by Thu Nguyen

Created on: August 22, 2010

Autoresponders are generally used in e-mail marketing campaigns to help site owners or bloggers update their readers with the latest blog post, commentary on products and services, reviews and freebie. However, despite its general use, there is another way to implement them as well. With the addition of articles you’ve already written, you can provide readers who want them your material by resurfacing them from the archives.

Most of the time, readers wouldn’t know that you had these topics, but through marketing articles with your autoresponder, you can let them know that there are tips, tricks and even information you have documented before. Not only that, this is a great way to recycle your content online and drive traffic to posts which didn’t have any to start. With that, here are some tips for marketing articles with autoresponders.

~ Specify Your Information ~

Write a short summary of what the article will be about and provide a link to ‘read in full’. Doing this, you won’t have to write much however, in describing, you let your readers know you want them to benefit from something you wrote. While it is easy to forget what you are marketing in the first place, when you drop in an article which has no relations to the topic you’ve said, it will be a surefire way for them to unsubscribe.

Don’t go spamming your readers because you found that it’s a good opportunity to promote a certain product. The moment they feel you’re being unethical, that’s when they’ll blacklist your subscriptions. Thus, building a relationship is key online. Give your readers free information and then promote your product or services. Make it a 3 to 1 rule and you'll find less static with your readers.

~ Automated Delivery ~

The great thing about autoresponders is the automation system they have in place. It makes it possible for you to not have to publish everyday. Instead, it allows you to schedule your publishing so that you can write more articles if you want. This is the main ingredient which makes the power of autoresponders effective. Without scheduling your publishing to a timeframe, you’ll have to keep at it everyday and that’s not realistic.

A scheduler helps maintain you on days when you’re not active. Thus, you can continue to market articles and space out the delivery that your readers will not be overloaded with the information you put out. Make it a twice or three times a week thing and the open rate will be more. Keep in mind, that planning what information you provide will give you long-term success rather than short-term profits. You may be getting click-through now but it will change when e-mails are not being opened.

~ Track Open Rates ~

Knowing how many e-mails are opened and what information brought in the most traffic will determine what your audience want. This lets you know how much value you can provide your readers and thus specialize your information accordingly. Many marketers spend money on surveys which asks their readers this but when you choose an autoresponder, make sure it has tracking capabilities. This will help you centralize your articles to your readers’ needs.

Overall, content may be king but without traffic, it is nothing. Having an autoresponder which will allow you to share content with your readers but schedule it accordingly as well as track opening rates, you will find out what articles perform best. This lets you know what you need to provide more of and in turn plug into your autoresponder continuously.

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