Today I’ll discuss how autoresponders can save you precious time while creating a personal experience for the buyer.

As the owner of an e-commerce store, you’re probably busy enough as it is. Not only are you running a business, you’re corresponding through email with customers and vendors. Since 24 hours in the day usually isn’t long enough to make every call and every email personal, there are a few things you should have in place to make things easier for you.

These are autoresponders. And these will become your best friend. Since I know you’ve put a lot of work into your content on your blog and your site, you need to make sure your autoresponders are quite simply awesome and correctly targeted. People who have signed up to receive emails from your site are already interested. It’s your job to make them loyal fans. The timing of these emails is important, but content is what’s going to keep readers interested enough to click through to your website. And, what’s included in each autoresponder will be different depending on which part of the sequence you’re on. Here are some tips you can keep in the back of your mind before you begin writing these:

• Think about the underlying intent for each autoresponder. Are you trying to extend your brand? Provide incentive to the customer to make an additional purchase? Show how great your customer service is and bolster the reader’s confidence in your brand?
• Make sure that your readers aren’t bombarded with an overwhelming amount of emails. They should be in tune with a certain behavior such as an initial purchase or an order fulfillment.
• Always keep design and language consistent as this is important to growing your brand and keeping customers familiar with your business.

As you begin to write:

• Educate the reader with useful information on the topic or product you’re selling
• Answer questions the reader may have. This is a great opportunity to have a small FAQ or Q & A email that makes for easy reading
• Highlight the features and the benefits of what you’re selling without making yourself sound too salesy
• Build trust with the reader by being an expert on the topic and incite readers to buy through language that remains constant throughout your website, blog and other emails.

  It’s also a good idea to continuously fine tune your autoresponders in response to performance metrics. As your company grows, you’ll find yourself way too busy to answer each and every email. Autoresponders are an effective way to answer questions, educate prospective buyers, build relationships and convert readers into buyers.