Automated E-Mail Responses: More Sales, Less Hassle Hawaii

E-mail is a powerful selling tool, but it can be time-consuming to compose and send individual messages.

It would be wonderful if every sales prospect immediately recognized the value of the product or service that you described in your first e-mail--but that doesn't always happen.

Most sales happen after the prospect receives multiple e-mails detailing the benefits of your offer. Expensive products (which are often more profitable) may require five or more exchanges before the sale closes.

If you juggle many prospects at once, consider using a sequential autoresponder service like GetResponse to manage a series of messages. Automated sales messages can be just what's needed to convert an indecisive prospect to a new customer.

You're probably familiar with the concept. One common example is the vacation autoresponder, which automatically replies to incoming e-mails with a standard message stating that the e-mail account owner is away from the office. This lets correspondents know they will need to wait longer than usual before receiving a personal response.

A sequential autoresponder used in marketing takes this concept to a higher level by sending sales prospects a series of automatically generated messages. Each message provides new sales offers or additional information regarding the benefits of your business products or services. You determine both the content of the messages and the intervals between each e-mail.

Sequential autoresponders often let you personalize the canned response, such as referring to the prospect by name. Many also allow you to track how many recipients open your messages and provide sales results to help you gauge the effectiveness of your campaign.

Your existing customer list can be a good starting point for building a database of autoresponder subscribers. Someone who has already purchased from you is a good prospect for sales of additional related products and services.

You could also place a form on your Web site, inviting visitors to submit their name and e-mail address in order to receive additional information.

Finally, you can acquire a list of prospects from a third party. One way that can work well is by using what's known as lead co-generation, obtaining leads from a business that sells a related product or service.