It is used in marketing to deliver mini-advertisements, teaser courses, demo extracts, testimonials or stepped sales letters, and all of this is designed to get the client eventually to click on the buy me now link for the main product that is being promoted.

There are three main problems with chained auto-responders. Avoid these, TEST your linked auto-responders before you inflict them on the general public, and you should see significant increases in your sales.

Problem No. 1 – No Content Beyond Selling

This is THE most VIOLENTLY annoying class of chained autoresponders – message after message from the same place, trying to sell you something, in so many different words. YUCK!

What marketers who don’t THINK seem to forget is that folk who own and manage PCs and email aren’t that stupid.

They can read and write, you know, and they are not IDIOTS.

After two or three repeats, they will immediately delete such messages from their inbox and probably put a spam block on the sender domain for good measure.

That’s not what the marketeer had in mind, I should wager …

Problem No. 2 – Too Little Content

I remember one mini course which contained nothing but teasers and virtually no useful information whatsoever.

Once again, look, marketeers!

If you want people to try the product, you need to give them at least a little taste of it.

Don’t hold the glass with the sample wine under their nose, and when they reach out, oops, that’ll be $875 dollars please … but we do have a money back guarantee …

This is just ANNOYING, it’s even dishonourable and an angry person does not make a good customer.

Problem No. 3 – Too Much, Way Too Much …

I subscribed to another auto-responder teaser mini course just a few days ago, and here, the folks in charge had done a 180′ U-turn on the two points above, most likely because they got it that those content less/content poor efforts don’t work to sell more of their product.

In their desire to have it be known how marvellously content packed the main item was, they created this huge long document, of at least 20, 25 paragraphs for the first installment of their chained auto-responder.

Gee.

Now I don’t know about the rest of the planet, but I’m actually quite a busy person and I get STACKS of emails every day.

I try and cut down the time I spent on dealing with email because it does get out of hand, and on this occasion I was into something else anyway.

I took just *one look* at the plethora of writing and went, Oh god, I don’t have time for that right now … and left it.

Have you ever left a non-priority email for later …?

Yeah, you know what I mean.

But then, the very next day, the 2nd installment arrived. I opened it and damn me, there’s another REAM of goodness knows what, but now I’ve missed the boat because this is No. 2 and I haven’t read No. 1 yet!

I hastily closed it, feeling guilty and moved on.

But then, No. 3 arrived – another book length installment. I just couldn’t handle it anymore.

I deleted the lot.

Now that’s a terrible shame because there may have been valuable information I never got, and the guys who wrote this spend AGES doing it.

So, here are my suggestion for chained auto-responders copy.

1. Head it with, Busy? Save me! I contain important information! or words to that effect.

2. Keep it SHORT. Pick out ONE USEFUL thing and just – tell me THAT. So I can glance at it and say, Hey, that’s useful! Cool! Thanks, guys! When I mean short, I mean anything above three paragraphs is way, way too long for an autoresponder email in this day and age.

3. Keep it TOTALLY FOCUSSED on the product you are selling. I’m on autoresponders where you wouldn’t begin to guess for all the waffle, testimonials, side tracks and personal messages what I’m supposed to be BUYING at the end of the day!

4. Give people a chance to keep up. Space your messages three days, don’t inundate us. Or better still, test this for yourself. A lot of internet marketing wisdom is completely out of date now because it was researched back in the days when we got four emails a week, and not fourteen thousand each. Time has moved on and requires NEW thinking, and different strategies.

My last tip on chained autoresponders is as follows.

5. Subscribe yourself to OTHER PEOPLE’S efforts.

Don’t look at them as a marketeer would, but as though you were a human being in front of their computer, if you know what I mean by that.

You can learn what pleases and what works, and what doesn’t.

Mark out to yourself what you like and use this in your own efforts, and avoid what really turns you off.

Lastly, keep working at your chained autoresponder copy until you have something that really works, and really brings in lots more sales.

They are a great resource – if you handle them right.

