What is an Autoresponder and How Do I Create One?

An autoresponder is an automated process that sends emails out at preset time intervals.

Let’s say you have someone interested in your product or service, but they are not quite ready to buy. You want to stay in touch with them, answer their questions, and keep reminding them that you have the solution they are looking for. But at the same time, you don’t want to come across as a pushy salesperson.

There is a balance where you are providing useful information and helping them get to a “yes” decision, vs scaring them away by being too aggressive.

This is where an Autoresponder can help.

With the help of an Autoresponder, you can build an email drip campaign to send out a series of emails that you write in advance. Then those automatic emails can be sent out to an individual or a group in a particular sequence.

For example, your Autoresponder Campaign might be set up as follows:

Email #1: Goes out when you find someone interested in your product.

Email #2: Sent 1 week after the first email was sent.

Email #3: Sent 2 weeks after email #2 was sent.

Email #4: Sent 2 weeks after email #3 was sent.

And so on…

An Autoresponder Campaign can have 2 emails in it, or 5, or 10, or more.

Automatic emails can be set up to be sent out: days apart, weeks apart and even months apart. That all depends on what message you are trying to convey, and the buying cycle of your customer.

There are several benefits to using Autoresponders:

1. You can write the emails in advance, thinking through how you want to communicate your message. This is where you can fine-tune your message and create the balance between not enough information and too much information.

2. You don’t have to remember to send the next email in the sequence. With an Autoresponder, you “set it, and forget it”.

3. You can put hundreds (or thousands) of people on the same Autoresponder Campaign.

4. You can have many different Autoresponders with different purposes. For example, you might have 1 Autoresponder Campaign designed to help you acquire new clients, and a completely different campaign for following up with your past clients.

5. Autoresponders help you get organized and make you look more professional.

You might think Autoresponders are just for the marketing gurus, but this is no longer the case. There are several systems that make it easy to build and maintain campaigns, including AllClients.

In AllClients we walk you through these 3 simple steps:

1. Write your emails.

2. Decide what the time frames should be, between each send.

3. Go to a single screen in AllClients and build your Autoresponder campaign.

No prior experience needed!

One more thing. People ask: What is the difference between an Autoresponder Campaign and an Email Drip Campaign? In most cases these terms are used interchangeably. Originally, “Autoresponder” referred to just a single automatic email sent. Over time, the term “Autoresponder” evolved to include the series of emails sent after the initial automatic email response.