The world of Internet marketing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. In fact, it can be a brutally cold one. Believe me, I learned hard way.

I started trying to make money online when I was 14. