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Do you place back-issues of your Newsletter on your website?

There are two good reasons why you should:

(1) It shows potential subscribers that you’re serious about your Newsletter

(2) Newsletters are rich in keywords, so it’s a very good idea to turn back-issues of your Newsletter into HTML documents and then submit them to the major Search Engines

Here’s a little trick that will help you format your Newsletter as an HTML document:

Copy the text of your Newsletter into a text editor such as NOTEPAD.

Then copy the text from NOTEPAD into Microsoft Word. You’ll notice that in your Word document, each line ends with a Paragraph Mark.

Now go to EDIT | REPLACE.

Place your cursor in the first field, where it says ‘Look For’.

Now click on ‘More’ and then on ‘Special’ and select the first item in the list (’Paragraph Mark’). The symbol for a paragraph mark will now appear in the first field (a hat followed by a ‘p’).

Now place your cursor in the field below, where it says ‘Replace With’ and type . Then click on ‘Replace All’.

You’ll find that every single paragraph mark in your Word document has been replaced with .

Now copy the entire Word document into a new NOTEPAD document and save it, using the file extension .html (Note: NOTEPAD doesn’t offer you the option to save as an HTML document, but don’t worry; just type .html after the name you gave the file, and it will be saved as an HTML document).

Close that html document and then open it again and you’ll find that your Newsletter is perfectly formatted, with the exact same line breaks that you had in the email version of your Newsletter.

Using this technique it takes me about 45 seconds to turn a back-issue of my Newsletter into an HTML document!

(c) 2000, by Michael Southon

An autoresponder is useful for, well, responding to people who send you inquiries through email. They are actually more than just merely useful - they are an essential tool in any webmaster’s toolbox. Used properly, they can enhance your visitors experience and virtually guarantee that they will come back time after time. Used improperly, they annoy people and push them away from ever coming back.

What distinguishes proper from improper use? People should receive messages when they would normally expect to receive messages. Here are some examples:

• Proper: I expect to get a thank you message after signing a guestbook. I should only receive one message.
  Improper: adding my email to your mailing list because I sign your guestbook.

• Proper: I also expect to get a message if I use a form on a website to send a message to the webmaster. This verifies to me that it is indeed more than likely to get to the intended person.
  Improper: again, adding my email address to your mailing list.

• Proper: If I sign up for your newsletter I expect a thank you email and, of course, the newsletter.
  Improper: Adding my email to anything other than the mailing list which I asked to be added to. Also, sending anything other than the newsletter is generally improper although an occasional status email is acceptable. Never send separate advertisements unless it is clearly spelled out on the newsletter signup page.

• Proper: Following your written privacy policy to the letter in regards to how the email address (and other information) is to be used, and to summarize that information on the page where it is asked for. You should also have a link to the privacy policy on every single page of your web site.
  Improper: Not having a written privacy policy and asking for information. Not explaining how the information is to be used on the page where it is asked for. Not following your written policies.

• Proper: Including autoresponder links on your website to deliver articles and information to an email box.
  Improper: Using these links to add email addresses to your mailing list.

• Proper: If you make articles available for reprint, it is always a good idea to include autoresponder links to make it easy for publishers to get those articles in a suitable format.
  Improper: Using these autoresponder links to add people to your mailing list.

• Proper: Allow visitors to sign up for an email course using an autoresponder.
  Improper: Adding email addresses obtained in this manner to your mailing list.

• Proper: Follow up for an order or other communication. For example, a “did you receive your order okay?” message a few days after the order was taken is excellent customer service.
  Improper: Sending more than an acknowledgement and follow up message. The person ordered something, he did not ask to be on your mailing, advertisement or nag list.

I am sure you see a major common thread in all of this - don’t add people to your mailing list unless (a) you tell them you are doing to, (b) you give them the chance to say “no”, and (c) they explicitly give their permission. NEVER assume your visitor wants to be added to your mailing list - make him explicitly ask by filling out a form, checking a box (off by default) or some other similar means.

