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:

Send multiple follow up messages Messages can be personalized A copy of each requestors message can be sent to your e-mail address. Can create an online form to insert in your web page. Supports both plain text messages or HTML. Broadcast email updates to your entire customer list Attachment support - your messages can contain one or more attachments. Tracking URLs - setup a tracking URL to track click throughs from your messages Totally Ad Free Automatically adds an "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom of each message.

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 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 to confirm your prospects successful subscription.

4. Set up an error page 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.