You begin with the best of intentions. You grow your web site traffic, run a few successful campaign issues, and suddenly you go from personally answering a handful of e-mails each day to drowning under hundreds of voter inquiries, questions, and requests! Managing your e-mail suddenly becomes a full-time job!

If you really plan to grow your campaign, you can't afford to be spending your days chained to your computer, replying to e-mail after e-mail individually. Even if you're using "canned messages" (i.e. pre-written e-mails that you can just cut and paste), looking after your e-mail one message at a time can quickly become overwhelming.

Tthis is where many new e-campaign candidates find themselves stuck. You're tired of wasting your days replying to the same e-mails over and over again, but the idea of automating the process seems even more intimidating! Yet you have heard that there are scripts and software out there that will give you the power to..

• Anticipate and instantly respond to the needs of your supporters, staff, contributors and most important, to voters by answering common questions on the spot.

• Give potential voters the exact information they need, exactly when they need it - while they're still a hot prospect - so they can make that important voting decision.

• Capture the e-mail addresses of visitors to your web site so you can appeal to them again and again - for free!

• Increase the perceived value of your web site by offering free reports or articles about issues that can be e-mailed to voters the minute they request them!

• Dramatically reduce the time you and your staff waste on daily chores so you can start growing your campaign instead of getting trapped running your campaign!

• Start capitalizing on the lifetime value of your existing supporters- automatically increasing your support without increasing your workload!

Did you know that all of the automation I've mentioned so far in this article can be accomplished with one simple tool called an "autoresponder"?

Here's how it works:

Before we go any further, I want to assure you that autoresponders are not difficult to use. So let's take a deep breath and get past any technophobia that might be preventing you from making your campaign a lot easier - and your campaign a lot more profitable!

An autoresponder is basically an e-mail tool that is designed to automatically respond to any incoming messages to a particular e-mail address that you set up. Confused? Then let me give you an example that will clearly illustrate exactly how this works.

A potential voter arrives at your web site and reads your issues content. They're interested in one of your issues, but they have a question that needs to be answered before they'll consider making a commitment to you. So they e-mail you at faq@yoursite.com (an e-mail address you've set up for just this purpose).

Your experience answering voters questions has shown you that there are 10 or 12 questions people ask over and over again. So rather than answer each person individually, you put together a "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ) e-mail. You spend an hour or so writing it, making sure that it's thorough and that it ultimately directs the reader back to your web site to donate money or volunteer.

You then set up this FAQ e-mail in an autoresponder. When the visitors e-mail their questions to faq@yoursite.com, they are automatically sent your FAQ e-mail. It's neat, clean, and simple.

The e-mail your visitor receives might read something like this:

Within 5 minutes of sending their e-mail to faq@yoursite.com, the visitor receives your e-mail via your autoresponder. They read through your FAQ e-mail and find the answer to their question.

The visitor is impressed because.

• You anticipated their needs
• You replied instantly
• You answered their questions
• You made it easy for them to e-mail you with any further questions

. and this means that you look extremely professional. This instant reply also lends your campaign a measure of credibility because you've made it clear that your supporters are your first priority and that you take their issues very seriously.

Do you think this voter will make the decision to go back to your web site. Chances are very good that they will. In fact, the probability that you will get their vote is much higher than if you had forced this person to wait a week for a reply. (Or hadn't answered at all!)

How much time did this take you? None. You wrote the e-mail and then used the autoresponder to automate your voter service. You now provide fast, high-quality voter service, decrease your workload, and you only respond to voters who have unique questions or situations that need your personal touch. It'll take you just minutes each day to respond to voters inquiries instead of the hours it did before you got automated!

Now, that's some pretty cool technology, wouldn't you say? Well, I haven't even told you the best part yet! In addition to these "immediate" autoresponders -- that get sent out instantly -- you can also set up a series of delayed or "sequential" autoresponders. Here's how it works:

Suppose someone sends a message to your faq@yoursite.com e-mail address. They instantly receive your "Frequently Asked Questions" e-mail... and then automatically receive another message a few days later! It might look something like this:

Just like with the autoresponder that gets sent out immediately, you only have to write this ONCE, then simply tell your autoresponder software to send it to everyone who sent an e-mail to faq@yoursite.com three days earlier.

Can you even imagine how difficult this would be if you were doing it manually? You would have to save every e-mail you received, and then reply to them after 3 days had passed. Using autoresponders, you just write the message once, and the software takes care of everything else!

You don't need to stop at just two messages. You can set it up so that everyone who sends an e-mail to your faq@yoursite.com address receives one message immediately, another three days later, another one four days after that, one more seven days later, and another after three weeks! In fact, as long as you have the right software, there is no limit to how many messages you can automatically deliver to your customers and subscribers!

It is important that you are consistent in what you say. With this software you stay on message all the time. No chance of two answers for the the same question.

How can I make it happen?

So now we're back at square one, aren't we? You want the autoresponders and the powerful automation they can bring your e-campaign. You now have a general understanding of how they work, but how the heck do you add them to your web site?

Good question! You basically have four choices:

1. Your web host: If you are willing to commit to a long-term contract (i.e., one year or more), you can sometimes get a couple of immediate autoresponders for free from your web host. Unfortunately, I STILL haven't found a web host that will provide sequential autoresponders, meaning that you'll have to look elsewhere for this service.
   
