In our previous series of articles we defined autoresponders and discussed the different types that are routinely used on websites. In this article we will consider the example of the simple "contact us" form, that uses an autoresponder to instantly email the contact information to you.

Step 1: Who you want the autoresponse emails to be sent to?

You should decide whether the autoresponder is of the Internal or External type. Do you want the autoresponse email to be sent to the visitor/client, yourself or both.

In the case of our "contact us" form the following are possible response options:

• Send the contents of the "contact us" form to yourself, your salespeople or other members of your staff in the body of an email message.
• Email the respondent a "thank you for submitting" message and notify them that there will be some form of follow-up (eg. someone will contact them or they will receive additional information either once or on a continuing basis)
• Send a combination internal and external response whereby you send yourself the data from the contact form and you send the visitor a thank you/follow-up message.

Step 2: What do you want the response messages to say?

In the case where the visitor to your website has completed the "contact us" form you want the information emailed to you automatically and instantaneously.

Everyone who has used email is familiar with the fields that make up the typical email message

• TO: would contain something like info@magneticwebsites.com or better yet the actual email ddress of an individual in sales and marketing.
FROM: Usually contains the respondents email address taken from the information filled out on the contact form.
• SUBJECT: "Website Inquiry" or "Request for Information"
• BODY: Name, email, possibly address, phone #, message or comments. In ther body you can have as many custom fields as you want. Don't ask for too much information or you may frustrate or confuse your valuable website visitors.
• ATTACHMENTS: It is possible to automatically send attachments with the email autoresponse message; however, many people will simply delete emails with attachments unless they know who the email is from and are expecting the attached response. Some email viruses are sent through attachments and people are very cautious about opening email attachments.

Step 3: What do you want to do with the contact information?

Not only can you have the "Contact Us" information emailed to you, but you can store this information in a database. Saving the information in a database allows you to add lead tracking, email management and reports to your website as needed.

If you are using a contact manager such as GoldMine or ACT you can automatically import the information in the email autoresponder into a new contact record. In order for this to work properly it is necessary to format the email so that it complies with the particular web import requirements of your contact manager.

Step 4: How do you put the autoresponder on your website?

If you have better things to do with your time, rather than re-invent the wheel, call your website developer and get them to implement your autoresponder needs.

Putting the autoresponder on your website requires that you or your website developer find out how to pass the data contained in the autoresponse emails to your local mailserver. This may be as simple as determining the path to the server or it may be as complicated as installing a product to interface between your website and the server, such as ASPmail or some other commercially available email interface.

Autoresponders are programmed using a scripting language such as Java, ASP, PHP, CGI-Perl or Cold Fusion. We use Macromedia Cold Fusion because the development time is fast and most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) support Cold Fusion. This results in substantial cost savings for our clients.

Step 5: Test, Test and Test again before you go live.

Never, ever send untested emails. A mistake or bug could cost you big time in terms of embarrassment or other forms of credibility loss with your prospects and customers. Even worse, if you accidentally send unsolicited email to someone it could be interpreted as spam and in the most extreme situations your website could be shut down.

Always test your autoresponders by sending to test email addresses that you control. It is very easy to set up test accounts on free email hosts such as Hotmail and Yahoo. This is also helpful, because these hosts have anti-spam filter options. This provides you with an opportunity to see how well your emails get past some of the defensive mechanisms in place to block spam. You may find that you must fine tune the content of your autoresponse message so that your clients (and yourself) receive the intended information.

A magnetic website not only must attract prospects and customers, but provide them with the helpful information they need to make a buying decision about a product or service. Autoresponders fulfill a critical role in getting timely information to both prospects and customers and the people within an organization that serves them.