One of the essential Tools of an online marketer is an auto-responder.

If you want to keep your message in front of your prospects and to increase your chance of converting them to buyers, then you need to put an auto-responder to work.

You can use an auto-responder to send out sequential, follow up messages following a first contact. You can send out broadcast messages with news and updates to your offer or share free information to your list of prospects to build up relationships.

No website or blog should be without a web form or contact form. You cannot just rely on someone buying on their first visit, so you need a form which offers some free information in the form of a newsletter, video or report that will help them to achieve their objective.

Your auto-responder will have the facility to create a web form for your blog or website. You could use a free service to create html code such as Kompozer.net and your auto-responder will provide you with a code to input onto your website or blog. With a blog you just need to post the code into a text widget and then place that in your primary side bar.

So now you are building up a list that you can monetise, either with your primary business or affiliate links that have keywords similar to the market niche you are catering for.

An auto-responder can immediately begin to engage your subscribers if you put in decent email copy into your follow up emails. Remember, new subscribers require special attention. They’re eager to hear from you, but they don’t know your company as well as established subscribers do. Build profitable relationships with them using a sequence of automatically delivered follow up emails.

• Welcome new subscribers, then drive them back to your website
• Answer questions, deliver downloads and provide product information
• Build subscriber trust and confidence
• No manual sending needed
• Personalize emails with subscribers’ names and other information

Some auto-responders, such as Aweber will allow you to create great HTML emails. They provide templates for you to use, with different colour schemes and other images or you can just use plain text emails if that is what you prefer.

You can track your performance. See who has opened your messages, who clicked links in your messages, how much income your messages created.

It is possible that your broadcasts can go direct to Twitter and Facebook, thereby generating more interest for your blog or website. This will create more prospects and give you a greater credibility on the internet.

You can set your own delivery times and dates. Create your broadcast messages and then plan when you wish them to be sent out. So you can create your messages to go out while you are on holiday or away from the office for any length of time and still make money on the internet!

So having an auto-responder is essential to your online business. Make sure you get something set up soon if you don’t already have one.

My recommendation is Aweber, that’s what I use for my business and blog. But there are lots to choose from.

What is certain, if you want to monetise your blog, create a significant online business in any field. An auto-responder is absolutely essential.

Do you have an auto-responder? Then let us know how it has helped your business!

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