An autoresponder is an automatic or software-mailing program.
Why would you want that?
Because whoever you are, you don't have enough time, and an autoresponder will maximise your time potential.

Go to sleep and have a software servant take care of business. Once configured, it will store, send and reply.

That's just great, but is that it? No.

Depending on the price and particular program, autoresponders will vary with respect to function, usability, and features. Free autoresponders are commonly available but can run in advertisements, as well as the information that you wish to send. That is not a completely repulsive concept, given the price, and as good a way to experiment with an autoresponder, as any.

Anyone wishing to access specific information can mail to a specific autoresponder address, but the primary difference is that an autoresponder is not a person, but a delivery mechanism for a person, with no regard for the location, state of awareness, or other demeanour of such a person.

That email that you can get with "Dear friend" as an opening, is likely to be the work of an autoresponder, where "first name capture" (a variable, with better ones), has failed to capture your first name by default. "Friend" is then chosen as an alternative. You see, a good one can be set up or configured to react to various situations.

Should you want to publish a newsletter on frogs, you can choose to load in that information into your autoresponder. Even better though is a choice to break your information into parts, and send it at pre-determined timed intervals. Part one immediately, part two in a few days, and like wise for the rest of the course.

It has even become normal to have autoresponders loaded with a years worth of information. In other words, you can load it with an entire course and forget about it for a year. New subscribers (or their email addresses ) can be automatically added to a database, and send the course in any sequence, but usually starting at the beginning.

An autoresponder can contain the address of another autoresponder, and trigger-off its information and cycle, when mailed to. A different course on "Interesting Frog Soups", for example, can be initiated this way. The possibility and potential can be almost endless, once you get a feel for them.

An autoresponder address will look similar to any normal email address except that it might contain a product/course or site name, instead of an individual's name. It will always contain the "@" symbol, within it, as it is essentially, mail. Example: frogsoupcourse@whatever.dotcom.

Anti-spam laws can vary from location to location, but "double opt-in", will provide some protection from allegations. The logic behind this is that I could subscribe you to something, by having your email address, and you may have no knowledge of the subscription. Until you get the course! You might not want it, and that is more or less spam, or abuse of your email address.

The autoresponder can send a confirmation email to the address used for the subscription, and go some way in establishing that it is really you. While I can have your email address, it is or should be, unlikely that I'd know your password to access such a mailbox.

Extra precautions are often taken, like Time, Date, and I.P. stamping.

Anything really that you think will protect your good name from allegations, whether false, mistaken, or deliberate, will be a plus.

Should you need to experiment, then typing anything like "free autoresponder" into your favourite search engine, will give you enough choice at an universally affordable cost.

Upgrading to a paid version gives more control on its information and outgoing links, so the rest is down to your sales copy ability and strategies.

A recognised starting point is to "wrap" sentence length or basically make them appear visually shorter, rather than an actual sentence shortening exercise. Given the amount of information that is currently in circulation, the reader would have to be extremely interested in a topic, to maintain such an interest, which is not always the case. If it is difficult to read, then all is lost.

Incidentally, books use/used similar techniques to ease the reading experience, by altering the distance between words. In other words, the typical distance between characters would be increased where applied to the distance between words. One and a half to twice, would be typical and if you pick up a book, then you may notice it. While this is a feature of modern word processors, a similar result is achieved by wrapping the sentences, in an autoresponder context.

Reading long sentences with few paragraphs, is best left to the Medical, Scientific and Legal communities.

Any way that you look at it, an autoresponder will compliment your time, marketing and online business.

Seamus Dolly is at http://www.CountControl.com