Once an autoresponder owner receives confirmation of account activation, there are certain features that must be configured before the account is truly usable. These features are described first and then the rest of the autoresponder system’s functionality is described below it.

 

First, it is necessary to log on to the E.M.O.S. Autoresponder Owner Administration system. You will type the url of the ‘userlogin.html’ web page into your browser. (In the demo at maxsponder.com, this address is http://www.emailonsteroids.com/emossponder/userlogin.html.) You will be presented with a screen asking you for your username and  password. Please note that username and password are case sensitive (i.e. password is different than Password.) When you successfully log in, you will be able to access all the features described below.

 

In case you forget your password, there is a link on userlogin.html that will take you to a different web page where you can type in some identifying information and your password will be sent to the E-Mail address you used when you signed up for your autoresponder.

 

It is strongly recommended you immediately address the following two functions:

 

Modify Autoresponder Message Sequence - This function allows you to set your response E-Mail messages. It gives you room to create up to 16777215 follow up response messages (the exact number depends on what was configured for this specific account), subject lines and times to mail each message. Please note that times to mail are based on the time the last E-Mail was sent out. In other words, if you put in the number 3 as the number of days to wait before mailing, it will be 3 days from the time the previous E-Mail was sent out, not 3 days from the time a subscriber signed up for your message sequence. Also note that all E-Mails are processed and sent out just once per day (unless your host allows for more times per day) so the true time from the first to the second message may be up to almost 1 whole day longer than you specified but the other messages in the sequence will be sent out on the time basis specified.

 

Additionally, there is a box  for each message to indicate whether or not it is to be sent as a text style E-Mail or HTML style E-Mail or both.. The default for this capability is to send the E-Mail as a text style E-Mail. Please note that this means if you do send an HTML style E-Mail, it understands all the HTML tags, links, etc. and if delivered to a customer with an HTML capable E-Mail program, it will be displayed as an HTML page but if displayed to someone without an HTML capable E-Mail program, the customer will see all the HTML tags embedded in the message.

If both text and HTML are filled in then the client’s email program will show whichever one it supports so if it doesn’t support HTML it will show the text version of your message.

If the admin has given you the rights you  will see a dropdown of other autoresponder message sequences you may copy.  Templates can be setup for you to copy by the Admin this way.

 

The mailing are handled by a background task that checks for all E-Mails that need to be processed and sent out. Since this task is generally scheduled to run once per day, there can be some disparity in when messages get sent out. For instance, if you scheduled message 2 to go out two days after message 1, it would probably go out in 2 days and some number of hours. The only way to change that operation is to schedule this background cron task to run more frequently every day.

 

Also, please note that each E-Mail keeps track of where it is in the message sequence by message number, not contents of a message. Therefore, if you make changes to the contents of the messages or add/delete messages, the changes become effective immediately on all E-Mails currently in the system as well as all future E-Mails added to the system.

 

Lastly, these messages can be personalized to each individual customer by both the customer’s E-Mail address and the customer’s first name. This feature is more fully described in “E-Mail Personalization Settings” below.

 

Note:  Due to the way the cron task operates, if you set up your 2^nd autoresponse to go out one day after the first one, it will go out 24-48 hours after the first message depending on when the person subscribed vs when the cron task runs. If you want it to go out in less than 24 hours (i.e. the next time the cron task runs), you will set the delay to zero. This is only necessary for message number two as the message sequence needs to sync up with the cron task. For all other messages, the sequence will work based on the number of days you put into it.

 

Set From E-Mail Parameters – This function allows you to set all the response E-Mail addresses that are used when creating your messages and keeping you informed of events. For keeping in touch with your customers, you can specify a “FROM” E-Mail. This lets you have great control over how you may want people to contact you from your response messages. You can also modify your administration E-Mail address. This is the E-Mail address that is used by the Master Autoresponder Administrator to contact you on a periodic basis.  Finally you can specify a FROM Name in your emails that the subscribers will see who it is from.