   
2. Autoresponders with rotating ads: You can get "free" sequential autoresponders if you are willing to let other companies advertise in your message, however, I don't really recommend this. You can't control the ads that appear in your e-mails, so these ads can really distract your reader from your issues message, and you appear "unprofessional" because it's obvious you're using a free service. You're basically giving someone else free advertising, with few benefits to you. Free isn't always as good as it might sound!
   
   
3. Paid autoresponder services: You could also use a paid autoresponder service. This can give you flexibility in deciding exactly what autoresponder plan is right for you without being forced to include advertisements in your message. You'll also have greater flexibility to customize your autoresponders than if you were to use a free autoresponder service.
   
   The only real drawback is that they can get quite costly. Paid autoresponder services can cost as much as $20 or $30 per month per autoresponder, while others will charge you a fee each time someone requests your information. If you decide to go this route, be sure you really shop around because the cost can get out of control very quickly if you're not careful.
   
   
4. Mailloop 6.0: This powerful piece of software gives you unlimited immediate AND sequential autoresponders, meaning that it's the only autoresponder program you'll need. You can literally set up HUNDREDS of different autoresponder series, and -- since it all runs off your campaign computer -- you never have to worry about your autoresponders suddenly going "offline." However the more important benefit is the Security side of the issues. You have worked hard to get this e-mail address and you definitely don't want your competition to get them.
   
   (I should also mention that Mailloop does a lot more than just autoresponders... It is actually a complete e-mail automation package. You can run all of your e-mail promotions through it, use it to automatically subscribe and unsubscribe people from your opt-in list, manage your voter and subscriber databases, and so on and so on...)
   
   You can read much more about how this incredible program works by clicking here.

Don't be intimidated by this simple technology. Like I said, if you can install and use software (it's as easy as clicking a few buttons and following a few instructions), then you can easily use autoresponders to automate.

Ideally, your goal should be to get automated and then grow. Of course, some of you may already be drowning in e-mail. If that's your situation, don't keep putting this off! E-mail automation is going to be critical to the success of your e-campaign.

If you're automated and using autoresponders to manage daily chores, then you're going to have time to focus on campaigning and winning. If you're drowning in e-mail, you're going to severely handicap your chances of winning and collecting donations because you'll be too focused on trying to just stay afloat.

Autoresponders are easy to set up and they offer a wide variety of opportunities to automate different aspects of your e-campaign. From voters service... to issues confirmations... to following up with potential supporters... it's an easy way to give supporters the instant service they're demanding, while increasing your campaigning time and actually freeing yourself to pursue votes.

E-Mail is your direct contact with the voters.

REPEAT E-Mail is your direct contact with the voters.

The E-mail campaign is the heart of the communication process with voters interested in where the candidate stands on different issues. E-mail campaign should provide for different strategies for collecting e-mail addresses from as many locations and processes as possible.

• Voter List
• Contributor List
• Staff List
• Volunteer List
• VIP List
• News Groups List
• And many other list that need special attention

The key to the e-mail campaign is in the understanding that e-mail is to e-campaign as the phone is to the standard campaign.

NO spam!!!!!! Spam is “unsolicited e-mail to a recipient “and should be avoided at all cost. The e-mail campaign run by the candidate should be what is called the op-in type of e-mail campaign. This means that the individual request information or signs up for the weekly newsletter, issue newsletter, or E Zine and then is asked to confirm that they want to receive the information. This is what is known as double op-in e-mail.

For a free 1 hour private consultation please contact ePoliticial Campaign

 Learn about software that can help you automate your entire E-mail campaign.
Visit Mailloop for more information.

Spend your time campaigning and promoting your issues, not doing the daily e-mail tasks! Get software that will do all your E-mail campaign "dirty work" for you. There is software that will automatically filter your email, run your newsletters, import your leads or voter information into a database, and automatically email your personalized messages to your e-mail list, andtake care of an unlimited amount of autoresponses, etc.

Visit Mailloop to learn more about software that can doall this for you.

You will save time and reach more supporters by "letting the software do the work for you". Whatever you can do to automate campaign management should be first on your list. Don't have your campaign day taken up by daily E-mail campaign problems; Let the software do it for you!

I say this not because you're lazy but because the key issue here is that you want to spend your time doing the important stuff such as campaigning, speeches, marketing your issues, promoting yourself and your campaign, getting contributions, testing the water for any changes,
ads, etc. (things that get you votes and contributions: money and grow your campaign)!

Don't take this lightly, think about it. What makes your campaign
grow? Taking care of tedious e-mail campaign daily tasks such as processing supporter lists, sending e-mail to the right list at the right time, filling requests for information, importing information into your database, etc... OR promoting your campaign to generate votes and donations, as well as to get elected?

You want software to automatically turn itself on in the morning before you
get to work, check campaign email, and automatically process any information requests, subscribe and unsubscribe people to your newsletter, import my customer order forms into your customer database, as well as any survey forms into the database, process any autoresponder and email forwarding requests, etc. It just leaves you with personal email to take care of when youget to your computer in the morning.

If you want to email customers or potential clients (from ads you have run), youwant E-mail campaign software that, with a push of a button, will automatically mail merge your entire customer database information into mass personalized email (like "Hi John, Thanks for your inquiry on Sept 20th, 1998"... etc.).

How about E-mail campaign software that will post your ad to 15 newsgroups every week (without getting cancelled by the cancel- bots)?

And the list just goes on.

Well, there is E-mail campaign software which will do everything just mentioned (and much more). We use it everyday, it is called Mailloop.

Visit Mailloop to learn more about it (you will be pleasantly surprised).