Autoresponders are a perfect way to increase traffic to your site. They can save
many valuable hours by automatically answering emails concerning frequently asked
questions about a service or product or by sending a welcome letter to new members
of your program. There are many ways that autoresponders can help your business.
One of the most important is their ability to track the effectiveness of your promotions.
Since autoresponders are one of the most popular marketing tools available today,
they are being used by a lot of different kinds of business and websites. Some of
these take advantage of the system to use the autoresponders in a negative manner.
You should be aware of some of the "Golden Rules" when using autoresponders.
Thou Shalt Not Use an Autoresponder Address When Submitting to Search Engines.
Since you will most likely submit your site to search engines such as Google
or Yahoo!, directories, classifieds, and free for all sites, you should be made
aware of the fact that these sites commonly use an autoresponder as well. If you
were to use your autoresponder to contact these companies, their autoresponder will
reply to yours and so on and so on. Thus creating a cycle of autoresponses that
will flood your email box and theirs as well.
Thou Shalt Not Use an Autoresponder to Subscribe to Ezines or Discussion Forums.
Since most of the time an Ezine will send you updates and new information regularly,
your auto responder will send them a message each time. In a discussion forum, every
person in the discussion forum will receive your auto response. This can be irritating
and most of the time you will be unsubscribed. It is often hard for the administrators
of the forum or ezine to determine who is using the autoresponse and therefore it
is simply common courtesy to never use an autoresponder in this manner.
Thou Shalt Not Use an Autoresponder to Take Advantage Of Unsuspecting Individuals.
Some very unprofessional companies will use autoresponders to respond to an automated
message when this is done the address in the "from" field will be automatically
subscribed to their mailing list. This is a extremely unethical use of autoresponders
and those who do it are in jeopardy of creating a very negative image of themselves
and their company. Rather than promote their service or business, this usually leads
to people becoming very upset and spreading a negative word about your company rather
than a good one.
The Internet can be a great place to do business and autoresponders can be an
excellent way to save time, however when used in an unprofessional way, they can
lead to frustration and aggravation for others. Your company will suffer the loss
of much business if you choose to participate in these abusive practices. The appropriate
use of auto responders can generate a large amount of business, while inappropriate
use can drive away that business.