 

Note: The “FROM” E-Mail address is initially set for you by the system when your autoresponder account is set up but it may not be the E-Mail address you want to use in your E-Mail contacts with your customers.

 

Changes to these E-Mail addresses take effect instantly.

 

An additional feature that can be set in this administration screen is the ability to receive confirmation E-Mails of customers when they sign up with the system. If you activate this feature, the system will send you a note letting you know that someone subscribed and it will forward any E-Mail message that may have been included if the customer signed up by sending an E-Mail to your autoresponder address.

 

It is recommended you address the following two functions before setting up autoresponder accounts:

 

E-Mail Personalization Settings – This function sets a switch to determine whether or not you wish to use E-Mail personalization. If it is set by you and you have built your messages with the proper substitution codes (~~NAME~~ and ~~E-MAIL~~), the program will automatically make the substitutions needed to personalize the responses that get sent to your customers. Additionally, it will also let you set defaults for these substitutions in case you do not have personalized data on a customer (i.e. allow Dear ~~NAME~~ to be substituted with Dear Friend or something similar.)

 

A thrid variable that is available to you is the ~~CURDATE+XX~~ variable. This variable will substitute the personalization string with the date that is defined. Below are a few examples of this usage and the date that would be generated.

 

this prints today’s date ~~CURDATE+0~~

this prints tomorrow’s date ~~CURDATE+1~~

this is the date 2 days in the future ~~CURDATE+2~~

this is the date 10 days in the future ~~CURDATE+10~~

 

Dates are printed in MM/DD/YYYY format (i.e. 12/17/2000) or DD/MM/YYYY format (i.e. 17/12/2000)  or Day of Week Month Day Year (Tuesday February 12, 2002) depending on the date switch setting in the personalization features menu. The default is MM/DD/YYYY.

 

These three are perhaps the most often used personalization features but are only a fraction of the personalization variables available to you. We also offer many other personalization features. Below is a complete list and with the exception of the ~~CURDATE~~ personalization keyword, they all work in both the Subject Line and the Message Body.~~ CURDATE~~ only works in the message body.

 

~~NAME~~

~~EMAIL~~

~~LASTNAME~~

~~ADDRESS1~~

~~ADDRESS2~~

~~CITY~~

~~STATE~~

~~ZIPCODE~~

~~PHONE~~

~~FAX~~

 

The following 10 personalization variables relate to the 10 demographic fields you may set up.

 

~~OPTIONS1~~

~~OPTIONS2~~

~~OPTIONS3~~

~~OPTIONS4~~

~~OPTIONS5~~

~~OPTIONS6~~

~~OPTIONS7~~

~~OPTIONS8~~

~~OPTIONS9~~

~~OPTIONS10~~

 

The following 5 custom variables relate to 5 free form variables that you can use for any purpose in data collection when creating a customer input form.

 

~~CUSTOM1~~

~~CUSTOM2~~

~~CUSTOM3~~

~~CUSTOM4~~

~~CUSTOM5~~

 

The following variable is used to provide anti SPAM complaints against your list.  It will print out the IP address and referring URL (if signed up via form) or the original signup email of the person subscribed to the list.  This is applicable to version 3.1 signups and up only.

~~SIGNUPINFO~~

 

The following variables are information about the autoresponder owner that can be inserted into outgoing messages

~~OWNERWEBSITE~~

~~OWNERFIRSTNAME~~

 ~~OWNERLASTNAME~~

 ~~OWNERADDRESS1~~

 ~~OWNERADDRESS2~~

 ~~OWNERCITY~~

 ~~OWNERSTATE~~

 ~~OWNERZIP~~

 ~~OWNERCOUNTRY~~

~~OWNEREMAIL~~

~~OWNERTELEPHONE~~

~~AUTORESPONDERNAME~~

 

 

Here is the full list included in the personalize-codes included with the product.

 

These codes can be used to personalize your outgoing messages by using data that has been collected about each recipient.

