check around. If all you send is the first message, you've probably lost that sale. I keep seeing a statistic quoted that people tend to buy after they've seen your offer/product about seven times. So doesn't it make sense to keep your name in front of your prospect?

With an autoresponder, you can set it up ahead of time to send out emails/newsletters every day, every few days, once a week...you get the picture. So set up a lot of follow-up messages, and they will be automatically delivered to your prospects on the schedule that you choose. Awesome, isn't it?

Now here's a hint -- don't just pound your prospect with just your business or product. Give them other, related information. For example -- you set up an autoresponder for your product line. Sure, the first email is definitely about your product. But maybe the next day it's about something you can do with it.

My favorite example is with the old Avon Skin-So-Soft oil -- do you remember the lists of things you could use this skin oil with? Mosquito repellant was one; grease remover was another. And my personal favorite -- removes "ring around the collar".

The point is, you are not just selling the product, but you are also providing useful information. Fun information. And on a regular basis. You are keeping your name in front of the prospects, so when they do decide to buy, where do you think they will go first?

Now what are some good autoresponder services? I hear that Aweber (www.aweber.com) is a good one -- I know plenty of people who use it and like it. I personally use GetResponse (www.getresponse.com), which is another fine service. There are undoubtedly more; it's all a matter of what options you would like, versus what you don't need.

Don't think about all the business you may have lost in the past by not using an autoresponder; instead, think of all the business that you will be capturing in the future!