Autoresponders have some excellent uses:

• As an acknowledgement or thank you for something.
• As a way to get something delivered in email form (reprint publishers love this method of obtaining articles).
• As a way to deliver a series of something (like an email course) to someone.

One use of autoresponders that drives me crazy (and ensures that I will never return to that site) is common with contests. Let say I sign up to try and win a million dollars. I try and of course I don’t win. Now I get these silly reminder messages for the rest of time, telling me in all manners that I’ve won, or almost won, or could win, or might win … I usually hit delete a few times, then quickly unsubscribe.

All right, so now you know how to use and not to use autoresponders. So where do you get them? They are available all over the internet. If your site is hosted on a paid host (such as Addr.com), you may find that they offer unlimited autoresponders. If so, take advantage of them. These are generally single-message autoresponders.

GetResponse.com has an excellent autoresponder service. They offer a limited function free version, and one of the most functional paid versions that exist. Their prices are reasonable and the autoresponders always seem to work perfectly.

AWeber.Com has another excellent autoresponder service. Of course, any good guestbook package has the ability to send a customizable message to the signer. Good forms packages also include this ability.

Now, what do you put into an autoresponder messages? Whatever you said or implied you would, plus some ticklers to try and get your visitors to come back to your site.

Thus, if you send back a thank you message for signing a guestbook, you can also include a short list of some of the other features available on your website. Perhaps a small article or even a link to a “free gift” for signing the guestbook.

Remember, don’t make the two mistakes of autoresponders. First, do not waste your opportunity. You are sending a person a message which he asked for or expects, so be sure to include more than just “thanks for signing my gustbook”. At least put the URL of your site, and include a paragraph about it.

Second, do not abuse your opportunity, as that will just get the message deleted. I’ve found it is generally NOT a good idea to put blatant advertisements in these messages, especially for pay-to-surf, MLM or affiliates. Why not? I believe these things are best left to your website or to a newsletter or ezine specifically tailored for them. A major exception is in a newsletter itself, as, like magazines and newspapers, advertisements are expected in order to cover the costs of the publication.

In summary, autoresponders are an excellent tool which all webmasters would be wise to use to their advantage. Just be sure to use them properly.

With over half of all U.S. households shopping online, the internet has become a massive market for small businesses to sell their products and services to consumers. The Internet is quickly becoming the “world’s market place”. Businesses benefit from websites because it saves money and time, reach a wider consumer market, gives customers what they want, and it will help keep up with competitors. Customers will enjoy better support, not be hindered by store hours, and a sense of professionalism from your company. In today’s age, all businesses that want to go somewhere should have a website.

A small business web site can save a company money and time. Real-world advertising today often costs thousands, or millions for television ads, of dollars to produce and distribute to the intended audience. Internet ads are usually free or less than $25. This means that businesses can advertise more, spend less and ultimately make more money by getting new customers to see ads. Ads that are placed on the Internet usually last forever too. This makes online advertising far superior than real-world advertising.

Websites reduce the cost of printing. Most businesses distribute catalogs, brochures and/or fliers to their customers and their target market. These papers cost the company money each time one is used. By replacing these with a web site, businesses can store all their necessary information and refer customers to the site. This means that businesses can display and organize a far greater amount of information then they could on paper. Information is also updated regularly, putting all previous information out of date. When this happens all paper materials must be reprinted with the new information. On the other hand, information on websites can be updated instantly for free. Businesses will enjoy this as a cost effective convenience, saving them time and money. Websites reduce the cost of printing in more than just one way.