Personalization Codes These codes can be used to personalize your outgoing messages by using data that has been collected about each recipient.
List Owner's website	~~OWNERWEBSITE~~
List Account Name	~~AUTORESPONDERNAME~~
List Owner's first name	~~OWNERFIRSTNAME~~
List Owner's last name	~~OWNERLASTNAME~~
List Owner's address1	~~OWNERADDRESS1~~
List Owner's address2	~~OWNERADDRESS2~~
List Owner's city	~~OWNERCITY~~
List Owner's state	~~OWNERSTATE~~
List Owner's zip	~~OWNERZIP~~
List Owner's country	~~OWNERCOUNTRY~~
List Owner's email	~~OWNEREMAIL~~
List Owner's telephone	~~OWNERTELEPHONE~~
List Owner Custom1	~~OWNERCUSTOM1~~
List Owner Custom2	~~OWNERCUSTOM2~~
List Owner Custom3	~~OWNERCUSTOM3~~
List Owner Custom4	~~OWNERCUSTOM4~~
List Owner Custom5	~~OWNERCUSTOM5~~
Subscriber Email	~~EMAIL~~
Subscriber First Name	~~NAME~~
Subscriber Last Name	~~LASTNAME~~
Subscriber Address1	~~ADDRESS1~~
Subscriber Address2	~~ADDRESS2~~
Subscriber City	~~CITY~~
Subscriber State	~~STATE~~
Subscriber Zipcode	~~ZIPCODE~~
Subscriber Phone	~~PHONE~~
Subscriber Fax	~~FAX~~
Subscriber Options1	~~OPTIONS1~~
Subscriber Options2	~~OPTIONS2~~
Subscriber Options3	~~OPTIONS3~~
Subscriber Options4	~~OPTIONS4~~
Subscriber Options5	~~OPTIONS5~~
Subscriber Options6	~~OPTIONS6~~
Subscriber Options7	~~OPTIONS7~~
Subscriber Options8	~~OPTIONS8~~
Subscriber Options9	~~OPTIONS9~~
Subscriber Options10	~~OPTIONS10~~
Subscriber Custom1	~~CUSTOM1~~
Subscriber Custom2	~~CUSTOM2~~
Subscriber Custom3	~~CUSTOM3~~
Subscriber Custom4	~~CUSTOM4~~
Subscriber Custom5	~~CUSTOM5~~
Subscriber Signup INformation(IP or original email	~~SIGNUPINFO~~
Mass/Special signup email	~~NEWSIGNUPEMAIL~~
Mass/Special signup Address 1	~NEWSIGNUPADDRESS1~~
Mass/Special signup Address 2	~NEWSIGNUPADDRESS2~~
Mass/Special signup City	~NEWSIGNUPCITY~~
Mass/Special signup State	~NEWSIGNUPSTATE~~
Mass/Special signup Zip code	~NEWSIGNUPZIPCODE~~
Mass/Special signup Fax	~NEWSIGNUPFAX~~
Mass/Special signup Phone	~NEWSIGNUPPHONE~~
Mass/Special signup Options 1	~NEWSIGNUPOPTIONS1~~
Mass/Special signup Options 2	~NEWSIGNUPOPTIONS2~~
Mass/Special signup Options 3	~NEWSIGNUPOPTIONS3~~
Mass/Special signup Options 4	~NEWSIGNUPOPTIONS4~~
Mass/Special signup Options 5	~NEWSIGNUPOPTIONS5~~
Mass/Special signup Options 6	~NEWSIGNUPOPTIONS6~~
Mass/Special signup Options 7	~NEWSIGNUPOPTIONS7~~
Mass/Special signup Options 8	~NEWSIGNUPOPTIONS8~~
Mass/Special signup Options 9	~NEWSIGNUPOPTIONS9~~
Mass/Special signup Options 10	~NEWSIGNUPOPTIONS10~~
Mass/Special signup Custom 1	~NEWSIGNUPCUSTOM1~~
Mass/Special signup Custom 2	~NEWSIGNUPCUSTOM2~~
Mass/Special signup Custom 3	~NEWSIGNUPCUSTOM3~~
Mass/Special signup Custom 4	~NEWSIGNUPCUSTOM4~~
Mass/Special signup Custom 5	~NEWSIGNUPCUSTOM5~~
Puts in a special link to owner's website and Emails owner info of the lead.when their website is clicked	~~OWNERNOTIFY~~
same as Ownernotify but user responsible to close the anchor so they can put an image in.	~~OWNERIMGNOTIFY~~

 

 

 

Set E-Mail Auto-Remove Choices –

 

This function allows you to provide descriptive to be added to the default remove link that is generated by the system. You should run tests with a dummy account as you modify this field so that it reads exactly how you want it to read.

