Sequential Autoresponder

Basically, a sequential autoresponder works by keeping a mailing list of people you want to contact and by sending follow-up messages from a predefined sequence to these people

You can customize the delays between subsequent messages an autoresponder sends. For instance, immediately after Joe downloads your product, he gets a thank-you note. Then, after two days, he receives another email explaining product’s benefits and asking if you can help him in any way during his evaluation. If he does not purchase, he gets yet another email after a week; the email may inquire if there is anything about the product that he does not like. And so on.

Continuing with our example, let’s assume that Joe has bought the product at some point. In this case, there is no point (no pun intended) in sending him emails that try to talk him into buying. Actually, it is what he just did! Instead, Joe should be moved to a separate follow-up list that contains your existing customers, get a “thank you for your purchase” email, then a note about your other products that he might be interested in… You get the idea. FollowUpXpert can be configured to do this kind of thing.

If you want to learn about creating a sequential autoresponder please read Tutorial: Creating a Sequential Autoresponder.

I said that FollowUpXpert works with a list of people to contact (called a prospects database). The database contains email addresses, names and additional information (e.g. City, Phone etc.). But how these email addresses get into the database in the first place? There are several ways you can make it happen.

First, you can add them manually by filling a window for every email address you want to add. This can take a while if you are adding a large number of addresses. Read Managing Prospects Manually for more information.

Second, you may import your prospects from a text file (comma-separated or tab-delimited). In addition to letting you handle huge numbers of prospects, you can use this feature to integrate FollowUpXpert with an external application. To see how it works please read Exchanging Data with Other Programs.

Third, you may configure the program to accept opt-in requests by email. For example, you may tell it to treat any email that has word “subscribe” in the subject as an opt-in request and to add the sender of such email to its prospects database. The program is very flexible when it comes to handling opt-in requests; it can send confirmation emails (double opt-in), send you an email whenever anyone opts in etc. For more information read: Opt-In and Opt-Out with a Sequential Autoresponder.

Finally, the program may be linked to a sign-up form on your website. You can read this chapter to find out more Working with Web Forms.