Businesses can offer online support through instant e-mail communications. The most important part of any business is customer support. A company with good customer support sells more than a company that does not. E-mail is quickly rising as the preferred method of communication by customers. E-mail provides customers with the use of communicating on their own time. Most businesses aren’t open 24/7. Customers have busy lives and don’t always have time to call about the question before closing hours. With e-mail, customers can type the question in their free time and send it straight to a customer representative. In turn, the customer receives an even better response because the representative has enough time to research the question more in-depth or could forward it to the appropriate person. In addition, e-mail is much cheaper than conventional communication methods. Businesses often spend hundreds of dollars providing toll free phone numbers to their customers. E-mail comes free with websites. Email is more convenient for your customers, allows better responses and is cheaper.

The internet allows businesses the opportunity to reach a wider consumer market. There are currently over half a billion people connected to the internet and that number is growing double-digit rates. Conventional brick-and-mortar stores would never see that many people in an entire lifetime, but on the internet it’s only a click away. With a website businesses will be opening up shop in front of millions of people. Purchasing items online has also grown in popularity. Online purchases were reported to account for almost a third of all purchases made this last holiday season. Online shopping has become more secure and reliable so customers feel safer using it. This is good for businesses because they will be able to rely more and more on their online stores.

Internet users are online looking to shop. “If you build it, they will come.” They are often on a mission to find something. They are ready to spend their money. This makes it easy for businesses because customers will find them. Real world shops can be hindered by their location. If a certain area does not have a strong economy and their business is located their, they will not receive as much business as they would if they opened in a booming area. On the internet, everyone has an equal chance to sell. What makes this even greater is that the people coming to the businesses’ website have put in some effort to find it. They are looking for a particular product and want to find the best price for the most quality. All the business has to do is have a website that offers this. The customer will do all the work in finding it. A web presence will surely draw more customers to your business.

Businesses shouldn’t be secluded by geographic boundaries. The common saying goes: “Location, location, location!” On the internet, every location is made equal. That means every business will have an equal chance at marketing their products. This may sound like there is more competition online but the truth is that since there are so many people online there is even less competition for business than there is in the real-world. This means that an online business could potentially receive more customers than their actual brick-and-mortar store! Internet businesses are available to anyone around the world!

Businesses will be marketing products to people around the globe. This will open doors for networking with billions of other people. A small business could become very large just because an international dealer wants to become a redistributor of that product in their own country. In addition, just having an international market will increase your own sales. If people are enjoying your products and services here, their will unquestionably be a desire for them elsewhere. Opening shop in another country can post a difficult task. A website is a good solution to this. Businesses won’t have to build more stores and find employees in a foreign country. They resume work here and still sell to customers around the globe. Websites can increase business potential and amplify profits.

Many businesses rely on their online shop as a means of staying alive. Over 50% of small businesses using the internet believe it has helped increase their profits. Profit growth on average was 23%. If a business was lacking in sales and needed an extra boost to stay alive, a website could do the trick. The extra traffic and increased sales could save a company from closing. In addition, if a company just wanted to make some more money a website could easily bring in the extra customers. Businesses that were just making thousands of dollars could be making hundreds of thousands. Websites are a huge selling medium.

Give customers what they want. Customers are smart educated people. Times are changing fast and customers are changing with it. The internet was introduced long ago but is now becoming standard. Customers expect a place to visit the store online. If they see that the business doesn’t have a website, they will look down upon the business as unprofessional. Websites not only serve as a way to make more money, they enhance the company image. A business looks more established when they have a website.

Most all businesses have an internet presence. More than 2.6 million small businesses are online and almost all large businesses are online. If a business does not have a website by now, they are surely being left behind and missing out on huge potential to earn money. U.S. small businesses have more than tripled the amount of goods on the internet and now consumers spend billions of dollars annually. This is an enormous amount of money that a business could be profiting from. In this advanced day in age, all businesses should have a website.

Websites are a convenient place for customers to shop and review products. Customers are looking for convenience. What is more convenient than shopping in your pajamas on a Sunday morning inside your very own home? A business will receive more customers because websites are a convenient place for people to shop. Customers buy more when they pay something other than cash. When the money is not physically being handed over, the customer feels as if they haven’t even spent anything. By accepting online payments via debit and credit cards, customers will often buy more than they would in a brick-and-mortar store. Customers will see everything they want in your online shop and simply add it to their shopping cart. Since they don’t have to have the cash in hand upon purchase, they will more likely purchase everything that they wanted. In addition, this is also much more convenient for customers since the entire order process can all be done online. Websites offer the ultimate in convenience for customers.

