You would then have to send out your course, or your newsletter, manually in separate emails to each of your prospects. Perhaps all five thousand of them through time! And five thousand is a tiny list. Some are in the hundreds of thousands or even millions.

If an order was placed, you would have to deliver it manually, find a way of manually accepting payment, and send thank-you emails and receipts. An autoresponder would handle all of this for you – even while you are sleeping! After all, if you ordered from half way round the world would you want to have to wait till somebody got out of their bed in the morning and manually emailed it to you? Of course not! You want it right away.

So now you understand that an autoresponder is essential. How do you use it effectively to help your business succeed? The answer to that is simple: by keeping in touch with people who have shown an interest in your product, service or even just your website. As long as you can persuade them to fill in that form, you will be able to do that. You will then be able to maximize their potential as customers.

Autoresponders are very effective when used to provide regular information about the subject of your product. If you are selling a book on dog training, you can send a 7-part course on how to teach dogs simple tricks. Each part will include a reference to your book. It is generally accepted that the average person needs up to seven or eight exposures of a product before deciding to buy.