Important note: This is a critical review and not a salesletter or an ad!
 

Review

A good autoresponder can be one of the most important tools in your Internet Marketing arsenal. 

Just in case you don't know what an autoresponder is, let me explain what it does.

An autoresponder is a feature (usually a cgi-script on a server) that makes it possible for you to set up an email address that'll send back one or more automatic email messages each time someone sends an email to that email address.

There's a lot of autoresponder services on the Internet that offer you this kind of service.

The problem with autoresponders is that many autoresponder services typically charge somewhere between $5 and $30 per month for their service. And if you're on a budget, or simply just want to cut down on your expenses, using one of the established autoresponder services can quickly become an expensive post on your budget.

Besides, many autoresponder services only give you a limited number of autoresponders for you to use. If you want more than that, you have to pay even more.

Finally, most autoresponder services require you to use their company name or URL in all the autoresponders you set up through them. For instance all your autoresponder email-addresses will look like this: NameOfYourAutoresponderService@WhatYouCallYourAutoresponder.com.

This will both weaken your efforts for positioning yourself better, AND cause you to change all your autoresponder email-addresses if later on you decide to change to another autoresponder service.

But there's no doubt about it that autoresponders ARE important.

One important rule in marketing is called The Rule of Seven. This rule (which is built upon the experience of countless marketers) states that on an average every person who sees one of your ads (or sales letters or whatever) have to see it seven times before he or she decides to place an order with you.

Of course this underscores the importance of follow-up marketing. It's not enough to just show the visitors to your web site your sales letter once. No, typically they need to be exposed to it several times before they make that final decision to place an order with you.

And that's precisely where autoresponders come in. By using a good autoresponder, you're able to expose your visitors to the same sales message again and again. Thus you maximize your changes of getting an order from each customer.

So it's evident that a good autoresponder is one of the most important tools for any Internet marketer. You undoubtedly know my good online friend Terry Dean, who in my opinion is one of the most clever Internet marketers on the scene today - maybe even THE most clever. Terry has recently written a fantastic book called, "The Internet X-Factor". In this book he emphasizes again and again how important email marketing is to successful Internet Marketing. And in this connection he says that a good autoresponder is invaluable.

Now, of course Terry Dean isn't the first marketer to emphasize the importance of autoresponders. A lot of other marketers (Marlon Sanders, Yanik Silver etc., etc.) have done that before him. But Terry's amazing personal success on the Internet is clear evidence that he's right.

Until recently you just had to sign up for an autoresponder service if you wanted to use so called sequential autoresponders, that is autoresponders that'll make it possible for you to send not just one but many sequential messages to any visitor who signs up for that autoresponder.

Then some ago Neil Morgan, owner of http://www.autoresponseplus.com/ launched a new autoresponder cgi-script (written in Perl). This script makes it possible for you to set up an unlimited number of autoresponders, and do it from your own domain. The script only requires that you're able to install Perl scripts on your web host's servers.


What this script does

AutoResponse Plus has a lot of features that make it possible for you to adjust each autoresponder to in exactly the way you want to.

Here are some of the features included in this script:

You can set up as many autoresponders as you like to. And you can tailor each one to your unique needs.

You can easily change the sender info (which the receiver will see in the From field in the emails he or she will get from the autoresponder) for each autoresponder.

You can write a description for each autoresponder, which makes it easy for you to keep track of the content of each autoresponder.

You decide whether you'll give the receiver of the emails (generated by the autoresponder) the choice of un subscribing before all your emails are sent.

You decide whether you'll allow the autoresponder to be used from a form.

You also decide whether you'll allow duplicate subscriptions.

You get a nice overview over all your autoresponders and all subscribers. This is another feature which makes it much easier for you to use the autoresponders you've set up.

You can also set up tracking tags which make it easy for you to find out where your subscribers found your autoresponder email address.

You can ban certain email-addresses and domains, if you don't want anyone to sign up for your autoresponders from them.

You can insert ads and signatures of your choice in the emails generated by the script.

You can use cookies

You can personalize the emails generated by the script.

Just to mention some of the features.


In my opinion the script is really easy to use. The good and logical navigation makes it easy for you to find the features you want.

One final little detail is that the graphics in AutoResponse Plus (the administration panel) is very nice. Of course this has nothing to do with how good the script is. But it gives it's user a much better impression of the whole script and it probably makes it a little bit easier to navigate around in the script. Maybe this is just my subjective opinion. Anyhow I really like the graphic look of AutoResponse Plus. 

It seems like it is possible to use AutoResponse Plus as an ezine administration script, but if you want an ezine administration script, it's my impression that Optin Lightning is better suited for this function, due to it's advanced (MySQL) database feature.

But to make a long story short, the script works like a charm.



Ease of set-up

I found the script very easy to install in itself. Unfortunately I had some very annoying problems with getting the proc mail file to work correctly. But the AutoResponse Plus script certainly can't be blamed for that. The same problems occurred when I tried to install Optin Lightning.

The problem was my web host which in all other ways was a very good web host. They just had some severe problems handling proc mail files.

Now, if you don't know what on earth a proc mail file is, please don't despair. I didn't know either, before I began installing such scripts as AutoResponse Plus and Optin Lightning.

When I ran into those annoying problems with the so called proc mail files, I went to the support discussion board on AutoResponse Plus' web site.

There I got a really fantastic service by one of the supporters Eric Reynolds and the owner of the script, Neil Morgan. They did everything - and more - they could to help me with solving the problem. Their service has really been unique. And if you take a look at the support board, you'll notice that they've given the same kind of support to others who've had any problems with installing the script.

But besides those problems with the proc mail files, AutoResponse Plus was very easy to install. Even people who've never installed cgi-scripts would be able to do it.

Actually the detailed installation manual that comes with the script, is the best installation manual (for a cgi-script) that I've ever read. It's very straightforward and useful. The people behind the script have included enough details and step-by-step instructions to make the manual really helpful. But at the same time it isn't so complicated that you need a degree in programming to understand and use it.

Besides, you get a fine user manual with the script. This is the manual that shows the steps to using the script, once it's set up.



Overall assessment

All in all I think AutoResponse Plus is simply a marvelous and amazing script which can really be a useful tool for every Internet marketer.

Considering the fact that most good, professional autoresponders (Aweber, GetResponse etc.) are rather expensive, plus the other cons I mentioned at the beginning of this review, AutoResponse Plus is an extremely valuable script. The script is very user friendly, works really and you get a lot of useful features. These features make it possible for you to adjust each autoresponder in the exact way that you want.

AutoResponse Plus is simply a FANTASTIC script, making it possible for Internet marketers to set up an unlimited number of autoresponders while using their own domain name in the autoresponder emails. The autoresponder function in AutoResponse Plus is much more advanced than in Optin Lightning. And in AutoResponse Plus it's possible to personalized and adjust the autoresponders in a way that's not possible in Optin Lightning. This makes AutoResponse Plus much more valuable as an autoresponder (script).

About Neil Morgan

Who is Neil Morgan? Click here for the answer!
 

Buying information

Website 

http://www.autoresponseplus.com/

Email

info@autoresponseplus.com 

Snail mail

Gobots Internet Solutions 
1 Westfield Park 
Strathaven 
South Lanarkshire 
ML10 6XH 
United Kingdom

Phone

+44 1357 528824 

Fax

+44 1357 528824