8 Ways For Offline Businesses to Use an Autoresponder

One of the core tools of internet marketing success is the autoresponder. But most offline business owners don't immediately grasp why they need one and what it can do for their business. So I came up with this list of 8 Ways to Use Autoresponder in Offline Businesses. Note: Autoresponder is short for automatic e-mail responder.

Lead capture

This is the most common use for e-mail autoresponders is to capture leads that come to your website through forms they fill out. Your visitor puts in their e-mail address and any other information you require (like their name, phone number, etc) into the form and they're added to your e-mail list. Typically, you offer them something of value to get them to sign up...like a free video, e-book, guide, Top 10 List...anything really as long as it's valuable to them. You can also add e-mails to your list directly if you collect them offline...like from a conference, sales meeting, or business cards.

Deliver Periodic Information

One of the strengths Autoresponders have is you can set them up to deliver messages on a regular basis. This frees you from having to craft and deliver the message yourself for everyone on your list. For instance...say you had a newsletter or other monthly or weekly statement. You could upload one copy of that to your autoresponder service and then broadcast it to everyone on your list.

Coupon or Discount Notices

Let's say your slowest day of the week is Thursday. You could set up an automated message to be sent out every Wednesday afternoon that offered a Thursday-only special discount to e-mail subscribers. If you have slow months, you could do the same thing in the months prior to your slow month. Accountants could set up automated e-mails to remind their clients to get their taxes in early rather than waiting until April 15.

Customer Reminder Messages

You can send your customers periodic reminders to help them out and to drive repeat business. For example, you could send out quarterly maintenance reminders or seasonal lawn care notes and include a special e-mail subscriber discount to drive them to your store.

Deliver a Course or Product Over Time

If you sell information products, an autoresponder service makes it simple to deliver a product both automatically and over time. If you had a weekly or monthly course, you set the autoresponder up to send out the right note to the right person at exactly the right time. If it's a weekly course, lesson two will be delivered delivered one week after lesson one regardless of whether the person signed up on Monday or Thursday...it's individualized for each customer and when they joined.

Customer Service and Follow-up

You can easily make standard follow up e-mail sequences for anyone that purchases your materials or services. Use these e-mails to encourage your customer to use the product they bought and to use it properly. You can give helpful tips and tricks for assembly or use for example. The possibilities are endless really, but you want to build a relationship with them so they'll come back again and again. And an autoresponder puts that completely on autopilot...you never have to think about it again after you set it up once.

Offer Additional Products

As a continuation of the previous idea, you should periodically offer your new customer additional products that make sense based on what they purchased. For example, if they bought a basic lawn care service, you could follow up with additional lawn care tips and a discount offer for taking care of their flower beds or insect and pest removal. Again, this is all automatic after you set it up the first time. Every customer gets put into the e-mail sequence and gets offered these additional products and services with no extra work on your part. Any time someone buys, it's a complete freebie to you! Your customers are happier because you're staying in touch (with no effort on your part) and they're willing to buy more because you're offering them complementary items. It's truly a win-win!

Automate Your Blog Content

AWeber, the autoresponder service I use and recommend, has recently started offering a RSS feed with each e-mail message. One very cool possibility with this is a chance to automate your blog content. Here's what you can do if you use WordPress.

There are plugins you can get that will automatically pull RSS feeds down and build blog content from them. You install one of these plugins and give it your autoresponder's RSS feed. And then you set up Aweber so that every time you send a broadcast message to your e-mail list, it also posts it to your RSS feed.

You can set WordPress up to either automatically post these messages or put them in moderation so you can check them over before they're posted.

E-mail Autoresponders Are the Workhorse of Online Marketing

So there you have it. 8 Ways to Use an Autoresponder for offline businesses. Hopefully, I've opened your eyes to some possibilities you haven't considered before. If you have a website but don't have an automatic way to add people to your contact list and e-mail them either individually or altogether, you're really limiting your ability to succeed online. That's all there is to it.

Wordpress Plugin Maintenance