The internet is not just a popular fad. It is here to stay. Online growth has been growing at double digit rates and will continue to that way for at least the next five years. Businesses that are cautious because they are unsure of where the internet is going should get online now. An investment in a website would not be a waste of money. With the internet growing this fast, the return that a business would receive would be far greater. The internet is here to stay and is only going to get bigger.

In conclusion, websites can be a tremendous advantage for a business. Websites save time and money. They are cheap to develop and virtually free to maintain. The business will reach a wider consumer market by not being secluded by geographical features and will also be able to reach an international market. Websites will provide better customer service by offering frequently asked pages and email support. Customers want businesses to have a website and frown upon those don’t. Businesses need to keep with the changing technology by empowering the internet Think of a website as another storefront that is accessible to anyone, anywhere. Imagine the amount of customers that will visit daily. Every business should have an online presence!

This series of articles is intended to give HSphere Control Panel knowledge. I will take you through the Hsphere Control Panel, step-by-step, item-by-item till we have discovered all the power that you have at your fingertips.

Part One Discusses Setting Up Email Accounts.

The first topic we are going to discuss is email. HSPHERE (the software running the control panel) offers many useful functions including mail forwarding, auto responders and a mail list manager. You can add new emails at anytime you wish.

To add a new e-mail mailbox, do the following:

Select E-Mail in the main access menu area.

Since HSphere allows you to manage multiple domains or web sites in one interface, you first need to select the account you wish to make entries for regarding e-mail. Select the domain you wish to administer and select GO. NOTE : if you only manage one domain name it will appear as the default.

When this refreshes after you select the domain, you will see the proper information appear including all existing e-mail accounts. Postmaster and Webmaster @ your domain name are standard defaults and will always be present. We suggest you forward these to more active e-mail accounts once setup. NOTE: This screen also shows you your e-mail settings that will be required to put into your e-mail client so you can connect properly to our e-mail server(s). You will need to make note of the Incoming and Outgoing server information. In this example case they are : mail.yourcompany.com

Then select NEW E-MAIL. You will then see the main interface screen for controlling all of your e-mail functions. This may be one of the screens you use most at first, please take the time to explore using this system.

To setup an e-mail box you need to provide three pieces of information minimum in this area. (1) The actual e-mail address prefix you wish to use. (2) Confirm that it is a mailbox. (3) Supply a password to access the e-mail account.

Once complete, scroll down the page and select SUBMIT.

The other options available in this interface are for the particular e-mail account.

CATCH ALL: This is used to let the e-mail server forward all e-mail messages that are not addressed to a specific e-mail account on your system to this e-mail box. This can be effective if used properly. One main use is that will never miss an e-mail due to incorrect spelling or similar reasons. Please also be aware that electronic tools and SPAM engines take advantage of these and you will see an increase in the amount of e-mail traffic to different e-mail addresses at your domain.

DISCARD ALL INCOMING MAIL: If selected, the email server will automatically delete all e-mail to this address.

MAIL FORWARD: If you wish to forward all e-mail received into this account to another e-mail address, you can enter the values here.

MAIL ALIASES: These are used to let the mail server know that these particular e-mail prefix names (the actual aliases you setup) will be automatically forwarded to this main e-mail address where they were entered.

An example may be to have JSmith@yourcompany.com be an e-mail address account and assign aliases; John.Smith@ or JohnSmith@ or JohnS@ etc. to allow the particular e-mail user the ability to accept e-mail where people may have made a common mistake. Or John Smith may also handle your sales@yourcompany.com e-mail address which you would need sent to his main e-mail address.

