Website Tutorial - Autoresponders.

Setting up Autoresponders to service your website customers and build customer lists.

On average an autoresponder will set you back around  $29 per month. Some are a lot cheaper to start with but increase their fees as your list of subscribers grow.

Besides the cost there are a couple of other reasons why I prefer to build my own autoresponder that runs through my own data base from my hosting server.

Firstly I know that my subscribers are secure from spam as I am the only one that has access to their details.

Secondly because I limit my mailings to around twice a month my autoresponder's delivery rate is around 98% into my customers inbox.

ISP's [Internet Service Providers] black ban commercial autoresponders to deliver into your customers junk mail box, or spam folder, which is usually deleted without the messages ever being viewed.

This is because thousands, perhaps millions of Internet businesses are using the same commercial autoresponder which sends out from the same address. After a while the spam complaints give the commercial autoresponders a bad reputation and because your messages are coming through the same address your good reputation dies along with the rest of the crowd that is using the same autoresponder.

The draw back of creating you own autoresponder is getting it set up is not for the faint hearted. I believe that outsourcing this job if you are not experienced with installing scripts. After all it is saving you the monthly fees you would normally pay for a commercial shared autoresponder. I imagine an experienced coder would charge between $50 - $100 to set it up for you.

I installed my own using PHP List from Tincan [a free script] and MySQL data base. It works great and has subscribed 210,000 people to my opt in list from my website in three years. 70,000 subscribers have remained active over this period. Mind you I treat my subscribers with respect and do not use my autoresponder to spam them with unwanted solicitations.

To see my autoresponder in action and get ideas on how to set up the page where I subscribe people to my Newsletter go to my sign up page at:
Sign up to the MyScribeWeb Newsletter. This Newsletter keeps you updated with all that I do online.You will note that there is an unsubscribe link on the same page and each message I send out also has an unsubscribe link so sign up to check it out - you can unsubscribe at any time you like. In the footer of the  sign up form there is a link to the PHP list script in case you want the same autoresponder yourself for free.

Important New Update.

I have found a product that will teach you how to instal your own scripts!


Below is a form to another Autoresponder I am running at no cost. I use this one to cater to specific interest lists. Whereas the one above is a general news list. I place forms into my pages from this autoresponder's lists rather than setting up a general capture page for it.

As  an example [it works if you want to sign up]:

If you want to subscribe to my bi-monthly newsletter that will send you updates for this tutorial and the Kimbro's Study you can do so from here.

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Now if I wanted to set up a News Letter or message sequence for my customers on my Gold Coast site; I would set up a new list within the same autoresponder and paste the code it automatically generates for me into the Gold Coast site's pages.

In other words you can set up many different lists  for people who are interested in different topics, from the one autoresponder. You then write a series of messages for each list on the topic they are interested in and subscribed to. You can schedule these messages at suitable intervals and the autoresponder sends the messages out automatically  on the date the message was set to be sent. You can also send a global message whenever you want to all your subscribers.

An autoresponder is a two edged sword. It is a wonderful tool used correctly to give a good service to your visitors and customers - or as a nuisance to spam people with solicitations they did not request in the first place.

Beware of  companies that sell leads to feed into your autoresponder who state it is safe to send messages to these people because they signed up to their autoresponder and verified their email address. The terminology they use is "double opt in leads" or "Telephone Verified" leads. They tell you that you can not get accused [and shut down] for spam because they will supply you with the leads IP [Internet provider] address.
You can be shut down for spam if you are sending to double opt in subscribers if you send them emails not on the topic they specifically requested.

The companies that sold you the leads have probably sold the same leads to hundreds of other people.
Now the poor person who signed up to one list because they were promised a free e-book or some other incentive is receiving 100's of e-mails a day, from 100's of different lists on topics they are not interested in.

Each list they unsubscribe from is replaced with ten new ones - because the company still continues to sell their address as a double optin lead. No wonder the person receiving all this spam reports the offending autoresponders. Most commercial autoresponders have been reported and all their messages go into spam folders.

So the golden rules - if you want to create a loyal list of subscribers are:

1. Never load purchased leads into your autoresponder.
2. Only use your autoresponder to service your subscribers - not the other way round.
3. Write messages that are interesting to your subscribers on topics they subscribed for.
4. Keep your message sends down to a minimum.
5. Always have an unsubscribe option at the end of every message you send. 
6. If you include solo ads with your messages place them at the end of the message, clearly marked as a solo advertisement. In other words don't force your readers to read an advertisement before getting to the information they subscribed for.

Avoid sales pitches in your messages as the spam filters will recognize the key words as spam and place you message in the recipients spam folder.
Common words that get your messages sent to a spam folder are the ones that have been hyped to death.
You probably know what they are - here is a short list.

• Free
• cash
• money
• opportunity
• MLM
• affiliate
• purchase
• buy
• income potential
• make money online
• data entry
• surveys
• surf
• click exchange
• sick and tired
• broke
• Rich

Go to next step adding a capture page