When I published my children's "rainforest music" recording in 1994, I did not know a thing about marketing, and had an aversion to the whole idea. After all, I was an artist, a musician, and I shouldn't have to worry about that business stuff, I thought!

But I did think the internet was the place to be, so I decided to make a web page. That was before the proliferation of all the "What you see is what you get" web page programs, so I learned html and wrote the page myself. ( http://www.goodgreenfun.com )

Of course, it just sat there, getting very few visitors. I did get some reciprocal links, but overall, I did not sell many CD's. So, about a year ago I decided to take on learning internet marketing techniques with a vengeance. I spent a lot of money on marketing programs that did little for me. Then I took up with a company that taught me how to succeed.

First of all, creating residual income from consumable products or related back-end products is a must. You go through a lot of trouble to find someone interested in your product, and then to create trust for that person to choose to buy your product. You don't want to lose them after just one sale!

How do you create trust? A reliable, personalized autoresponder service is a must. There is no reason to have to respond to every single request by hand. If you find that you are sending out almost identical information as a response to your ads, then why not automate?

Automated responses can be used to create trust, as they give your prospect steady communication about your product. An organized set of related sales letters that go over the various benefits of your product will allow your prospective customer to get their questions answered and to decide whether your product will fulfill their needs.

I recently corresponded with a woman from New Zealand selling an arthritis relief product who thought that she did not want to use an autoresponder. She knew it would make her information available to her prospective customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but she had some concerns about the apparent impersonal nature of sending the same letters to everyone.

This is what she needed to know in order to decide that automating her responses to requests for information was good for her business:

1) You CAN personalize your email from your autoresponder. Even when someone is responding to an ad, if they have their name in their email address, they will get a personal response. You can put their name in the subject, first line, or anywhere else in your letters.

2) Whoever receives your letters will see your regular email address listed as the "From" address, so they do not even have to know it is an automatic response.

3) However, free autoresponder services put other people's ads in with your letter, so that would absolutely destroy your ability to allow your letter to seem like it was a personal response. Do NOT use free services if you want to retain your professional credibility! 4) You can always see what your prospective customer wrote to you. I always go through my autoresponder's notifications to read what people have written and to see if anyone needs a personal reply.

5) With a good service, you can change your letters at will. That is, if you decide that you need to send more information out, you can add that letter in to your list at any time. You should have a service that allows 10 follow-up letters, so that you have the most choice about sending more information to your prospective customers.

6) Finally, you want an autoresponder service that adds to your income, besides just helping you to make sales of your product or service. If you are spending money on a service that you need for your business, you are better off if you make residual income from it.