If you ask online marketer how to convert website visitors into buyers, most will give you the same answer: the sales are in the follow-up.

It’s much more than just increasing your traffic volume. After all, most of your visitors won’t decide to purchase your products or your services when they first visit your website. But that’s not to say that they won’t be interested in your offer tomorrow or next week, or that they won’t be interested in future offers.

Therefore, it is necessary to get your visitor's email addresses so that you can inform them of current and upcoming offers. You do this by using an opt-in system that invites them to subscribe to your mailing list. By gathering their names and email addresses, with their permission of course, you are now able to contact them periodically with information, usually by sending them an ezine as well as an occasional freebie.

There are no problems as long as you’re only dealing with ten or twenty subscribers, as you could just email them individually. However, such numbers aren't going to make you many sales. You should aim for a mailing list that could reach into the thousands. That number of subscribers would make it difficult for you to prepare individual emails for each name on your list.

The basis of an ideal mailing list, therefore, is an effective autoresponder system that provides the power and flexibility to email your subscribers in a timely and efficient manner.

A mailing list of considerable size powered by a good autoresponder system consistently provides earnings for many Internet marketers. A lot of online businessmen make significant profits from their mailing lists alone.

Okay, but what is an autoresponder system? An autoresponder system is like a digital secretary. It takes care of your subscribers by providing an opt-in system that allows visitors to subscribe to your mailing list. An autoresponder system also takes care of the sending of emails to your subscriber base.

You can prepare your messages in advance, program them into the autoresponder, and preset the intervals by which the messages are delivered. You can even separate your subscribers into various groups. You could have a group for those who have not yet placed an order, for example. You could have another grouping for those who have already made a purchase. This allows you to use two different marketing approaches in dealing with each of the groups.

A good autoresponder system can help you build trust in your products or services. With a good autoresponder, you can also provide an efficient technical support program. If your subscribers email you a question about one of your products, for example, you could preset the autoresponder to reply with a general FAQ to send them the information.

Not all autoresponders are designed the same and much care should be taken in choosing the right one for your particular needs. Here are some questions you should ask before you decide on a particular autoresponder service:

* How many accounts can you create? Some business plans might
require that you have different accounts for different products.

* How many lists can you build? There are also some business plans where you might need different lists for different groups of subscribers.

* How many follow-up messages can you preset? Do you need a lot of follow-up messages or do you know yet? Quite a few autoresponder services provide for unllimited follow-ups.

* How many subscribers can the system hold? And also, how many subscribers can the system respond to?

* How much customization is allowed? You need to be able to personalize your email messages with each subscriber’s name and other customizable information.

* How does the system gather subscriber information? The process should be simple and convenient; otherwise, the visitor will not subscribe.

* Will you be able to send your messages in html and text formats? Most autoresponder services allow both formats.

* Will you be able to track your subscribers for the purpose of target marketing? This my or may not be important to you.

* Is the scheduling system fully automated and flexible enough for your current and future needs?

* Is the autoresponder easy to use? Do they have a demo area so that you can try it out?

Now, does the autoresponder service you are considering provide answers to all of the above questions? If so and if it is offered at a reasonable price, then you should grab the deal as soon as you can.

Remember, if you’re running an online business, a good autoresponder should be one of your primary investments. It could be the key to an excellent conversion rate, more sales and more profits.