 

Also note that you have the ability to choose whether or not to include remove links and if you do include them, at what message you would like the sequence to begin. For instance, if you have a sequence of seven messages and you want to be sure the customer gets the first three messages before having the ability to unsubscribe, you can configure the system to start putting in remove links at message number four.

 

Set-Up Demographic Collection Dataset - This function allows you to generate a demographics collection system for your sign-up form. Basically, you can set up to 10 different questions with multiple answers in a list box format. This list of questions will be automatically generated and displayed to  potential sign ups when they go to your sign up form. The data is then stored in the database to allow you to perform sorts/mailings based on demographics parameters. This allows you to further target your mailings to your customer list.

 

It is strongly recommended that you think carefully before setting up the demographics data set as it is not something you can easily change once people start signing up with the dataset you create.  Basically, when someone signs up and selects demographic criteria on the signup form, this dataset gets stored in the database with that person’s E-Mail information. If you change the questions/criteria, you lose the ability to extract the prior names in a demographic manner. However, you may make additions to the questions that already exist. In other words, if one question has three choices a customer can make, you can add two more choices (as an example) without impacting previously collected data..

 

Resubscribe Personality Settings - This function allows you to specify the behavior of the system if a current subscriber tries to resubscribe to the list.  The following behaviours are possible:

a)       Treat as a new signup

b)       Ignore resubscribe

c)       Send out message saying already subscribed

d)       Resubscribe automatically only if completed with autoresponder sequence.

 

 

 

Setup/ Edit Weekly Messages - function allows one to setup a message each day of the week on an ongoing bassis unlessto go to the autoresponder subscribers. This may be a reminder message or something similar. Each message can be turned on or off as well.

 

Set E-Mail Message Header/Footer – This function allows you to set up a header/footer that is attached to each E-Mail the system sends out. It can be used for a standard blurb like a disclaimer or unsubscribe instructions or a reminder that they are on an opt-in list or whatever else you desire. Or it can be left blank if you do not wish to send out any standard messages. Note that whenever you make changes to these message fields, the changes take effect instantly.

 

You also have the ability to set up both text style and HTML style headers and footers. If you are sending HTML messages and only have text header and footer configured, your header/footer will not be included in the messages and vice versa. Please note that the HTML header/footer supports html tags and that you should test how your messages look after programming in a header and a footer.

 

Set-Up Sign-Up "Thank you" Forms – This function allows you to help set up your custom forms/responses (described below) when a customer signs up. It will allow you to “design” the look and feel of your sign up form and the thank you message that gets displayed when a customer signs up.

 

It also supports a redirect option to allow you to have your customers go to any page you desire anywhere on the web.

 

If you have web hosting available to you, it is always better to use the redirect option to give the customer a custom look and feel for your thank you page on your web site rather on the host web site. This way if you have a sign-up form on your web site, after the customer signs up, the customer goes to a thank you form right on your web site and never knows that he or she left your web site for a few moments.

 

Generate Customer Sign-up Form - This function allows you to generate a prototype customer signup form to allow customers to subscribe to your autoresponder. It does use the demographics profile data that you configure as well as the any custom data fields that you may set up.

 

This function is used by you selecting which fields you wish to use for collecting data by checking each box (or in the instance of the custom fields, entering the questions you wish to use for data collection) and pressing the submit button.

 

It will then display a screen showing what the form will look like and will offer a box below the screen where you can cut and paste the html code. This makes for a good starting point for customizing the form for placement into your own web site as you will not need to worry about whether or not you typed all the variables correctly when creating a form yourself.