Silvia Hartmann

Author, MindMillion

My therapist says that journaling about my problems will bring clarity and understanding. I hope she?s right. I guess the best place for me to start is to outline how this sordid affair ever began in the first place. If I get emotional, please forgive me. I really cared for my old flame and my heart is still a little tender. I just don?t understand how any of this happened. I never signed up for the pain and tears my old flame left me with. I never signed up for being dumped by an auto-responder email newsletter. But let?s go back eight months so I can tell you how this auto-responder and I first met.

Back in May, a friend of mine told me about a great self-development book she was reading. She couldn?t stop talking about it; every time I saw my friend she talked and talked about the book. She kept on telling me I would really like it. After days and days of hearing about the book I went online and bought it. What do you know, my friend was right! I really liked the book. Within the first few chapters I was putting the methods into practice and seeing great results.

After reading about a quarter of the book I wanted to know more about the author and his company so I followed the URL on the back of the book to the author?s website. There was a ton of information about the book as well as highlights of courses and seminars that were being offered at different locations around the world. It seemed that the company was offering seminar versions of what was covered in the book for those who either had ADD or were short on time and where unable to read the 400-plus-page book. I didn?t really pay much attention to all the information about the courses and seminars since I already had the book and didn?t mind the lengthy read. I did notice an e-newsletter signup box on the homepage, though. ?Why not?? I thought. Maybe I would find out more ways to apply the principles in the book.

Soon I was receiving e-newsletters every Wednesday. I was right! Each email newsletter outlined different methods from the book. There were lots of real life application examples and testimonials from people who had also applied the principles. Oh sure, there were ads mentioning the courses and seminars, but I didn?t mind. Within a few weeks I was looking forward to getting my weekly e-zine. It was official. This e-newsletter and I were going steady.

A few weeks later, Wednesday came and I didn?t get an email newsletter from my flame. I was perplexed. Those weekly e-zines were really helping me as I studied the book. I did not want to miss any of the valuable information so I went back to the website and signed up again. Just like when I signed up the first time, the signup form asked me for my name. I was already signed up under the name Joan and wanted to see if my original signup was still out there. I knew the only way I could track my signups was to choose another name. I picked an alternate name, went ahead and signed up, and eagerly awaited the next e-newsletter.

Soon I was back on track and receiving the weekly e-zine. I could tell my second signup had worked because my alternate name was being used. It was kind of funny and I wondered if anyone ever looked at the names on that email newsletter list. I guess I will never know, but at least it gave me a bit of a giggle every time I open my weekly e-newsletters and read the opening salutation of ?Dear Squidlips.?

A few weeks after my Squidlips signup, I started to get strange feelings of d?j? vu as I was reading my weekly newsletter. Had I seen this email before? I located my book folder in my email client and looked through all the email newsletters I had received from this company. I could not believe it. These e-newsletters were set up on an auto-responder service! My weekly Dear Squidlips emails had started back at the beginning of a series of email messages. I WAS having d?j? vu; I was reading emails I had already received!

Now my knickers were in a twist. This was not a weekly e-zine! This was a series of promo messages! What was the deal? I had experienced flings with auto-responders before. I knew the drill. I had been on ?five day e-courses? and known all along that the messages were sitting in some database waiting for me to signup. I knew when I subscribed it would trigger a series of messages to get delivered to me in a certain sequence. Heck, I even used email auto-responders with my own business. What I had not expected was to get into an auto-responder fling when I signed up for a weekly e-newsletter. I thought this email newsletter and I had made a commitment. I thought we were going steady.

After a sleepless night of tears and accepting that I was having a relationship with a database, I decided to stay on the list. Weekly e-newsletters kept on coming addressed to Squidlips. After a while I forgot about the auto-responder factor and started to enjoy the content in the auto-responder e-zines. Deep down I knew I was having a fling but I didn?t care. I was still reading the 400-plus-page book and I thought the articles in the e-newsletters really enhanced my reading.

