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Do you use autoresponders for your email marketing?
Do you use autoresponders as part of your email marketing strategy? Why or why not? How effective are they?
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3 Answers
Craig: Interesting question. I'll go with the classic email marketer answer of "It depends." I have some experience using autoresponders, but not with stellar results. The negative reaction way outweighed the positives, and ultimately the approach was abandoned (this was a few years ago, so I don't remember specific numbers).
Acknowledging a sale or an opt-in via a welcome email very quickly (with 30 minutes at most) is expected email behavior. Going beyond that can be problematic, particularly since you run the very real risk of losing the "human factor."
My take: Test autoresponders, but be sure they are independent enough of your overall messaging and customer dialogue strategy that they don't create dissonance and confusion between communication methods.
Craig,
Can you define a bit more your definition of an autoresponder? My definition of an autoresponder is that if I get an email and I hit reply, I get a canned very impersonal email. In addition, I have heard people define autoresponders as order confirmation emails or something that is triggered as a response to a user action, but is often canned and impersonal.
If you can provide some more detail, I would be happy to help.
Andrew
As the other two have stated above it depends on what you are trying to do.
Autoresponders can be very simple and at the same time powerful IF they are delivering the type of content that helps the end user.
My favorite simple autoresponders are more like a triggered program that can be used for a Thank you for subscribing, a welcome to our email newsletter that help to convey the things that are important for them to understand about your relationship, timing, content and administrative actions (profile, preferences) or a simple introduction to some content that they might not know about in your site that you know is valuable to many of your subscribers. I also really like a delayed first touch email that falls out of the normal program at a set time (15 days - 30 days etc) asking them if there are things that you could be doing better (survey), giving them a value based offer that works well with your typical lifecycle of your program and goals, or simply lets them know you are not asleep at the wheel.
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