How
to Use an Automatic Responder for Effective Prospect Follow-up
By Herman Drost
When a prospect shows an interest in
your product, if you don't deliver what he wants immediately
and follow up on him, you lose sales. No matter what you're
selling online, using an automatic responder to do
personalized follow up, can drastically increase the amount
of sales you receive. It can also dramatically cut down
on manual follow up of your prospects.
Once a prospect requests your information there are a million
and one things that can divert his attention from it.
For instance:
His computer crashed, he has to wait several days to get it
repaired. His wife called, her car broke down again. He has
to pick her up. The kids are screaming, the dog is chewing
on their favorite toy. His friend needs a ride to the airport...now!
These are just a few examples of what can happen to cause
your prospect to forget about your offer. That's why
it is so important to get your offer in front of a prospect
more than once. The ideal number is 5-7 times.
How an automatic responder (autoresponder) works
These programs automatically return a prewritten message to
anyone who sends a message to the autoresponder's email address.
They usually allow for one or more follow-up messages.
Types of automatic responders
Single follow up - this one will reply once only to
any message sent to it. These are very useful for letting
someone know that you have received their mail and will
get back to them shortly, or you could inform people
you are away on vacation.
Multiple follow up – these are often called sequential
autoresponders. They can be programmed to follow up over a
period of days, weeks, or months with any number of sequential
messages.
Features:
Free automatic responder
autorespond-it.com
(contains all the above features)
limitlessfollowup.com
(free perl script)
zipresponse.com
sendfree.com
getresponse.com
Paid automatic responder
aweber.com
rapidreply.net
How to set up an automatic responder on your web site
1. Create a form on your web site to capture your prospects
information (i.e. name and email address.) You can do
this on one or several pages or use a pop-up or pop-under
(www.isitebuild.com/web-site-promotion.com)
on your web page. I prefer the pop-under because it is less
obtrusive for your visitors (pops up when the prospect
has left the main page).|
2. Write a series of 3-7 personalized follow-up messages
regarding your offer. You have the option of spacing
these several days (or weeks) apart from each other.
3. Set up a confirmation page (www.isitebuild.com/success)
to confirm your prospects successful subscription.
4. Set up an error page (www.isitebuild.com/failure)
in case your prospect makes a mistake filling out the
information. Create an email link on this page that
will direct him to your offer. Your autoresponder will still
capture his email address for follow-up.
5. Upload your main page (containing your subscription
form), confirmation page, and error page to your web host.
If you are using a pop-up page, upload this one as well.
6. Check all your web pages before you begin your marketing
campaign. Test the links and check the pages in different
screen resolutions, and browsers.
7. Begin your marketing campaign.
Creating multiple personalized follow up messages to your
prospects, gives them a better chance to respond to your offer,
resulting in increased sales. Using an automatic responder
will allow you more free time to focus on implementing other
marketing strategies.