AUTORESPONDER: This is a message that you can have run anytime that will automatically send a message to the sender once received by the mail server with the message. Some may use this while on holidays, and other may just wish to acknowledge receipt of an e-mail.

Next article we will discuss the mail list manger that HSPHERE offers.

Many people associate autoresponders with emails. They are not mistaken anyway but for this piece of auto pilot programs are more than emails. Autoresponders are tools that can be used in a variety of ways to grow and skyrocket the sales of a business. Remember that, sale does not only involve the mounting of an ecommerce site, putting up a shopping cart and then getting buyers to make choices. It involves constant, well-crafted and sophiscated interaction with customers.

In this article, we look at 5 effective ways you can use autoresponders to generate six figure incomes for your website.

Publishing an ezine

Autoresponders which have the broadcast capabilities can be used as a cost effective means to create mailing lists to which you can periodically send your readers ezines. Ezines have the great value of preparing the minds of your prospective buyers for a purchase. It is a good platform from which you can launch your product or service, or explain how your business works. The more informed your customers are, the more they will buy from you.

If you are publishing ezines, it will serve you best to first offer a sample content. This way, prospective readers can have a preview of the actual ezines and then be able to get the needed urge to read the full ezine or the real one to follow.

Article distribution

You can use autoresponders to distribute your articles. Articles in which you have embedded your product links are an excellent way to boost sales. There are two reasons for this: First, an article is more explanatory and friendly than a sales letter. Secondly, an article can surreptitiously suggest to the reader to buy a product or patronize a service indirectly. The most important point for publishing articles are the confidence and authority with which the readers associate the writer. If your readers find your articles informative and useful, they will tend to like your opinions and recommendations’ resulting in greater sale of your products.

It is not only your opt-in list that can benefit from your articles. You can broadcast them to webmasters who need articles to boost their search engine rankings. As people read them at these sites, they follow the links in the articles to reach your site for a purchase or an enquiry of your product.

Using autoresponders to generate repeat sales

A customer who buys from you today is more likely to buy again tomorrow. Actually every business should strive for repeat sales and people who buy for the first time take less effort to make the next purchase.

You can use autoresponders to tell your past customers about the latest version of a product or an upgrade. You can even tell them about the availability of some accessories or enhancements to the original product that are worth buying. You can even tell them about discounts available and even say it is available to only past customers for them to get a feel of being valued as buyers.

No business can afford to lose sight of the leverage that autoresponders bring to them. It is therefore a strong recommendation that both start up businesses and well-established ones incorporate them in their website planning and online presence efforts. Autoresponders such as the high grade ones found at http://www.aceresponse.com/ to help a business generate a high return on its investments.

An email autoresponder should come as natural to every business. Web surfers stopped looking at ordinary websites years ago. Now every internet visitor wants a website that is caring and will build a positive relationship with its visitors. It is for this reason that online companies are investing huge millions into Customer Relationship Management programs. But if you are a start up businesses without the huge capital outlay to put into customer relations, you can use auto responders to deliver an amazing warm reception and interaction with their visitors.

To conduct a successful online business, you may want to be guided by available research on customers. Research has long established that, positive and timely responses are important ingredients that visitors use to judge how friendly websites are and how they would want to interact with them. And you may want to know that visitors are more likely to establish relationships with sites that provide excellent feedback and timely responses.

Auto responders therefore positively answer the call of website owners seeking automated interaction with customers at all facets of their customer relations.

An email autoresponder can securely perform 5 principal business boosting roles for every website which needs to get a high rating in customer relations and therefore enhance customer loyalty.

Acknowledgement:

Autoresponders can let people know you have received their emails and that you will soon respond to their enquiry. Even when you are not available to reply immediately, you will do so at some later time. You see, buyers are predominantly in a state of anxiety and it is a good marketing strategy to allay such anxieties.

People buy with several reasons; one of their being an urgent need to do something. So acknowledging their emails sets their minds at ease and then they are confident that a reply will be forth coming on their enquiry. If you have one thousand emails a day, there is no way you can efficiently reply to all these manually and that is where an auto responder comes in.