 

Additional administrative functions:

 

Edit E-Mail Reject Filter – This function allows you to reject specific domains from being able to subscribe to your system. For instance, if you do not want any E-Mail’s from Yahoo’s free E-Mail service, you can choose to exclude those addresses from your customer’s subscription ability by adding yahoo.com to the filter input box.  This function only has effect when a customer signs up for the service either via email or via form entry.. It does not work with the “Import E-Mail List Data” or “Manually Add E-Mail Address” functions. The customer will be notified of the the reject with a message.

 

Manually Send Message to E-Mail List - This function will allow you to contact all currently active “members” in your autoresponder database. It includes both people who are currently receiving your message sequence as well as those who have received the complete sequence and are now archived. You simply enter a subject line, a message body and hit the submit button. The system will do the rest to contact all your members. This function uses the same E-Mail addresses set up by you in the “Set Response E-Mail Addresses” function above.  You can choose to send it Now or later.  If you choose now, The emails will be printed to the screen as they are emailed out.   If you choose later...it will be sent out in a nightly job that was scheduled by the administrator, this send is done as a background process nightly so a user doesn’t have to wait for the messages to be sent. The details are put in a queue and the user can instantly take care of other tasks without worrying about if the whole list is sent to or not.  The background process is  called maxsend.cgi and set up as a cron job by whoever installs your version of E.M.O.S.. We suggest the admin set it up to run once per day but if you do lots of list processing activities, you may want to set it up to run multiple times per day.

 

 

Manually Add E-Mail Address - This function allows you to add an E-Mail address to your autoresponse message sequence manually. It is useful for when prospects contact you through methods other than the “standard” ways for people to subscribe to your message sequence or if you get inquiry E-Mail from other sources.

 

Manually Delete E-Mail Address – This function allows you to manually delete an E-Mail address from your autoresponse system. It is useful for those people who prefer contacting you directly to have you remove them as opposed to doing it themselves through one of the autoremove sequences provided.

 

When you delete an E-Mail address, the system will do two things. First, it will verify that the E-Mail address is indeed in the system and available for deletion. If it is, the process will delete the E-Mail address. If it is not, an error message will be displayed. Second, it will send an E-Mail to the E-Mail address that was deleted informing that person that the deletion occurred.

 

Delete All Subscribers - This function allows you to remove all of your subscribers which basically bulk deletes all entries in  your list. CUSTOMERS WILL NOT BE INFORMED OF THIS ACTIVITY WITH THIS FUNCTION (i.e. no unsubscribe email will be sent with this function.)

 

Edit a Subscriber -  This function allows you to edit all details of a particular subscriber – including email address.  Also within this section you will find the IP address of the user who signed up or the original email.  If it is a form based signup then it wil have the IP otherwise the original email.

This function also allows you to search For a Subscriber by any piece of information you have about them like their first name, last name, email, etc.

 

 

Import E-Mail List Data - This function allows you to import an E-Mail list (E-Mail address, name and other details) in a standardized comma delimited, one per line format.

 

Here is an example import list:

 

Apple@baker.com

Joe@sage.net,Joe

Alice@san.org,Alice

Etc.

 

Import can operate in two different ways. It can import the email addresses directly in the database without putting them in the autoresponder system or it can import them directly into the autoresponder system.  If you choose the first option, this can be useful for maintaining a mailing list or newsletter or similar function where you need to contact people on a periodic basis as described in “Manually Send Message to E-Mail List” above.

 

Note:  When you choose to add the E-Mail addresses you are importing to the autoresponder list, the emails are processed and contacted at the same time. This can be a slow process as there are many decisions being made by the system when an E-Mail is built. The speed will vary based on current utilization of your hosting machine and similar parameters and can very from a low of about 50 emails a minute to a high of several hundred emails a minute. This process does not work in the background. It will do an immediate on screen processing of the messages in your list.

