How to Choose an Autoresponder

In prior posts, I’ve discussed the value of building your mailing list, which is your direct connection with those current and prospective clients most likely to refer or buy your services. In this article, you’ll learn the kinds of autoresponders available and how to choose one that’s best for you.

Autoresponder Options

You have five options available in choosing type of autoresponder, ranging from free to fee:

1. Use the autoresponder your web hosting company probably offers as part of your package. While limited in features, this kind of autoresponder can be used to automatically send vacation reply messages and the like. And you’ve already paid for it.
2. Use a free autoresponder provided by an online service. Some services offer free autoresponders for small lists and with limited numbers of messages, with the option to upgrade to full-featured, fee-based service later. These free packages tend to have limited features and some of them may place their own ads in your messages. They may be good ways to experiment with autoresponders, though (with my caveat below).
3. Buy and install autoresponse software on your own computer. This option costs $200-$400, typically. The benefits of this approach are that there’s usually good installation technical support, the product carries only a one-time software cost, and gives you have full control of your list because it resides on your own computer. The disadvantages, though, may be significant if you’re not interested in the work of managing your own lists: You must regularly back up your list to protect it, sending mass emails could exceed the limits of your ISP (internet service provider), and you are alone in addresssing any blacklisting problems caused by messages that another ISP considers spam.
4. Subscribe to an autoresponder service that manages it all for you. Your list resides on the company’s servers (though in the good ones, you can export copies of your list for safe keeping) and they manage the subscribe, unsubscribe, and messaging tasks. I use this approach because I want both a full-featured service and as few headaches as possible (for more on which service I use, visit Favorite Autoresponder: AWeber).
5. Choose an autoresponder that’s packaged with a shopping cart service. If you have services that you want to invoice from your site or products that you want to sell from there, then you may find it helpful to purchase a combined package. I keep hearing good things about 1ShoppingCart.com but have never tried their service.

I believe in conveying a message of quality to current and prospective ADR clients, so I’m not keen on options 1 and 2, except, perhaps, for some experimenting to famliarize yourself with autoresponders.

If you go the experimental route, keep this in mind: It’s a real pain to keep switching autoresponders, since that you’d need to keep transferring your list, as well. Most quality autoresponders will require that you re-confirm any lists that you import to the new service, meaning that all your list members will have to re-subscribe. Asking them to do that once may not be a big problem. Asking them to do it over and over is a sure-fire way to turn people off. If you want to experiment with various options before committing, get yourself a few free email addresses and use yourself and maybe a few friends and family members as your testers.

How to Choose an Autoresponder

If you’re interested in autoresponder services, I recommend the 10 feature-evaluation questions in How to Choose a Good Autoresponder Service. For a brief assessment of three top autoresponder services, try Your Powerful Automated Assistant.

If you’re interested in autoresponder software for purchase, you may find this page on DMOZ a helpful starting point.

What’s Next

The last article in this mini-series will be Autoresponder Strategies for Building Client Relationships, where I’ll suggest specific ways to build and promote your ADR business using the technology of autoresponders.

Do you have autoresponder questions that I haven’t yet addressed? Leave a comment below and I’ll make sure your question gets answered! Or contact me directly, if you prefer.

Copyright © 2006 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved.

Using Autoresponders to Market ADR Services

In previous posts I’ve talked about the importance of building your mailing list. Now let’s consider how to use your permission list effectively for promoting and marketing your ADR services with the help of an autoresponse system.

Quality Content Is Key

The most effective use of your autoresponder is to distribute quality information that educates about ADR, builds trust and relationship with you, and keeps you fresh in prospects’ minds without inundating them.

I’m of a mind that the best way to promote ADR is to educate about ADR and differentiate yourself by market niche. People who visit your website are probably there because they have a problem they need to solve. If they’re like many members of the public, they know little about mediation and other ADR and want to understand how it can help them solve their problem. They are probably not sure that ADR is helpful to them and may be skeptical or downright curmudgeonly, depending on what they’ve heard from others and the media.