Notices:

Assuming you were out of the office for two days and a customer interested in bringing you a hundred thousand Dollar deal writes to you with the hope of receiving a response so business is transacted. It will be quite discouraging for him to wait and wait for no answer to come forth. If you have an email autoresponder installed, some preliminary email marketing messages can be sent to the sender; at least informing him of products/services available or explain your absence and when you will be back. If the sender wishes to wait, you can come back to respond appropriately and get the deal finalized.

Confirmation:

In this age of scam and fraud on the net, every buyer will want a confirmation of his purchase. An autoresponder confirmation serves two purposes – it assures the buyer that the goods will be forthcoming and it relieves him of the thoughts that he had transacted with a fraudster. An auto responder performing this function will make your customers happy and buy from you always.

Appreciation:

Buyers do businesses a great favor by buying. Although you are giving away a product or service in return, customers need to be appreciated for buying from you. At least they had other several options but they chose to buy from you because they like you or how you conducted your business. You can use an email auto responder to send follow up messages to customers thanking them for their business and assuring them of continued support.

Every business must make it a point to rely on an email auto responder to generate customer satisfaction and loyalty. Modern online businesses cannot afford to lose this part of everyday web-based transactions. There are many auto responders on the market available for free or a fee but the most versatile that can effectively perform the vital duties mentioned above can be found at http://www.aceresponse.com/

An autoresponder can send emails but the essence is that those emails get read and acted upon by the recipients. There is less benefit to a business if emails that get sent at the cost of bandwidth, just get deleted because they fail to convey the essential information the receiver needs.

We take a look at the factors that will create a conducive atmosphere for a message in an autoresponder email to be read. I mean the kind of stuff that will make an Eskimo order air conditioners.

Sequence:

Let the entire text of the autoresponder email flow like a story. Be sequential. For example, start talking about difficulties people face before you suggest a solution. If you are marketing twin-blade razors for example, you will have to talk about the ineffectiveness of single blade razors first before you talk about the effectiveness of twin models. This way, you are presenting the issue logically to the reader and before he gets to your main message, he understands the limitation of a certain situation and the need to improve it.

Killer headline:

According to research, every web visitor takes 5 seconds to decide whether a material is of value to him. Normally, the headline tells it all. If you are unable to attract a reader through your headline in an autoresponder, it will be difficult or almost impossible to convince him later in the body. The headline should be compelling enough for the reader to want to read on. If you are selling lawn mowers to an affluent neighborhood, you may have it wrong if you wrote

‘Buy cheap lawn mowers and make great savings’

The affluent does not need to save. It is the middle and lower class that needs savings most. Top class neighborhoods are rich. It is not cost- effectiveness they want. They want something luxurious, durable or exquisite.

The following headline can serve your business better:

‘Triple-power, dual-purpose, exquisite, sleek mowers for the busy executive.’

Make the message personal:

People don’t want to be treated generally or as part of a group. They want individual attention. People will buy products if they are convinced that it had been purposely made for them. They will also effective read your autoresponder message if it is addressed to them personally. It is therefore important to use the second person singular (You) in all cases to emphasis individuality. Who will be happy or convinced to read a message on a personal product that has been addressed to thousands of people?

In this regard. it is advisable to use an autoresponder that has advanced features to incorporate peoples names and other non-sensitive personal details in their messages such as the type featured at http://www.aceresponse.com/

Introduce the message well:

In the opening, tell the reader what the autoresponder mail is about and why he is receiving it. Many people forget they ever subscribed to an offer. If you do not make this point, the letter may be treated as spam and discarded. So at this point, it is essential that you introduce the subject. If it is a product, begin creating interest about the features, advantages compared to others, etc. Never mention price here because a product must sell for what its worth. If the reader has not formed an opinion about the real value of the product, how do you expect him to be in the mood to pay for it?

