About Email and Autoresponders
An autoresponder is a software tool that manages emails automatically or in other words a computer program that auto replies to emails sent to it.
Lets first consider what happens in the process of sending an email from one email address to another successfully. At both ends there must be some means of seeing the email - the recipient of the email must be able to view the contents and the sender of the email must be able to compose it. The user interface that allows this to happen is called the mail client. If you can compose emails for sending and view received emails then you must be using a mail client eg Outlook Express, Hotmail , Yahoo. The mail client handles the viewing at each end but not the transfer between the two points.
The actual electronic mail transfer requires a couple more steps and an software application known as an email server. Each end needs an email server both for incoming emails and outgoing emails. Sometimes the same server is used for both sending and receiving emails but often it is different. Generally outgoing mail is handled by the SMTP server and incoming mail by the POP3 server or an IMAP server. In order to send an email the senders email client must connect to the senders mail server for outgoing emails which takes the email message and transfers it to the incoming mail server at the recipients email address. This mail server then connects to the recipients email client which produces the email in readable form for the recipient to view. If for some reason either mail server cannot receive or deliver the email then that mail server sends an automatic response or message known as a bounce back to the relevant party notifying them that the email transfer has been unsuccessful.
The role of autoresponders is to provide an automatic email responder for repetitive incoming email. Where would this come in useful? - lets look at a few scenarios. Fundamental to the success of any business is a client list. If your business has an online presence then your exposure to visitors or potential customers is enormous. Many will visit your site and some will be interested in what you have to offer. These are the ones that you would want to keep contact with. If you have a form on your website to collect their email addresses etc then its pretty easy to maintain contact. When the form is filled in, an email is automatically sent to your autoresponder which can then auto respond to this received message. If for instance you have set up the form for people to subscribe to your newsletter then you know that anyone who fills in the form will be requesting to join your newsletter. You can prepare in advance a thank you letter which the autoresponder will automatically send each time it receives email notification from the autoresponder form on your website.
Automatic email responders, depending on the autoresponder type can handle anything from a single email response to sequential messages scheduled to be sent at specific time intervals over a period of time. This is great for building up customer relationships and given the fact that most potential buyers do not part with their money without a few reminders of the fantastic bargains on offer its a great way to keep up a presence with them.
Anything that can be sent in a email can be scheduled for the autoresponder. Newsletters, training courses, graphics etc can all be dispatched as attachments. Autoresponders generally offer the choice of sending messages either as normal text messages or in HTML format if you wish to add colours and fancy graphics etc.
Autoresponders generally need at least one email address to receive incoming messages and one for outgoing messages. Using multiple email addresses is often an advantage and is worth learning about.