 

 

Export E-Mail List Data - This function allows you to export an E-Mail list (E-Mail address, name and other details  as desired) in a standardized comma delimited, one per line format. After they are exported, just save and edit the page or do a cut and paste into your favorite editor to save on your local PC to be manipulated as needed by you. Export exports the full name, address, and more details of each customer.

 

Edit Autoresponder Owner Record – This function allows you to make changes to your personal record in the system. This allows the Master Administrator to have your latest contact information and also allows to set some additional parameters that are relevant to your profile.

 

Demographically Contact E-Mail List - This function works identically to Manually Send Message to E-Mail List except that you can define a demographic search through the database and only contact the members that meet the demographic profile you are defining. This works in conjunction with Set-Up Demographic Collection Dataset above.

 

Demographically Export E-Mail List - This function works identically to Export E-Mail List except that you can define a demographic search through the database and only export the members that meet the demographic profile you are defining. This works in conjunction with Set-Up Demographic Collection Dataset above The actual sending of the emails will occur in the background just like as described in the Manual Send function.

 

Generate Reports – This function will generate a complete report of the current state of your system. It will tell you how many people are currently active in each of the message sequence slots, how many have gone through the entire sequence (i.e. your archived emails), and how many people have removed themselves from each of the message numbers including how many never participated at all (in the case of an opt-in operation where people opt-out before getting even one message.)

 

Note: The number of archived emails will not reflect the number of people who have gone through the entire autoresponder sequence if you choose to import emails directly into the archive rather than importing them to the autoresponder message sequence.

 

Test Message Sequence – This function will email you  either individual messages or every message in your message list.  All the emails will be generated and sent to your signup email address. This function doesn’t handle full personalization so you will see many of your personalization fields as you typed them into the message. This is necessary as it is not operating on a customer record when generating the message and it doesn’t have the data to work with.

 

 

It is strongly recommended that you use this function before making your list available to subscribers so that you can see how your messages will look before your customer gets them and to verify that you have properly used your personalization variables..

 

Reprocess Archived Contacts – This convenient function allows you to reprocess all of your archived contacts back into the list without having to export and then import them.

 

URL Tracking – This feature allows you to create special urls that can redirect to any place on the web that you desire, complete with clickthrough tracking. It allows you to track the effectiveness of your advertising, both within the autoresponder and anywhere else you wish to use it. It is not limited to use in just the autoresponder. A full discussion on this feature is in its own section below.

 

Set-Up Mass Notification Options – This feature allows you to set the Mass Notification subject,message1 and message2 and flags. When mesage 2 is enabled, if a subscriber that is in this list signs up for another autoresponder on this sytem the message 2 below is sent to all subscribers in this list.

When mesage 1 is enabled, It is sent to all the subscribers when a new person subscribes to the list. sytem

 

Set-Up Special Message – This feature allows you to set the Special Notification message and and subject. If a subscriber subscribes to the list and the Special Email field is filled out with a valid email as well, The spcecial email is sent the  special message

Set up Campaigns – Campaigns are similar to normal auto responder accounts except that these are mainly  administered by the owner and not the administrator, even though the administrator may customize and delete these accounts in the normal way .In simpler terms the Campaigns may be visualized as sub accounts within the autorespoder accounts.

This link is displayed only when a given account has the right to Create Campaigns.

Delete Campaign – Allows the user to delete the campaigns for the given account.This link is displayed only when a given account has atleast one "Campaign".

Link Campaigns – Allows the user to create/delete links between campaigns in such a way, when a contact has finished the message series for the first campaign, they automatically get subscribed to the message series of the 2nd linked campaign and become archived in the first.
Now this also has a great feature in that when someone joins the from autoresponder they will be deleted from the to campaign.

Go To Campaign – Allows the user to navigate to a Campaign for the given account.This dropdown combo box is displayed only when a given account has atleast one "Campaign".

Go back to parent account – Allows the user to navigate from a Campaign to its parent account.

Change Password - This function allows you to change your login password.

 

Logout – This function will reset the logout time for the session, in effect shutting down access to the session, and logs you out. If you do not perform this operation, you will be leaving a potential security access hole in your system until the time actually expires.