Move the reader to action:

After all the convincing, you need the reader to take action on your autoresponder email. At the end of the message, help the reader to buy the product or request for the service. At this point you may talk about the price, the security of the website and other relevant points. The essence is that you are making it easy for him to make a purchase.

An autoresponder can boost your sale with the appropriate message. If you craft the message well, sales will never stop coming in. We have given you the basics of every auto autoresponder message. Remember, good messages need to go with a good autoresponder for this we recommend http://www.aceresponse.com/

It is an established fact that autoresponders can boost sales. Customers tend to buy, and buy more, from people they are familiar with. But as the web is a faceless arena, how do you create familiarity then? The answer is an autoresponders. After a customer has answered to your advert or notice on the web, you can create a situation of familiarity automatically with auto responders to convert that initial response to a sale. After all that’s what businesses exist to do.

The safest technique is to follow up the initial enquiry or interest with enticing messages. Customers usually need more information or confidence to buy.

In this regards, you will have to put your autoresponders to work.

This is how it goes:

You set up autorespnders to send three pre-sell messages to the prospective customer who has expressed interest in your product. In the initial follow-up letter, you don’t need to say much else the interest will wane right away. Customers rarely tolerate hard sales approach.

Rather be brief and emphasize the importance, uniqueness or cost effectiveness of your product or service. Remember that, this letter is supposed to encourage the reader to buy without going much into service or product specifications.

On the second day, the autoresponders will have to send a second letter. This one should be explanatory and particularly – particularly – mention why the customer needs to buy and the benefits he will derive from such a purchase. Make sure you have stated the price, quantity, terms of shipping, taxes and after sales support in clear, common English language. Avoid technical jargons which may need a lot of interpretations. You want your clients to buy quickly and not refer to encyclopedias before understanding terms you have used.

The third letter from the autoresponders can be sent about a week or later from the date the second one was sent. In this letter, you suggest to the reader that perhaps he was unable to respond due to busy schedule, meetings, etc. The purpose of tgis letter is to rekindle his interest or remind him of your offer. Now, do not repeat the same things you said in your previous letter. Rather take a different perspective to present your product or service.

If the third letter from the autoresponders fails to yield any response, then stretch the timing of the next letter to a month. If the reader sees your letter regularly and one day decides to purchase the product, you will be the first he turns to as he would have by now accumulated a lot of info about the product to make a decision. Perhaps more importantly, you would have created the familiarity needed by people to build trust and confidence.

It may have to be understood that not all autoresponders can accomplish the task we have enumerated above. The functions we have alluded to in the article can best be handled by a professional auto responder such as the ones found at http://www.aceresponse.com/ These are high grade autoresponders with excellent facilities for designing the letters, setting the timing and even performing other auto pilot duties.

So that is how autoresponders can do the job of a salesman for you – all at the click of a mouse. You don’t need extensive knowledge to be able to put this sales generating method into practice. Neither do you need to know about html. You simple knowledge about websites and email is all you need to get the power out of this tool.

Article was written by Chad Cook

The Problem with Putting an E-Mail Address On Your Site

A contact us page is a useful thing to have. Many sites just provide an e-mail address for contact purposes. However, there are several problems with e-mail:

• If you leave your e-mail address on a website it almost certainly will get picked up by spammers and soon you’ll be getting a flood of unsolicited spam with viagra and cheesy pharmacy ads, virus attachments and the like. Hopefully you’ll have some sort of spam blocker but as always the best defense is prevention.
• When a visitor clicks on your e-mail address, they may or may not launch the appropriate e-mail program. E-Mail hot links only work if you have a client based e-mail program (like MS-Outlook) which works seemlessly with e-mail links. Many times, people prefer to use web based e-mail rather than Outlook and the click links won’t work with web-mail.
• If your browsing the web, its often quicker to enter a message into a browser page than to go to a seperate program or browser page. It’s more seemless for the end-user.
• With a contact us page, you can control where the message goes and what information gets collected. For example, you may want additional marketing data like how they heard about your site, or if its a support question you may want to gather certain pre-requisites like the version of software they are using, etc.
• You may want to log messages into a database, which is much harder to do with e-mail.

