What are Autoresponders and why they are The #1 "Online Business" Tools?

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Without any shadow of a doubt, every successful online businesses will be using autoresponders to drive a substantial part of their business or businesses.

In fact, autoresponders are nothing less than the key to automating your whole business operation. 

 

As such, they are an absolutely critical element of the online business empire that you are setting out to build.

 

In very simple terms, what an autoresponder does is allow you to build a complete customer contact and sales system, which, once in place, can be used time after time after time!

 

From any research that you many already have done, you should be aware that many industry experts suggest that, on average, you will have to contact a potential customer at least seven times before they become a real, paying customer.

 

An autoresponder allows you to do this both quickly and simply.

 

You may have also heard or read the online business niche that ‘the money is in the list’. 

 

This refers to the fact that by building your own list of potential customers to mail to, you are creating your own personal ‘bank’ of people to whom you can send sales offer after sales offer.

 

Well, the money REALLY is in the list, AND it is the power of your autoresponder that will allow you to extract maximum profits from that list.

 

Basically, you can find autoresponders that are both paid and free. 

 

If at all possible, you should go for the paid version right from the outset, for several reasons.

 

Assuming that you are planning on being in this for the long haul, then your list will, over time, become your most valuable business asset, bar none. You should therefore take your list and the idea of building it ultra-seriously right from the beginning.

 

The problem is that free accounts only have one advantage, that is that they cost nothing.

 

They do have several disadvantages on the other hand.

First, most free responders carry advertising from the autoresponder company themselves, and (even more damaging to your business) sometimes from third party companies too. 

 

Do you want your outgoing mails to advertise other people’s businesses, as well as (or sometimes instead of) your own? 

 

This is not great for your long term business growth.

 

Secondly, many free autoresponders will only allow you to have one mailing list attached to your free account, meaning that you must add everyone to the same list. 

 

Now, maybe at first this will not be a big problem, but it can very quickly become one. 

 

For example, say in a few months time, your business is successful, so you decide to branch out into selling two completely different product lines. 

 

You cannot logically mix these two ‘lines’ into one mailing list, so what can you do? 

 

You really need to build two completely separate lists but with a free autoresponder, you would not be able to do this.

 

The final and most damaging disadvantage of using a free service to start with is that, at some point, if you are successful, you will need to switch to a paid service. 

 

That is not a question of ‘if’ only of ‘when’.

 

And, when you do this, you have to go back and ask every member of your mailing list to sign up with you again, and guess what?

 

Statistically, over 50% of your list members will just not bother! 

 

In other words, you will lose over 50% of the assets of your business overnight, simply because you decided to save a little bit of money now!

 

So, if you can, I would strongly urge that you try to find the necessary fees to get a paid autoresponder service from the outset, as it probably the best investment that you can make in your business.

 

If you have no choice but to start out using a free service, then that cannot be helped and the best account that I know of can be found here. 

 

But, as I suggested, be aware that this will give you only one free mail list builder.

The following are the three (3) companies who are probably is the acknowledged market best leaders in the autoresponder business, and I would definitely recommend that you should use one of them if at all possible:

 

1.) AWeber - Excellent autoresponder & email marketing software for bloggers, small businesses and e-commerce businesses. It's free, if you have 500 Subscribers and if you have over 500 Subscribers then you have to go for paid plan. "Try AWeber here for free."

2.) Constant Contact - Highly recommended for professional services providers. "Try here Constant Contact 30 days free  trial."

3.) Mailerlite - Good platform for beginners and newbies. "Try here Mailerlite free  trial."

Every one of these services will cost you less than $20 per month, and, if there was one thing that I would urge any online business newbie to spend money on right from the beginning, a higher quality autoresponder account would definitely be it!

 

So, if you can, please spend the money and do the job the proper way right from the beginning. 

 

I promise you that you will thank me for making you do so in the future! 

Also Read: Benefits and importance of Building an Email List for your Business!