NFIB

A Lot of Repetitive E-mail? Hire a Mailbox
05/ 03/ 2004

When your online marketing requires answering a large amount of incoming E-mail with the same repetitive response, rather than hire operators to do it manually (or work into the early morning hours doing it yourself), consider setting up a special online program called an E-mail autoresponder, or mailbot. In today's Workshop, Jeffrey Moses tells how this works and shows you how to set one up.

An autoresponder answers incoming E-mails and sends back a canned E-mail message. As an example, say you set up an E-mail link on your site specifically so customers can inquire about a special offer you're presenting. The E-mails you'll be sending back will include the same essential message over and over about your product -- including the models and prices, sizes, colors, etc. An autoresponder can be programmed to automatically send out the required information, and at the same time log all pertinent data about the incoming E-mail (name of sender and E-mail address, date and time, etc.). Clearly, an autoresponder can save you an enormous amount of time and energy.

If you want to personalize your responses a little, advanced autoresponder systems can be programmed to key on specific features of incoming E-mails, then select the best E-mail response from a number of canned messages you've prepared. This approach more specifically addresses the needs of customers, making your response more to personal and to the point -- and therefore more effective. Again, the beauty is that no human time or effort is required.

How do you set up an autoresponder? First contact your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or your web site host. Autoresponder programs are fairly straightforward, and it won't take you long to work with an expert to set up one or more of them. The cost at my ISP (Gulf net in Destin, Florida, www.gnt.net) is just$5 for set-up and $1 for each canned message up to a pre-agreed upon number of responses per month. If you'll be sending out thousands of autoresponder messages monthly from your site, your ISP may want to charge you more -- and they may even set up a total monthly limit of how many you can send out. Prices for this service will vary between providers, of course, so shoparound -- or at least make sure that you know exactly how much you'll be charged if you send out 100 or 1,000 autoresponses.

If your ISP or host doesn't handle autoresponders, you can contact several large companies that make a specialty of autoresponders and related services. These include: www.databack.com, www.netspace1.com, and www.netbox,com, among others. Just punch in "Autoresponder"or "Mailbot" in your favorite search engine.

Using Data back as an example, simply go to the site, where you'll find Autoresponder" on the left side bar. Click on it and you'll be led to detailed step-by-step information for beginning to set up the program. The cost is reasonable, although a little more than an ISP would normally charge. Netbox, for instance, charges $10 for each canned autoresponder message of 25K or less, up to 100 responses per month. If you require additional responses, the charge is an extra $5 for up to 1,000 responses per month. The set-up fee is $25.

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