Autoresponders

I’ve seen some arguments that with the coming of social media marketing , autoresponders marketing is on the way out. And therefore, you may  not even need to have  an autoresponders any longer.

I don’t think so!

Yes, the social web  (and prior to that, simple blogs, and prior to that, plain old discussion boards) is changing the game in terms of being able to engage directly with your market place, and make much deeper ties than you have previously. But no matter how integrated social networks becomes in all of our lives, e-mail is STILL not going anywhere not is autoresponders.

Autoresponders are simply too convenient, too useful, too integral to our lives NOW, and, get this, TOO PRIVATE to be going anywhere.

EVERYTHING is not meant to be a public message; and although every social network has a private messaging system, e-mail is the best cross-platform solution to sending a message in a trusted, private way. Instead of thinking about social media against e-mail (autoresponders) against blogs, as a marketer you ought be thinking differently. It shouldn’t be a question of which platform you should use: it should depend on the message and the situation. For example, cars are useful, but I’m not going to drive from my kitchen to my living room!

The key is to think in the right way and use each tool for the unique purpose it was meant for, and to integrate these tools together as much as you can. For that, you must buy an autoresponder s or get some type of autoresponders system. That is the one and only  tool out there that successfully intergrates all of these methods, giving you a central place to manage your business and your message AND gives you exclusive ownership of the most critical business asset you will ever own: your list.

Hey, blogs are a very useful way to get engaging ideas to your audience in a non-private way such that group discussion can ensue in a space that you own. But, how do you guarantee that people come back? Until just recently, the answer was to use an  RSS feeder, but frankly many internet surfers either don’t know what an RSS feed is, or don’t have a reader set up. By integrating your autoresponders service into your blog, you can now send out a broadcast message to subscribers (by using the same old e-mail opt in form that everyone is familiar with), and you can choose the frequency that messages are set out. In this way, you can make a “blog-zine” which sends out a message for every post you write, or even every 10 or 20 , etc. Your choice.

Engagement on social media platforms offers the highest conversion rate that you can achieve, but participating multiple times a day in multiple platforms effectively is a strain on your time and/or resources. Now, with this followup email service you can combine your social media channels directly into your autoresponders and send a message to your social outlets with each broadcast.

Lastly, NOTHING can replace the true impact of a well-crafted autoresponder message series like a good autoresponder service can, for the purpose that it serves. Not social media, and not blogs. Think it’s not personal enough? Try again. It all comes down to your writing. I have some series that are so engaging and personal that many have taken the time to write back multiple- page long e-mails telling me relatively private things about themselves. All from an autoresponder series!