HTML email auto responders are tools that are used in bulk email marketing to acknowledge some kind of action that your customers have taken on your site or even as a confirmation of a customer subscription. But these are just some of the more known and familiar tasks that they can do for you. Technically speaking, an auto responder can be programmed to send out an automated message on any kind of trigger that you set for it. The most common form of auto responder communication that we see is in the form of bounce back reports and Out Of Office replies that we sometimes encounter in the regular course of emailing.
The content of auto responder mail is something that you can set within the application itself. This is a simple matter of creating a text or HTML file and then setting the trigger for the mail to be sent out. However, again the question about when to send out an automated response comes up. One can argue that for every action that a customer takes, you can send out an email to acknowledge the action. However, this will eventually become irritation since not everyone is as meticulous and worried about an acknowledgment.
Ideally sending out HTML email from an auto responder should be done first on established triggers and one of them is definitely the site subscription. Here, a customer will sign up to receive news and product updates. When the submit button is clicked a confirmation email goes out to the customer, from the auto responder, to confirm the email address and to ensure the customer marks you as a safe sender. A simple link is placed in the email that the customer receives and has to click on to get updates.
Another interesting use is for publication of survey results in real time. Surveys are an important way to interact with you customers and get your finger on the pulse of popular opinion among your buying population. Survey results are something that most people that take online surveys may never get to see but if the results of a survey can somehow be sent to the customer as soon as the survey is responded to, it makes for a very interactive and proactive tool. The survey results should always be published in a visual format and then sent out to the customer.
Receipts and billing information or other items that you should also undertake to send via auto responders. This is the norm on the internet today, but a first time email marketer should understand the absolute need for this. Once a transaction is complete and payment is verified, you should make it a point to send out billing information and receipts in the HTML email from a responder. You should also include, perhaps in a PDF or document format, some of the startup information about the product or any such information that would be useful to the user.
