Not too long ago I wrote a post about Form Wizard and how to utilize it and integrate it into your website.

Form Wizard is a handy tool to easily create a simple sign-up form to add to your website. The form writes directly to the ReachMail list of your choosing. If you want to read the how-to instructions, check the old post or watch the video.

Form Wizard has a powerful feature that is sometimes overlooked. It’s the Auto-Responder. Sounds cool, right? It is. What does it do? It sends an automatic email to any new users as soon as they are in your list. Why is that important? It helps you put your best foot forward with all your new list members.

Here’s a sample scenario. Say your company (Acme, Inc.) sends out a monthly newsletter on the first Monday of every month because you’ve wisely heeded the advice of some email marketing experts. A new user joins your list on the tenth of the month. They’ll be waiting a couple of weeks at least for the first email. In the meantime, they’re apt to forget that they signed up. Know what happens when users forget they signed up? Opt-outs. And Spam Complaints.

Enter the Auto-Responder. The auto-responder comes to the user shortly after they’re entered into the list and is a great reminder that they’ve joined and gives you a chance to welcome them and give a preview of what they can expect from your emails. If I were making an auto-responder for this monthly newsletter list I might say something like this: Thanks for joining the Acme, Inc. monthly newsletter! We hope you find it an informative window into our company. You can expect our newsletter on the first Monday of every month. In it, we’ll have recap of the the past month, a look ahead to the new month and an employee spotlight feature. If you’d like to take a look at our newsletter archive, use this link.

The auto-responder shouldn’t be long but you should get across at least the following:

1. A thank you and welcome.
2. A content preview and a frequency reminder.
3. One other piece of content the user can take action on.

Of course, this was just one example. If you’re a retailer you might have a special coupon in the auto-responder; there are a variety of possibilities.

Ready to put an auto-responder on your forms? Here’s what to do. In the Form Wizard section of Libraries and Tools, click the Manage Forms link. Find the form you want to modify in the list of forms and from the Action menu all the way to the right choose ‘Create Auto-Responder.’ From there you be able to use any of the basic mail creation methods to make the auto-responder (template, webpage, file upload, scratch).

If you have any questions about auto-responders or want to discuss your situation individually, drop me a line at dnielsen@reachmail.com

One of the most important factors in whether or not a recipient will respond to an email campaign is how relevant the content is.

We’ve discussed how busy the in-box is before on this blog and the bottom line is that recipients don’t have time for emails with no value. I know what you’re saying … ‘but all my emails have value! How dare you!’ Of course they have value, but value has to be weighed against perception. For example say my list has 1,000 people on it. And say that 300 of them would like to get updates about new product features, 200 would like to get all the company press releases and 200 would like to get special offers. Assuming no overlap between categories that’s 70% of my list with a strong preference on what they would like to receive. If the general newsletter that I send out has a piece here and a piece there of all that information I risk alienating those subscribers who would prefer a more focused newsletter. This is especially true given what we know about how busy the in-box can get. Don’t rely on recipients scrolling to the bottom of the message to read about the upcoming product upgrades. If that’s all they want to read they’ll be put off by having to look for it. Eventually they stop perceiving the email as valuable and they’ll opt-out.

So what to do?

The simple solution is to add a table of contents to the top of the email. Something that the recipients will see in the preview pane. Each of the entries should be a link that they can click on to jump to a story in the newsletter. So…recipient opens mail, recipient sees TOC, recipient clicks on their choice…happy recipient.

One of the best practices you can establish to insure the best delivery rate and best response to your email campaigns is consistent sending habits.

Consistent sending habits means sending the same content at the same time to about the same number of people.

In other words, if you’re sending a newsletter to 500 users, send it at the same time, on the same day, week after week.

Why are consisting sending habits so important? Two reasons, ISP perception and user perception. You always want users to stay engaged with your email campaigns, sending them the same content at the same time helps them to recognize your email and enhances your reputation with them. Same goes for ISPs, especially the large consumer ISPs. If they see you sending the same content to the same people at the same time it only does good things to your reputation.

Consider the following two campaigns.

Campaign A is sent to 5,000 recipients every Tuesday at 8:30am
Campaign B is sent to 5,000 recipients when the marketing guy gets around to it. Sometimes Friday at 10pm, sometimes Wednesday at 3am, sometimes every third week, sometimes when the moon is full.

Which looks more legitimate? Without opening the email which would you expect to have more valuable content?

Want to increase recipient engagement and response? Normalize your campaigns.