Months went by. This was getting to be quite the auto-responder fling! Email message after email message appeared week after week addressed to Squidlips. But then, one day the tone of the email newsletter seemed a little different. The email message basically said I was being dumped. Well, it didn?t say the word ?dumped.? It said since I had not bought anything that the newsletters were promoting, this would be the last e-newsletter I would be receiving. Translation: ?We have tried and tried to get you to buy a course or seminar and we don?t know any other way to convince you to buy something and we have given up, so get lost?loser.? By the time I finished reading the e-zine I was in tears. It was probably my own fault, but I had grown attached to these emails and I really looked forward to getting them.

For days I was in a funk. I cried, ripped the down feathers out of my designer pillows, and got really depressed. Day after day I visited deeper and deeper recesses of my being that I did not even know existed. The depression grew worse and worse. I wondered if that auto-responder e-zine, or whatever it was, knew I had paid $40 for their book. I laid awake, night after night, asking the Universe why this company had a weekly e-newsletter signup form in their homepage that was really a series of canned emails tailored to promote their products. Weeks went by and the confusion remained. Would I ever recover from being dumped by this auto-responder?

When I was able to leave the house without fainting, I booked a few sessions with my therapist. Maybe she could help me realized why I was so hurt. It took a lot of deep breathing, but I soon found the root cause of my pain. At first it was hard for me to wrap my head around the truth, but I think my depression was triggered by this company ?unsubscribing me? from their e-newsletter list. I thought the way this opt-in email newsletter stuff worked was that I got to do the dumping. I thought I got to ?unsubscribe? when I wanted the love affair to be over.

In the past my auto-responder affairs have ended and my life went on without much longing for the arms of my absent email lover. I admit for a few days I would miss getting the emails, but let?s face it, when the affair started I knew it would be no different than the summer I had that hot and heavy romance with Melvin from Cleveland. All summer I knew come Labor Day, Melvin would leave his grandmother?s house (which happened to be across the street from mine), go back to Cleveland, and I would never see him again. I knew most likely he wouldn?t even write me. We didn?t care what was going to happen when school started; Melvin and I smooched every minute of every day and made the most of that summer.

Most of my auto-responder email affairs have been exactly the same as my summer with Melvin. Hot and heavy for a while, lots of frequent in-your-face contact, and then nothing. Sometimes some of my auto-responder lovers have encouraged me to signup for their regular email list because they wanted to continue our relationship with something more formal and real-time. Some just stop emailing and I never heard from them again. Regardless, I knew from the beginning that the email relationship was a ?Melvin?; I knew the email relationship was a short-term fling.

It had been months since this all happened and I thought I was over my old e-newsletter flame. That auto-responder that masqueraded as a going steady e-newsletter relationship was tucked away in my past. I really thought the flame had been snuffed out months ago. I remembered that last email; how could I forget it? The company had been clear and had had no qualms about telling me I was being un-subscribed for lack of purchase. But then, as I mentioned at this beginning of this journal entry, out of the blue, I got a lone message from the company. I?ll admit my heart sang a bit when I saw the email message sitting in my in-box. I thought the company had experienced a change of heart and really did love me. I thought my email flame wanted me back.

I was wrong. The email was worse than my last Dear Squidlips email (that should have read ?Dear John?). I guess the company thought they would try to get me to buy something from a company they were ?recommending? since they had not experienced any luck with me buying something from them.

I?m happy to report that earlier today, I un-subscribed myself from their newsletter list. I didn?t want to get my heart broken again so I took matters into my own hands and dumped the company from my in-box. When I un-subscribed from the list, I was asked why I was leaving. I was happy to answer the question:

?Summer was great, Melvin, but school is about to start and you need to go back to Cleveland.?

Brought to you by the — Email Marketing Club: The only place on the Internet where Email Marketing is FUN!

Join now and receive a gift – guaranteed to increase your status with your friends, co-workers and boss. Click below: http://www.emailmarketingmadeeasy.com/emailmarketingclub

Check out our popular ebook Email Marketing Made Easy & one on one expert Email Marketing coaching at http://www.EmailMarketingMadeEasy.com

Earn good karma, forward this article to everyone you know who has an email address.

Copyright Joan Pasay – 2005