What is an Autoresponder?
You’ve probably seen email capture forms similar to that shown in the graphic here to the right at least a million times.
When someone enters their name and email address, it triggers an autoresponder.
The autoresponder automatically responds (ergo, the name ‘autoresponder’) by sending a preprogrammed / prewritten message to the email address entered in the form.
Autoresponders are sometimes used by individuals to notify those who send them emails that they are away on vacation, i.e. an ‘out of office‘ reply is sent.
Autoresponder services are more commonly used by online businesses to build client mailing lists and to provide their web site visitors with followup and new information about their products and services.
Autoresponder service features most often include the ability to preprogram an unlimited number of prewritten followup responses that are sent at predetermined intervals. For example, the first message is sent immediately after a person subscribers, the second message is sent 2 days later and message number 3 is sent three days after the second message… and so on and so forth. This is known as an ‘autoresponder series’.
Autoresponder service clients may also send out broadcast messages to their subscribers on an ad-hoc basis.
In recent years, autoresponder services have added a feed to email feature that allows webmasters to send published posts from their blogs (and other feeds) to their mailing list subscribers.
Although there are many autoresponder services available, I personally recommend Aweber – a service that I’ve been using without complaint since starting my online business in 1998. Aweber is without a doubt, the world’s leading autoresponder service in terms of features and customer service.
Want more info?
Rosalind Gardner is a Super Affiliate blogger, author, speaker, and Internet marketing consultant.
If you enjoyed this article and want to be notified the next time Rosalind writes something, subscribe to her RSS feed or the No-Hype, No-BS, No Spam NPT newsletter. You can also follow her on Twitter and Facebook. Thanks for visiting!
Related Posts
- Aweber Autoresponder Review
- Recommended Autoresponder Services
- Aweber Feedburner Integration
- The Best Day to Send Marketing Messages
- Build a List – Build Your Business
HI
It was really usefull information to me thanks
Rosalind, I totally agree with you about AWeber, they seriously rock!
Karl
Thanks again for the great tip and recommendation to Aweber.
Thanks for the info, Ros! Question: I’ve gotten software over the years that offers “autoresponder” capability; haven’t used it, yet, but wonder if it’s a viable alternative to paid autoresponders?
I’ve used Aweber a couple of years for two of my websites (both in Dutch), and I recently decided to end my subscription. Two reasons, mainly: first of all, the Aweber website was often very very slow loading, and sometimes I just got stuck in the middle of working on an email campaign, which was very frustrating. I’m on a broadband connection, so that couldn’t have been the problem.
The second reason is that you’re not allowed to adjust the unsubscribe link at the bottom of your messages so that it reads in another language: it has to be in English. I tried a free account with Getresponse, but this autoresponder has the same problem: there will always be some English text in your messages that cannot be customized. The only autoresponder so far that I’ve come across that doesn’t have this problem is the free autoresponder that comes with a SiteBuildIt account, but then of course, your site have to be hosted with them too.
At the moment, I’m using an autoresponder script that’s hosted on my own server. I’m not happy with this solution either, so if anyone knows of an autoresponder that is fast and customizable, I’d really like to know about it.
First of all i would like to tell you that i was unaware from the auto responder & whenever i visit any site then i used to fill up the form unnecessarily for newsletter which caused my email account to be filled with the lots of spams!but when i came to know about the whole process behind all the process i am still thinking about it!after all i am a visitor !any way thanks for this info!
I agree with you about AWeber, they seriously rock!
@ Autoresponder services are more commonly used by online businesses to build client mailing lists
I tend to find these a bit annoying, I can see their worth though. I do weekly emails to my subscribers / mailing list and make sure that they are topical and of interest, you get a much better response rate this way.
Matt
I was knowing little bit about the auto responder but now i got lots of basics about that & most important i got one of the autoresponder for my blog!aweber is great,thanks for it!
Good tips! If you are making money online (or are trying to) you cannot do without an autoresponder. You need to contact a person 7 times in order to get a sale.Which one is easier, get the same person to visit your site 7 times or get him/her on your list and then just email him/her automatically?
Thanks for letting us know this. So Aweber is your recommendation? Well – Aweber it is…
I have tried getresponse. It works, but it is very hard and confusing to setup correctly. Not very user friendly, even with video tutorials.
I just want a means to trigger a selection of the needed php (I write) according to the SENDER ID, the SUBJECT line or KEYWORDS (I specify) -
So that I can copy or generate an appropriate response.
I have looked for a “listener”; but have mot found one I can use.
You have been recommended as a possible lead in my quest.
Thankyou
Bob
Hi Bob,
Sounds way too technical for my liking. I’d suggest asking your question in one of the developers’ forums, such as http://www.webdeveloper.com/
Sorry I can’t be of more help.
Cheers,
Ros
Rosalind, are you using AWeber’s analytics feature? I’d love to hear your opinion about it.