When the entire internet is communicating at light speed, why in the world would you want to delay any response to someone who has taken an interest in your goods or services? Use an autoresponder. Autoresponders make it possible to react quickly and immediately to a prospect’s interest AND make it possible to gather their email address in the process. Moreover, autoresponders can be used in an infinite variety of pre-sale and post-sale situations. Common uses include applications such as the following:

(a) Promptly fulfill requests for white papers, brochures, reports or articles.

(b) Send out sales literature immediately

(c) Acknowledge and confirm orders or requests

Consider the alternative. Without an autoresponder, you have to do the work or hire someone to do it. It’ll take time and concentration. With an autoresponder, it all happens immediately If you are offering an electronic product such as an ebook, an autoresponder can be set up to handle the entire fulfillment operations for you – respond to queries, fill the orders, charge the credit card and send a receipt! There are a variety of third-party autoresponder services ranging from a free to a small monthly fee. Be careful with free services – often they append their own advertising to the response email or siphon off the email address for their own use.

Hi-end autoresponder software will run between $95 - $495 dollars. Packages ensure that you have complete control over the content and addresses of responses being sent. Variations of such services and packages go from simple fulfillment to complete automatic order processing including Paypal® charging. The bottom line with autoresponders? Don’t go on the internet without one. It’ll pay for itself in no time at all.

Personally, I prefer to use a third party autoresponder like www.aweber.com because they handle all the complaints from the email providers - and going it alone can often mean emails don't get through because you haven't manually taken care of the complaints, and you IP address gets banned.