Autoresponders are a perfect way to increase traffic to your 
site. They can save many valuable hours by automatically 
answering emails concerning frequently asked questions about a 
service or product or by sending a welcome letter to new members 
of your program. There are many ways that autoresponders can help 
your business. One of the most important is their ability to 
track the effectiveness of your promotions. Since autoresponders 
are one of the most popular marketing tools available today, they 
are being used by a lot of different kinds of business and 
websites. Some of these take advantage of the system to use the 
autoresponders in a negative manner. You should be aware of some 
of the "Golden Rules" when using autoresponders.

Thou Shalt Not Use an Autoresponder Address When Submitting to 
Search Engines.

Since you will most likely submit your site to search engines 
such as Google or Yahoo!, directories, classifieds, and free for 
all sites, you should be made aware of the fact that these sites 
commonly use an autoresponder as well. If you were to use your 
autoresponder to contact these companies, their autoresponder 
will reply to yours and so on and so on. Thus creating a cycle of 
autoresponses that will flood your email box and theirs as well.

Thou Shalt Not Use an Autoresponder to Subscribe to Ezines or 
Discussion Forums.

Since most of the time an Ezine will send you updates and new 
information regularly, your auto responder will send them a 
message each time. In a discussion forum, every person in the 
discussion forum will receive your auto response. This can be 
irritating and most of the time you will be unsubscribed. It is 
often hard for the administrators of the forum or ezine to 
determine who is using the autoresponse and therefore it is 
simply common courtesy to never use an autoresponer in this 
manner.

Thou Shalt Not Use an Autoresponder to Take Advantage Of 
Unsuspecting Individuals.

Some very unprofessional companies will use autoresponders to 
respond to an automated message when this is done the address in 
the "from" field will be automatically subscribed to their 
mailing list. This is a extremely un ethical use of 
autoresponders and those who do it are in jeopardy of creating a 
very negative image of themselves and their company. Rather than 
promote their service or business, this usually leads to people 
becoming very upset and spreading a negative word about your 
company rather than a good one.

The Internet can be a great place to do business and 
autoresponders can be an excellent way to save time, however when 
used in an unprofessional way, they can lead to frustration and 
aggravation for others. Your company will suffer the loss of much 
business if you choose to participate in these abusive practices. 
The appropriate use of auto responders can generate a large 
amount of business, while inappropriate use can drive away that 
business. 

Dick Pennington can help YOU
start your own profitable business on the Internet
within the next 24 hours... To learn more, visit:
http://www.dickpennington.com/