Introduction

The extreme versatility of autoresponders is that the messages are pre-written and sent automatically. This saves the internet marketer a great deal of time and effort. Even better, the messages are programmed to be sent at intervals designated by the internet marketer. These intervals are relative to the initial request by the recipient.

Once the messages are written, the time intervals set, and the opt-in form installed on a web page, the marketer does not need to bother with the system again. Other than tweaking the content and intervals of the messages, and possible unscheduled broadcasts, the system runs automatically. What is the best way to schedule autoresponder messages?

Scheduling Autoresponder Messages

This article offers three methods of scheduling autoresponder messages: 1) steady intervals, 2) decreasing frequency, and 3) content-based.

1. Steady Interval Scheduling

Scheduling autoresponder messages at steady intervals means that the interval between messages is the same for all messages. This method is useful for delivering information on a periodic basis, such as a weekly e-course or a monthly reminder list. Remember that your subscribers are likely receiving other autoresponder courses too, so daily messages are probably too intrusive. When delivering content that is not time-critical, steady intervals is a method that works well.

2. Decreasing Frequency Scheduling

Use decreasing frequency scheduling when you want your subscriber to get lots of exciting messages after subscribing. Then you gradually increase the time (decrease the frequency) between messages so your messages don’t become annoying. This method is good for autoresponders describing an online product or service you are selling.

You might initially schedule a message to be sent immediately, and then the next three are sent on Days 1, 2, and 3. The next few messages can be slightly delayed, such as being sent on Days 5 and 7. If the recipient hasn’t purchased your product or service by then, have some long-term messages ready. Long term messages can be sent, for example, on Day 14 and Day 21, then monthly for 3 months after that.

This method initially gives the recipients lots of information to keep them excited about your product. The increasing time between the long term messages provides reminders to the recipient without clogging their inbox. If they haven’t purchased by the end of the autoresponder sequence, they probably won’t. However, these subscribers are ripe for follow-up offers and upsells you might offer in the future.

3. Content-Based Scheduling

If your autoresponder messages don’t fall easily into one of the previous two categories, consider content-based scheduling. This simply means that you must picture yourself as the potential customer, and consider how fast you would want to get the content. This is best illustrated with examples.

Example 1: Assume you are providing the content of an e-book through your autoresponder. You have placed each of the e-book’s 25 chapters in its own autoresponder message. Now think about your own e-mail inbox. If you were subscribing to receive these chapters by e-mail, would you want a lot of them arriving quickly? Most would not, because recipients need time to read and digest the material.

Most subscribers would likely click delete, or worse, unsubscribe, if your messages begin piling up in their inboxes. This type of material does not require urgent delivery, and a periodic schedule is probably best.

Example 2: Assume you have written an e-book on interview tips, and made an autoresponder series to promote it. To entice subscribers, you’ve promised them your top five interviewing tips directly from the e-book. Someone who has just received notice of a job interview in two days is frantically searching for tips and finds your site.

Would weekly scheduling help this person? Of course it won’t. You might choose to deliver the tips daily, or even twice a day. Of course, you would have some long-term follow-up messages in the autoresponder series too. If the recipient doesn’t get this job, he or she will certainly need your interview tips in the future.

In Example 2, you could even set up two different autoresponders. The first would be your normal product promotion series of messages, set up with decreasing frequency scheduling. The second could be your “hot tips for desperate job seekers,” which would deliver the tips every few hours, then automatically subscribe the person to your first autoresponder sequence.

Some autoresponders have a “get next message now” function. This is a link at the end of the message that allows the recipient to manually request the next message in the sequence, instead of waiting for it to be sent. This feature is perfect for urgent or time-sensitive information.

Conclusion

Think of your potential customers, and how desperate they might be to get your information. Then decide which method of autoresponder scheduling is right for your product. If you are not sure, ask your subscribers if the scheduling was helpful to them. After all, they are the ones with the money to spend.

Email is an important marketing tool. Regardless of whether you are sending out a single email or a newsletter or broadcast to stay in contact with potential or existing customers, it will be a waste of time if the recipients do not open your email. Follow these tips to make your email communications user friendly and compel recipients to read them.

Here are two suggestions to get people to open your email.

1. Write subject lines that indicates the content of your message. Many receivers may delete your email without reading it if your subject line is not compelling or does not indicate the content.
2. Keep the subject line brief. Many email programs cut off long subject lines.

Below are eight useful tips to make your email message user friendly.

1. Include your name at the end of your message. People often don’t remember email addresses and may not know who sent the email. Also, including your name personalizes the communication.
2. Quote the email you are responding to. If you don’t, the reader may not know what you’re talking about. You can do this automatically by highlighting the message you are responding to before hitting reply.
3. Use a clear and concise writing style.
4. Keep messages short, preferably under 25 lines.
5. Write short sentences and short paragraphs (5 lines maximum) to keep your readers focused.
6. Break up text with white space. Use subheadlines and bulleted lists to visually break up your copy into easy-to-read sections, highlight benefits, and keep readers reading.
7. Avoid using all CAPITAL letters.
8. Be sure to use spell-check before sending out an email. Spelling and grammar errors can suggest that you are not educated or knowledgeable.

Make sure your readers can read your information! The email message you send may not look the same when displayed on your receiver’s screen. Follow these tips to avoid incompatibility problems between email software.

1. Know your audience so that you can determine whether to send plain text or HTML messages. If the receiver can not view email as a web page, they will end up seeing your text all mixed up with HTML code instead.
2. Be cautious with attachments. If the recipient does not have the software you used to create the document, they won’t be able to read your attachment.
3. Avoid placing graphics in the body of email messages. Graphics add to the file size of an email message and could very well take over the file size limit of the reader’s software. Also, graphics can greatly slow the downloading and opening of your email.
4. Avoid formatting such as bold and italics. Different email programs read them differently.
5. When mentioning a web address, include http://. This allows most email software to link to a URL and allows the user to click on the link and go to the web address. Many computer newbies don’t know how to copy and paste a web address into their browser.
6. Format articles and newsletters to around 60-65 characters per line with hard returns after each line. If a reader’s software wraps lines differently, your text may be hard to read.

Increase sales with user-friendly and compelling email messages. You don’t want to lose prospects and subscribers because they have trouble reading your email.

How Do You Create Autoresponder Email Messages In Php?

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

Tags: Autoresponder, Create, Email, Messages
Posted in Autoresponders | 2 Comments »