If you have ever entered your name and email address to ask for information online about a product or service, or you have signed up for an update list or a group membership on the Internet, or you have emailed a customer service address from a website and received a nearly instantaneous response, an autoresponder program was the system responsible for delivering the reply.

To put it in simple terms, an autoresponder is an email based program set up to send out a predetermined message response or series of responses to every email that comes in to a particular address, or in response to input from a form submitted on a website. Some autoresponders, such as email list sign-ups may initially be single shot responses. Others may set up a sequence of responses over days, weeks or months. Nearly every internet business uses autoresponders for a variety of different reasons. Automating jobs that might otherwise take up excessive work hours as well as for building and maintaining customer and lead lists.

The autoresponder can be set to send out a message series to the email addresses submitted. An instant response may go out, followed by another the next day, then 3 days later and so on. This can be set up to go on as long as the author wishes the messages to continue.

An autoresponder service is one of the most powerful tools in the internet business owner”s toolbox. They are fairly easy to set up and use and once they are set up, they carry out the work of responding and following up 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. A good autoresponder service can make or break a new internet business.

How do I use an autoresponder to make money?

Just about any online business can benefit by using autoresponders. In fact, with a properly arranged campaign, your as-yet-unfounded business can be built around an autoresponder program. All you need is a product and an effective series of autoresponder messages, and you can start carving your piece of the Internet pie.

Your autoresponder service can be a golden goose. The tool that will make sales for you much more effectively than any other form of advertising. On the internet, most people want a lot of information before they make a purchase. If you are able to get your message to you potential customers repeatedly without having to worry about keeping up with it on your own, you could well see an amazing sales response.

I don’t care what business you’re in - if you’re not using email marketing, you’re missing out on a bundle of profits.

Here is why.

1. Email marketing allows you to stay in front of your customer, regularly, so they never forget about you.

2. It also educates them about all of your products and services - not just the initial product they bought. Exposing them to your full catalog increases your chances of selling more goods to them, immensely. Finally, the task can be fully automated so that you do very little manual work.

So how do you grow an email marketing list?

1. Give the people on your list a great offer they can’t refuse! When they come to your web site, you should have a specific action for them to perform. And that action is to capture their email address for your email marketing list. You do this by offering a perceived high-value item…for free.

The key word here is offer. You simply tell them about the thing you will give them, and how they can get it. For instance, someone is searching the Net for ab exercises to improve their shape. They visit on your web site, and guess what?

2. You offer them a video and a report for free on turning your flab into a rock-hard six-pack in only 47 days! Tell them they can get the location of these downloads if they sign up for your list. Then make it as easy as possible for them to sign up.

3. Once you have them on your email marketing list, you must treat them right. Just like you wouldn’t walk up to a person you just met and kiss them, you must court your list first before trying to sell them something.

Build relationships first with your email marketing list if you want to make the most amount of profits.