Whether your email list contains ten (10) mortgage customers/prospects or many thousands, you and your Mortgage Business are vulnerable to spam complaints if you’re using those email addresses, unless you are using a good Autoresponder.

Yes, you’re right….the whole subject of using an Autoresponder is kind of confusing and rarely if ever talked about in the Mortgage Business.

As a reminder, an Autoresponder is a program that collects contact information about your customers and prospects and enables you to send follow-up email on a regular scheduled basis. A web based third-party service is the best choice and will handle all the security necessary to keep your list safe.

You probably don’t have to be reminded why building your list is so critical. There are many times when it takes seven or more advertising messages before some people will actually decide to work with you. Using email is super economical and becoming more and more acceptable. It makes good sense to collect both physical and email addresses.

One advantage of using a good third-party Autoresponder service is that they are great anti-spam enforcers and advocates which carries a huge weight with ISP’s that actually deliver your email messages. It is well known that some ISP’s actually filter out (delete) some messages, but allow the email of a well-known Autoresponder to be delivered.

But, the most important benefit of all is that your Autoresponder service automatically stores your contacts initial sign-up information and their confirmation (opt-in) information for each member of your list. Trying to do this manually would be an absolute nightmare. This is very inexpensive protection against a frivolous spam compliant. 

As a subscriber to my Mortgage Newsletter, you probably know that I use an Autoresponder called GetResponse (Yes, this is an affiliate link). In fact, I have used them for about five (5) years) now. You can sign-up for their free trial and then pay monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually. My annual subscription comes out to $145.40 per year, or $12.12 a month.

Here are just a few of the benefits of spending $12.12 per month for your very own online GetResponse Autoresponder account:

1. You’ll receive a free 30 trial (very few services give you this option),

2. A system that anyone can set-up and use (even a dummy like me),

3. Great instructions and support to help you get started or solve your problems,

4. An unlimited number of unique Autoresponders. For example, you could have 1000’s of Websites, blogs, forums, and/or email capture boxes, each with its own list, and you only pay for a single Autoresponder account,

5. An unlimited number of broadcasts (or emails) to your lists,

6. Personalization (name insertion) of your recipient in the email header and body of your email, just like my newsletter format. The send date is also inserted where you want it,

7. The ability to send email in text format (like my newsletter) or html format with color, pictures, and more formatting (possibly slow to load and formatting issues on your recipient’s computer),

8. The ability to set-up a schedule and a series of emails for future delivery. Each recipient could receive a series of emails (or installments) spread over days and even months depending on when they signed-up and what information they requested. Great for email courses,

9. A spam checker and evaluator of our messages prior to sending to improve their deliverability,

10. Automatic generation of a small snippet of code that is to be placed on a Webpage to start the capture the name and email address,

11. Automatic generation and handling of the follow-up (or opt-in) email confirming their subscription and/or addition to your list,

12. Automatic and complete maintenance and details of your list(s) to include new additions, undeliverables, bounced emails, email address changes, cancellations (unsubscribe), as well as the original sign-up and opt-in requests,

13. An automatic add-on (link) at the bottom of each email sent allowing your recipient the ability to change and even cancel future emails. This is required in our current Can-Spam Act.

Although the automatic (hands-off) maintenance (#12) alone is worth the price of your Autoresponder service, the use of this kind of service allows you comply totally with the spam laws in effect today.

Remember…people like us are being prosecuted everyday using the current spam laws that are on the books. You’re probably wondering how’s that possible with the increase in spam appearing in your “Inbox?” The answer is amazingly simple…it’s because they can easily find you and me, and…a little harder to find the real bad guys that flood our email accounts with spam!

So…the next time you start to use Outlook, Outlook Express, or Windows Mail to broadcast a message or even send a single email to someone on your list…ask yourself this important question…”Are you willing to expose and jeopardize your Mortgage Business and everything you’ve worked for, because of a complaint from one vindictive and disgruntled customer or contact?”

If you’re still with me…It’s really time for you to protect yourself and your Mortgage Business and thoroughly investigate and checkout GetResponse!

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Tom Domin is the author of "101 Ways to Originate Mortgages" and publisher of "Tom's Mortgage Tips" a twice monthly Mortgage Newsletter geared for Mortgage Professionals. Put your mortgage career on the fast track and sign-up for FREE at http://www.MortgageMarketingToolKit.com/

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