If you are just getting started in internet marketing for your business, you have probably been wondering how to manage email-marketing campaigns, without spending hours manually sending to your marketing list.

The simple solution that you might have heard about is to use what is known as an autoresponder.

An autoresponder is usually a third party software application or website, that you pay a low monthly fee to, who manages your email list, and sends your prewritten marketing emails, in sequence, to people who subscribe to your list.

That means that you can work out your marketing message in advance, upload the emails you want sent to your prospects in the order you would like them sent, and be sure that whenever someone joins your mailing list, they will receive your emails as you intended them to be sent.

Autoresponders also handle a lot of the administration involved in email marketing, such as handling unsubscribe notices, and allowing you to test different campaigns on different groups of people, and while they may cost a little extra every month, they’re definitely well worth the expenditure!

The question many business owners, particularly those who are new to internet and email marketing have is why they should bother to use an autoresponder. Let us consider the facts. When you first launch your website, and decide to build a mailing list, you are probably not going to have that many people subscribing. However, if your internet marketing strategy is working, within a few months or weeks, your subscribers could have jumped from a few individuals, to hundreds, or even thousands of people.

If you are trying to manage the emails that you are sending to everyone on your list manually, you are going to need a complicated spreadsheet, which tells you who subscribed when, and which email they should be getting. You are going to have to create dozens, or even hundreds, of mailing lists, and send your prewritten emails to each one individually. That is a full time job right there!

By using an autoresponder, however, you take all the hard work out of email marketing, so that all you have to worry about is creating your campaigns, and enticing your prospects to sign up for your list. The autoresponder itself handles all the management of your campaigns from there on.

Of course, you may still be at the stage where you are wondering whether email marketing is an option for you, let alone whether you should invest in an autoresponder to market your campaign.

The answer is a resounding YES!

The most important difference between email marketing campaigns, with or without an autoresponder, is that they allow you to build a relationship with your potential customers. Instead of bombarding them with advertising (that they are likely to ignore anyway) you can send them emails with valuable information in them, and gradually build up trust. Once they trust you, experience shows that they are more likely to make a purchase.

Of course, doing all of this manually is time consuming, and that is why most business owners who are trying to handle their email marketing campaigns themselves fail – they simply do not have the time, or they lose interest.

Choosing an autoresponder service is often the very first step in automating your sales and email marketing in this way, and with so many options, that can be the trickiest part. Look for well-known services that offer the features you need. Consider trying a few of them out (many offer free or paid for trial periods) until you find the one that works for you. Even so, most autoresponders cost just a few dollars a month, so they are not likely to blow your budget!

Once you have found an autoresponder that works for you, consider running a few different campaigns, with test portions of your mailing list, until you find one that has the highest success rate. Once you have, you can implement it across all of your lists, and you will have an email marketing system that is completely automated, and that runs even when you are asleep, on holiday, or too busy to stay in touch with your clients and prospects!

Anyone who knows anything about business and marketing knows that staying in touch with your clients, even if it is just a gentle reminder that you are still around, or a particularly special offer from time to time, is the best way to turn possible sales into definite turnover. While that used to be time consuming, innovations like autoresponders and email marketing have made it simple, and they really do free you up to handle other things, whether it’s your business, or some well deserved time off.

So if you are serious about building your business online, I would say that you definitely need to look into using the technology, like autoresponder services, that allow you to do that quickly and easily.

Author's Bio: 

Andrew McCombe is the owner of Activate Your Business where they teach new and existing business owners to Start, Grow and / or Automate their business(es) with EASE, so they can live a life of EASE. For more information and to get a free copy of the 10 EASY Steps to Your Perfect Business EBook, visit http://www.activateyourbusiness.com.au