 

Quick Stats – While not a menu option, it is a nice feature to get a snapshot of signup activity in your autoresponder. It lets you know how many people signed up in the last 24 hours and in the last 7 days.

Opt-In for the Autoresponder Owner

 

Depending on how your accounts setings were configured during the activation of your account (as determined by the owner of the autoresponder system), you may or may not be using an Opt-In methodology for subscribing customers.

 

If you are configured as one who is using the Opt-In methodology, it works as follows:

·         A customer signs up either via form or email, you enter the customer manually or you import a list of email addresses.

• An email is sent to the customer telling them of their request to join the list and to click on this link to confirm.  If they click on the clink …

• The system stores the E-Mail details and adds the customer to the autoresponder sequence  and they are sent the first sequence message. If they don’t click the link, a background process which is configurable in the maxheader.cgi file as numberofdays will eventually erase the user from the sytem

 

If the account is setup to have opt-in disabled then it works as follows:

• The customer immediately receives message 1 of the sequence and is queued to receive additional messages at the times specified in the message sequence. There is no other contact by the system when opt-in is disabled.

 

This option can be changed by the account administrator on an account by account basis so if it is set in a way other than you desire, you may want to contact the account administrator about changing its setting.

 

Methods for Customers to Sign-Up for an Autoresponder Sequence

 

In general, a customer will interact with the particular subscribed to autoresponder in one of two ways: E-Mail based or form based. Additionally, there are two processes that concern the customer: subscribing and perhaps unsubscribing. Lets look at each feature from a customer perspective.

 

Subscribing:

 

Presumably, you, as the autoresponder owner, are working one or more ways to get a message out to the customer (or training program or whatever the message you wish to deliver is.) You may be using a form on your web site to get customers to sign up or you may be using advertising in an ezine or opt-in E-Mail or any of the many other ways to initially contact prospects.

 

Once a prospect is contacted, that prospect has to take an action. That action can be either to send an E-Mail to your particular autoresponder address (xyz@yourdomain.com) if your domain is structured to support this feature or it is to send the person to a form on your web site to sign up for the information stream.

 

There are pros and cons of each method. Obviously the E-Mail method is very easy and doesn’t involve opening the browser or any additional work on the part of the client (although in today’s integrated environment, it is a very small effort) but all you get from an E-Mail sign up is the E-Mail address and perhaps a name. By using the forms based system, you can now open the avenue of data collection tremendously. You can get address details and demographic profile details which depending on what you are doing can be just as valuable as the E-Mail address itself.

 

Unsubscribing:

 

Obviously, one of the great powers of E-Mail contact is the presumption that the customer is in control. This is handled by giving the customer the ability to opt out at any given time. E.M.O.S. helps with this function.

 

As you have read, you can set up unsubscribe messages and the system will automatically put them into every E-Mail that gets sent out provided that you configured the autoresponder to include them. This method allows you to create friendly unsubscribe messages that make the customer feel a potential loss if he or she unsubscribes and also guarantees that the customer is always in power to unsubscribe at any time.

 

The system will put in an unsubscribe link that ties back to the cgi program. When the customer clicks on that link, it will cause a browser action to go to that page and execute the unsubscribe script and offer the customer a note and an E-Mail confirmation that he or she has been unsubscribed.

 

 

Form Designs:

 

There are a variety of templates that are provided for you to use and customize to your needs that allow for customers to subscribe to a particular autoresponder. They will be explained below. But before that, we will explain the list of form variable names that can be used in creating your own autoresponder signup forms to allow customers to sign up for your autoresponder.

 

• firstname - The customer’s first name. This is one of the Personalization Variables so it is generally good to collect this variable but not required.
• lastname – The customer’s last name.
• email –The customer’s email address. This form variable is required for this process to work.
• address1 – The customer’ address.
• address2 – A continuation of the customer’s address if needed
• city – The customer’s city
• state – The customer’s state
• zipcode – The customer’s Zip Code
• phone – The customer’s phone number.
• fax – The customer’s fax number.
• website – The customer’s web site
•  
•  
•  

The following two variables are hidden variables (i.e. they do not get seen by the user when the form is displayed on the browser screen.)