Marketing ADR Using Autoresponders

We live in the era of the skeptical consumer, wary of being manipulated by advertising and leery of an overly promotional “buy me” approach. I believe strongly that you will create better relationships with prospective clients by being a reliable source of sound information than by being “sales-y.” Ways you can use autoresponders to be a resource and conduit include:

• Sending out regular or periodic information to subscribers. You can do this by creating a series of pre-written emails that are distributed at designated intervals, distributing your blog’s posts by autoresponder for those who don’t use feed aggregators, or distributing information in newsletter form.
• Reminding prospects of ways they can benefit from your services via a sequential email marketing campaign.
• Following up with former clients, sending information that can benefit them post-mediation—a value-added service.
• Inviting feedback from your mailing list. What would they like to learn more about? Do they want more or less contact from you? Is there a service you could offer that would be of interest to them?

With a good autoresponder, you get access to metrics that tell you what’s working and what’s not: number of click-throughs from an email to your website, number of receivers who opened your message, results of “split-testing” different sign-up boxes to see which works most effectively, which kinds of messages result in interest from which client niches. It’s powerful information that helps you adjust your marketing for better results.

Copyright © 2006 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved.

13 Common Blogging Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Do you blog to promote your ADR practice?

If so, I highly recommend John Thomas’ Common Weblogging Mistakes. His advice is sound and simple to incorporate into your blogging work.

If not, watch for my upcoming Blog [tag]Marketing[/tag] mini-series.

How Autoresponders Work

Autoresponders automatically deliver pre-written messages or content when someone sends email to a special address. Here’s the general sequence of events for most good autoresponse systems:

1. A website visitor uses your mailing list subscription box to sign up. Alternatively, someone you meet in person can be directed to send an email to a special email address, which accomplishes the same result.
2. The subscription information lands in a database, either at an outsourced site (which I use) or on your own server, depending on the type of autoresponder you choose.
3. The arrival of the subscription request triggers an automatic email that’s sent to the subscriber, asking her to confirm that she did wish to join the list. This is sometimes referred to as “double opt-in” and is a way to ensure that the person who requested the subscription is the person who owns that email address.
4. Once the subscriber confirms his opt-in, he automatically receives an email from you, usually immediately. This is an email you wrote previously, usually includes “thank you for subscribing” content, and may include additional content such as a gift certificate or a special article.
5. You may also have follow-up emails scheduled to occur in a specific sequence and after a designated number of days from the last message you sent.
6. You may have occasional special notices that you can arrange to be sent to everyone on your list as they arise. These could include vacation messages, business announcements and the like.

Autoresponders help you build your mediation or ADR mailing list, enable requested content to be delivered instantaneously to your prospective clients, and help you manage your mailing database and email delivery seamlessly.

If you’d like to experience an autoresponder from the receiving end (which signs you up for my private emailing list in the process), just visit Membership and choose either option available on that page. As with any good autoresponder, you can always unsubscribe later.

Copyright © 2006 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved.

Building Client Relationships with Autoresponders

Your mailing list is one of your most important practice-building assets. If you don’t really have one yet, it’s time to start building one and make it one of your top priorities. The people on your mailing list are those who’ve used your ADR services, have told you they might be interested in what you have to offer, have had a friend or colleague who referred them, or perhaps subscribe to your newsletter. These are the people who have the greatest likelihood of becoming clients or referring clients to you.

People on Your Permission List Are Your Best Leads

It makes good business sense to put real effort into building an ongoing relationship with these folks. It’s also a way to leverage your energy and finances effectively, since you’re putting time and money where the payoff likelihood is greatest.

I’m not talking about mailing lists that you purchase from list services, your local chamber, or other sources of mailing labels and emails for mass distribution. I generally believe those types of lists are a waste of money for the micro-business owner. You’ll get far more misses than hits and, in the most unfortunate circumstances, you risk that the business from whom you purchased the list didn’t acquire the emails legitimately. The mailing lists worth your effort are your permission lists, made up of people who’ve opted in voluntarily. [Read more]

Links Roundup for March 2006

A periodic roundup of links to informative resources for MediatorTech readers:

Benefit of [tag]Blogging[/tag]: New Friends and Supporters: Network building by blog.

How to Beat Technical Barriers: How to tap the power of technology even if you’re not tech savvy.

Posima Smart Web Publishing System: An all-in-one [tag]website management[/tag] tool to help small-business owner create a web presence.

Positively Neutral: For lawyers choosing a professional neutral, site provides online feedback about specific mediators, arbitrators and expert witnesses.