Autoresponders, The "Golden Rules"

Copyright 2005 Michael Tansey

Autoresponders are a perfect way to increase traffic to your site. They can save many valuable hours by automatically answering emails concerning frequently asked questions about a service or product or by sending a welcome letter to new members of your program. There are many ways that autoresponders can help your business. One of the most important is their ability to track the effectiveness of your promotions. Since autoresponders are one of the most popular marketing tools available today, they are being used by a lot of different kinds of business and websites. Some of these take advantage of the system to use the autoresponders in a negative manner. You should be aware of some of the "Golden Rules" when using autoresponders.

Thou Shalt Not Use an Autoresponder Address When Submitting to Search Engines.

Since you will most likely submit your site to search engines such as Google or Yahoo!, directories, classifieds, and free for all sites, you should be made aware of the fact that these sites commonly use an autoresponder as well. If you were to use your autoresponder to contact these companies, their autoresponder will reply to yours and so on and so on. Thus creating a cycle of autoresponses that will flood your email box and theirs as well.

Thou Shalt Not Use an Autoresponder to Subscribe to Ezines or Discussion Forums.

Since most of the time an Ezine will send you updates and new information regularly, your auto responder will send them a message each time. In a discussion forum, every person in the discussion forum will receive your auto response. This can be irritating and most of the time you will be unsubscribed. It is often hard for the administrators of the forum or ezine to determine who is using the autoresponse and therefore it is simply common courtesy to never use an autoresponer in this manner.

Thou Shalt Not Use an Autoresponder to Take Advantage Of Unsuspecting Individuals.

Some very unprofessional companies will use autoresponders to respond to an automated message when this is done the address in the "from" field will be automatically subscribed to their mailing list. This is a extremely un ethical use of autoresponders and those who do it are in jeopardy of creating a very negative image of themselves and their company. Rather than promote their service or business, this usually leads to people becoming very upset and spreading a negative word about your company rather than a good one.

The Internet can be a great place to do business and autoresponders can be an excellent way to save time, however when used in an unprofessional way, they can lead to frustration and aggravation for others. Your company will suffer the loss of much business if you choose to participate in these abusive practices. The appropriate use of auto responders can generate a large amount of business, while inappropriate use can drive away that business