Autoresponders

If you are a webmaster one of the best things that you can do to help free up some time is learn about autoresponders. It does not matte whether you have a commercial site (in which case autoresponders are essential) or just a personal homepage, you can make use of these valuable tools.

You have to remember there are several different types of autoresponders. The most common is the simple one that comes with most guestbooks (at least those that are worth anything). If you've signed a guestbook then you know what I mean - you sign, you get a thank you email. This notice is a great tool for reminding your visitors about your site whenever they get to looking at their email inboxes.

If you pay your web host then you probably noticed (and ignored) the promotional materials claiming "unlimited autoresponders. Don't ignore this notice. This is one of the most overlooked, yet most valuable features you can get from your host.

Let say you pay a web host to host your site "internet-tips.net", and the host has unlimited autoresponders. This means you can define any number of email addresses, each of which will return a specific message to your visitors. For example, the Internet Tips and Secrets sites allows people to reprint certain articles. Each article may be retrieved via an autoresponder of the form "article-001@internet-tips.net", and you can get a list by sending an email to "article-list@internet-tips.net". You could do something similar and set up autoresponders for various promotional materials, articles and anything else you desire. 

These autoresponders are powerful, but they lack some important features. For one, they are "one-time" autoresponders, meaning someone sends an email, and one message is immediately returned. In addition, they are text messages and may not include attachments.

Some free autoresponder services are listed below. Remember that the free services are generally a way for these services to allow you to try them out for a while. Most of them have a paid service which removes advertisements as well as stopping the occasional nag letter about upgrading.

Freeautobot

This service allows you to send up to 12 responses to each person (you can get more responses upon request). It looks like a nice service.

GetResponse

A great service with excellent features. You can have as many follow-up messages as you want (I have one with over 300 myself), and you can have as many autoresponders as you want. The reporting of how well your autoresponders are are doing is very good. Some personalization, and bounced messages (spam) are automatically handled for you.

Informationbyemail

The free service allows up to 10 autoresponder messages. Allows text and HTML. Some personalization and a nice web interface.

Additional Information

• Autoresponders Be sure that an email is sent out whenever possible to acknowledge any submission by your visitors. An autoresponder is perfect for this. 
• Autoresponder services can help you get return traffic Here is a list of autoresponder services which can help you generate return traffic. Autoresponder technology automatically follows up with your visitors, which reduces the amount of labor you need to perform to get them back to your site or to make a sale.
• Thank you or confirmation autoresponders can get you return traffic When you visitors apply for something, submit a poll, sign up for anything or give you their email address for any reason, be sure to send a thank you confirmation email.
• Autoresponders You've received them, probably without even knowing it. Now you will learn what they are good for.
• What Good is an Autoresponder? A term that confuses just about everyone is "autoresponder". When I mention that to friends or associates, they almost always reply with a blank stare, a "what the heck is that", or "I don't like those at all". Even though the concept is very simple, autoresponders are very, very powerful if properly used.