Creating the Contact Us Page

The following HTML and PHP script allows you to just that (except the database part. If your really interested in DB let me know and I’ll write a second part to this article).

Here is the HTML part, which is the data collection form. Place the following code in the <body> portion of your contact us page.

<form method=post action=”sendmessage.php”>
  <p>If you would like to contact us, please fill out the form below and press “Send”. Enter your message in the space provided below:</p>
<table align=”center” border=”1″ bordercolor=”#CCCCCC” cellpadding=”10″>
<tr><td>
<b>Message:</b>
  <dl>
    <dd>    <p>Message Type: <select name=”MessageType” size=”1″>
    <option selected>- - - - - -</option>
    <option>Suggestion</option>
    <option>Bug Report</option>
    <option>Question</option>
    <option>Advertising Request</option>
    <option>Link Exchange</option>
    <option>Other</option>
    </select></p>
    <p>Message:<br /><textarea name=”Message” rows=”5″ cols=”60″></textarea></p>
  </dd>
</dl>
  <p><strong>Tell us how to get in touch with you:</strong><strong></strong></p><p>
  <dl>
    <dd>
    <table>
      <tr>
        <td>Name</td>
        <td>
 <input type=”text” size=”35″ maxlength=”256″ name=”UserName”/></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>E-mail</td>
        <td>
        <input type=”text” size=”35″ maxlength=”256″ name=”UserEmail”/></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>Phone</td>
        <td>
        <input type=”text” size=”35″ maxlength=”256″ name=”UserPhone”/></td>
      </tr>
      </table>
    </dd>
  </dl>
  <dl>
    <dd>
      <input type=”checkbox” name=”ContactRequested” value=”ContactRequested”/> Please contact me regarding this matter.</dd>
  </dl>
  </p>
 
  <p align=”right”><input type=”submit” value=”Send”/>   <input type=”reset” value=”Clear Form”/></p>
</td></tr></table></form>

Now you’ll need to create need to create a PHP page that processes the message (e.g. sendmessage.php) as follows. Again, place this code in the <body section of your page:

<?php
    /* Initialize Variables */ 
    $myemail = “webmaster@mysite.com”; 
    $homepage = “http://www.mysite.com”
?>
<p>Thank you <?php echo $UserName ?> for your comments: <br>
<?php echo $Message ?> 
<br>
<br>
<?php 
    if (isset($ContactRequested)) { 
        echo “You have requested a follow up contact with the following contact information:<br>”;
        echo “e-Mail: $UserEmail”;
        echo “<br>Telephone: $UserPhone <br>”;
    }
?>
<br> 
<a href= <?php echo $homepage ?> title=”Web MYSITE Home Page”> 
    Return to MYSITE Home Page</a><br>

<?php
   $ip = getenv(”REMOTE_ADDR”);
   $todayis = gmdate(”l, F j, Y, g:i a”) ;
   $Comments = stripcslashes($Comments);
   $messageis = 
       “Time = $todayis [GMT] \n” .
       “Message From = $UserName \n” .
       “Type = $MessageType \n” .    
       “e-Mail = $UserEmail \n” .
       “Telephone = $UserPhone \n” .
       “ContactRequested = $ContactRequested \n” .
       “Message = $Message”;

   $messageme = $ip . ” ” . $messageis;
   mail($myemail, “Comments from $UserName”, $messageme);
?>
</p>

For a demonstration, you can see how this code works on our own contact us page.

PS. If you like this code sample, please link to our site (http://www.webmastersloom.com). It will be much appreciated.

PPS. Don’t forget to paste the code into a plain text editor (e.g. notepad) before placing it into your web page otherwise you’ll pick up the extra HTML from this page.