Autoresponders Can Drive Your Business
If you started a new business, you don’t have a lot of time, but one of the things you do want to do to make your business successful is to build a relationship with your customers so that they’ll keep coming back. To do that, you need to share information about your business regularly, but it’s difficult if not impossible to send personal notes to each customer all the time about new products and services available, and just to say, “How are you doing?”
This is where autoresponders can help. Autoresponders give you the ability to send customers regular information, and to follow up in customer service and other matters automatically, so that you don’t have to spend all your time writing emails. In addition, autoresponders are also great at sending out scheduled information on a regular basis over time, so that your customers aren’t inundated with a bunch of emails from you, which could get you blocked because of spam.
Let’s take a look at a couple of the ways autoresponders can help you drive your business and put it at least in part on “autopilot.”
Establish brand and market presence
If you want to become well known as a business and therefore attract customers, you need to build a brand and market presence, where you’re going to be easily recognized by people. To do that, though, you need to stay very visible in the marketplace, most especially when it comes to your current customers. (Potential customers as well can utilize this information, through word of mouth and Internet searches.)
That’s where autoresponders come in. Autoresponders can automate this “branding” process, so that every time someone sees an email that comes from you, they’ll know it’s some sort of valuable information specific to your brand. Used wisely, autoresponders can make you more recognizable in the marketplace, because they’ll keep you “out there” and visible without a lot of effort from you.
Keep customers up to date
As stated previously, you can’t sit down and write a personal note to every customer every time, but you can keep customers up to date on new developments, products and services by sending out an autoresponder message every time something happens that’s going to affect your established client or customer lists. This frees you up to spend more time in your business and with your customers individually one-on-one as needed, which again is only beneficial to your business and its prosperity.
Use them for customer service and order confirmations
There are times, of course, when customers are going to need your one-on-one, personal attention for a particular problem. However, I’m willing to bet that 90% of these types of emails are simply orders that need to be filled and then confirmed with the client. By using autoresponders to send order confirmations, you’re letting customers know that their orders have been received and are in process. With that taken care of automatically, you can focus on filling orders and meeting your customers’ needs — and growing your business — instead of these mundane things that simply can be taken care of with an autoresponder.
One final caution
Autoresponders are a great tool, but use them wisely. Don’t “spam” customers with useless information or tons of information on a regular basis about “new and improved” products. Your customers will simply turn you off, quit reading your emails, and may even go away altogether. Use your autoresponder sparingly and wisely, so that your customers know they’re really going to benefit by reading your autoresponder messages. Done right, though, your autoresponder can give you the extra time you need to make your business even more profitable.
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