• un – This variable is set to the name of your autoresponder account (i.e. the autoresponder name you chose when you signed up for your account.)
• function - This is always set to addresponder2. It tells the computer program where to go to process the form.

 

The following 10 variables are used for demographic data collection and if you use them, it is recommended that you set up the customer signup form and demographics data set using the administration system and then saving and editing the form that is generated by the system on your behalf. However, if you desire, you can use them as generic data collection fields but in this mode, it will not work with the demographic contact functions as they will not know the data set to work on.

• options1 – Generic data collection input field.
• options2 - Generic data collection input field.
• options3 - Generic data collection input field
• options4 - Generic data collection input field
• options5 - Generic data collection input field
• options6 - Generic data collection input field
• options7 - Generic data collection input field
• options8 - Generic data collection input field
• options9 - Generic data collection input field
• options10 - Generic data collection input field

 

The following 5 variables are true generic data collection fields. That is their only purpose in the system and you can use them for anything you wish. The easiest way to create a signup form with these variables is to use the Generate Customer Sign-up Form described above.

• custom1 - Generic data collection input field
• custom2 - Generic data collection input field
• custom3 - Generic data collection input field
• custom4 - Generic data collection input field
• custom5 - Generic data collection input field

 

There are three included forms as examples of user signup forms. They are:

 

• form1.html – This form just collects a person’s email and sets the un value to autoresponder account “myaccount”.
• form2.html– This form collects a person’s first name and email and sets the un value to autoresponder account “myaccount”.
• form3.html– This form collects a person’s name, address, phone and email details and sets the un value to autoresponder account “myaccount”.

 

These forms are presented as examples for you to use. But if you do use signup forms, the easiest way to get started is to use the Generate Customer Sign-up Form function.

 

URL Tracking

 

Much of the url tracking functionality occurs behind the scenes with the cgi program t.cgi. It deciphers the url the system supplies to you and redirects the customer to the web page you want the customer to see and increments the clickthrough count by one. This is a totally automated function that runs in the background and is something you don’t need to worry about. It just sits there and does its job.

 

However, to use this feature, you do need to set up some data. To do that, you will click on the URL Tracking menu option to get into the various setup options. You have 4 functions:

 

• Add A Tracking Link – This is where you will always start. Go to this screen and enter the url you wish your customer to see when he or she clicks on the tracking link and a description for your personal reference. Your customer will never see this description but it is useful as a reminder for you. For instance, you might say “This is for follow-up letter 3” or “This is the url being used  in XYZ ezine.” Remember, the url must be the url where you want the customer to ultimately end up when clicking on the tracking link. When you fill in the data, hit the submit button and it will provide you with your tracking url. It looks something like this:

 

http://www.emailonsteroids.com/cgi-bin/t.cgi?k=autorespondername:trackingnumber

(i.e. http://www.emailonsteroids.com/cgi-bin/t.cgi?k=steven:9 to track url ID number 9 for autoresponder account steven.)

 

• Edit A Tracking Link – This function can be used to change the contents of your tracking link at any time. It does not affect the actual tracking link itself. This is useful if you wish to add additional description to a field or if you move an html page and need to change where someone goes when clicking on the tracking link. It also allows you to set the clickthrough count to any number you want. Generally, if you change it at all, you will usually set it to zero if you are testing a new page but in general, it is better to not change it for this reason. If you are testing a new version of your page, it is better to set up a new tracking link so that you have better clickthrough to close data to evaluate.
• Delete A Tracking Link – This function allows you to delete a tracking link from your system. This is a permanent deletion and we don’t recommend that you perform this operation if there is a chance the link may still be circulating. If the system finds no match for the link, it prints a generic error message.
• Generate Link Clickthrough Report – This function will generate a report for all your tracking urls. It will supply you with the ID number of the link, number of clickthroughs, the url that was reached by the customer and the comments you supplied to go with that particular tracking link.