Have you ever received an email telling you that the person you
emailed is on vacation and will not be answering his email for
the next week? What about a company that answers with an email
thanking you for your interest and that they would get back to
you in a day or two? Or even an email saying that the email you
tried to send could not be delivered?
Each of these is a different version of what we commonly call an
autoresponder. An autoresponder is simply that, a computer
program that automatically answers email sent to it. This simple
definition, however, belies a world of difference between the
different types of autoresponders in use today.
The first auto responders were incorporated into mail transfer
agents or email providers. When they could not deliver a piece
of email, they would send an autoresponse to you letting you
know as much. These types of emails were helpful, but not
particularly sophisticated.
That has all changed radically in recent years, as
autoresponders have been incorporated into the marketing
strategies of many companies. Today autoresponders are used by
companies to immediately give feedback and information to
prospective clients. This might include sending an autoresponse
to email inquiries which include pricing information, more
details about a product, and a timeline for when they can expect
someone from the company to get back with them.
These ‘client touches’ are a valuable commodity in the world of
marketing because they improve conversion rates in the purchase
of goods by keeping the product or service in the mind of the
purchaser for a bit longer, as well as provide the company with
an additional opportunity to provide the potential customer with
more information on the product.
Autoresponders are setup primarily in one of two ways, with an
outsourced ASP model, and a server-side model. The Outsourced
ASP model involves the company or provider who would like to
incorporate an autoresponder into their business model
contracting with an outside provider. The outside provider will
then typically provide the user with access to a web-based
control panel. From there the company or individual can dictate
exactly what they would like the autoresponder to say to each
email received as well as how to deal with different types of
emails and other variations. For these services, the company
typically pays a monthly fee to the autoresponder provider.
The second category of autoresponders is server-side.
Server-side autoresponders simply refers to programs that
instead of paying for someone to implement for you on a monthly
basis, a company can install the system on their own server and
run it for themselves. While this process is typically not as
simple as purchasing a program out of a box and uploading to the
server, it has become significantly simpler in recent years.
About the author:
Timothy Boser recommends that you visit
http://www.getresponse.com for more information on autoresponders.