Increase targeted traffic to your website with Auto-Responders. By first setting up a mailing list (which you can use to send newsletters, etc to your prospects or customers) you can then harness the power of Auto-Responders to send emails out to customers automatically, even if it’s 4.00am in the morning!

Even better, the process works much like a mail merge does in Microsoft Word (with the benefit of requiring no input from you), which allows you to customize each message you send to include the subscriber’s name, and other details if you so desire.

I am sure you would agree that sending an email that addresses the subscriber as “Dear Sir” is very impersonal, wouldn’t you rather have it read “Hi Tim” ? You can by using Auto-Responders, and that’s just one of the great advantages they have.

If your prospect or customer enters their information onto your website, the auto-responder automatically kicks in and replies, and it can even be configured to send out emails over a period of time (e.g. 3 days after the initial email, then another at 5 days, or whatever time frame you decide on).

The good things to know is you only need to set-up a campaign (the series of email you wish the prospect of customer to receive) once, and then save it. The auto-responder will then automatically know when to send out the next message and will merge in the recipient’s personal information when sending the email. It will also send an immediate response, the first time the person joins the mailing list (typically by leaving their details on your web site).

One thing you want to do is ensure you have separate mailing list for each type of contact e.g. At minimum one for your prospects, and another for your customers. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument that you wanted to offer your existing customers a discount on another product you sell on your website (but that you do not want to offer this to the prospects). You could not easily do this if you had one mailing list for all your contacts because there would be no simple way to know which contact was a prospect, and which was a customer. Decent auto-responder software can do some smart things like automatically moving a prospect from one list to another after a specific event occurs.

In the example above, you could get a prospect moved from the “prospects” list t the “customers” list automatically when the prospect purchased your e-Book. Nice huh?

You should note that you are still able to manually send emails to your mailing lists. Auto-Responders just add the ability to automate particular sequences of messages, and to provide instant responses for information request at any time of the day or night.

By judicious use of your websites URL within the mailings, you will more website traffic which ultimately is what you are trying to achieve. This is particularly useful for those prospects who have not yet purchased a product from you. A regular message in an auto-responder will keep your name in the mind of the recipient, and increase the chances of them purchasing something from you in the future (and of course visiting your website).

About the Author

Tim Buchalka aims to document all web traffic techniques that are available, and new ones as they are found. Empowering people by providing all the information they need to increase web traffic to their website is his focus. Tim has over 20 years experience as a software developer, and has been on the Internet since the early 1990s. Visit his website at www.overwhelmingtraffic.com.