Whatever internet business you're in, you will not be able to grow your list without the help of an auto-responder. You have probably heard it a thousand times: 'the money is in the list', but you will not be able to build that list without an auto-responder service.
The first thing you will want to do when planning to do marketing by email is to choose the best auto-responder service that you can afford. There are a lot of auto-responder services out there and some of them even free but I would advise you to stay away from those. Their service can be patchy, with little or no support and your subscribers will probably have to endure advertisements while subscribing-not great!
Some of the most popular auto-responder services to the moment are Aweber and Get-Response. Please check the detailed terms and conditions of service yourself, but either one will work fine. One important feature I recommend, is the "double opt in". This sets your service apart from those who would spam as the user is required to confirm his or her subscription. The downside of this is that you will get slightly less subscribers as inevitably, some subscribers will forget or can't be bothered with the process, but you will get a higher quality list in the process.
Now moving on to the actual setting up of the auto-responder on your site, the first thing that you need to do if you intend to undertake marketing by email is to creating an account with your new provider and then set up an opt-in form on your blog or web-page so you can capture subscribers details. But don't worry; you don't have to actually write the code for it, you can have it finished with just a few clicks using their user friendly interface. You can add or remove input fields such as name, address, etc. You can even customize the colors, fonts, text size, etc. so that the opt-in form matches the theme of your websites and it integrates seamlessly.
The next bit is a little technical, but unless you outsource the task, there is no way round it. Having visually created your opt in form on your providers site, you then need to copy some html code that is generated for by them which corresponds with your custom form and then paste that code onto the page where you will want the form to appear.
If you are running your site on a word press platform, then you can easily do this by copying the code for the form and pasting it in what's called a word press "widget". Alternatively, you may have to ask a web designer or programmer to do it for you as it is a bit more complicated or see if your service provider will do it for you.
They can only say "No"!
After you have inserted the opt-in form into your page, you will want to create some emails for your subscribers so that they will get automatically delivered to them once they subscribe to your site. Those that are sent out in sequence are known as "follow up" messages whereas if you want to make an announcement, you may very well send out something called a "broadcast message".
Keeping in touch with your potential customers will ensure that they will remember your site and keep returning to it-hopefully! Marketing by email has never been so easy!
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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Calmot
