Alright, let’s jump right in. You’re going to need some type of autoresponder software; a way to manage the email you send out.

Your regular e-mail client won’t work because you’re going to need a few important features such as unsubscribing, the ability to send messages sequentially, and custom variables.

I’ll talk more about how this stuff works and why you need it…

Unsubscription – Your autoresponder software must provide a special link at the bottom of each email to let users remove themselves. This is a must have! Forget about the legal issues here; let’s say that this is just for the sake of good business. You’ve got to provide a way for people to unsubscribe.

Sequences – The ability to send out messages in a sequence is very important. This means that your autoresponder software will automatically send messages after a specified length of time.

You might want to have a welcome email that gets sent automatically, an article that gets sent to the user the day after he or she subscribes, and another email that goes out after 30 days asking the reader for feedback or perhaps this is an advertisement.

The term for an email program that does what I mentioned in that last paragraph is ‘sequential autoresponder’ and it’s an important part of email advertising.

Custom Variables – Custom variables make it possible for you to send out the same email to 1100 people and have each email comtain the persons name instead of a generic ‘Dear Friend,’.

Generally your email will look something like “Dear {firstname}, I’m writing you to say…”

Your autoresponder will convert the part that says {firstname} to actually include the subscriber’s first name.

In the past I've used getresponse.com as my autoresponder service. They are inexpensive and feature packed; Check them out.

This should be enough explanation to get you going; remember, you can email me with comments and questions. If you feel stuck or unsure then please contact me with your questions.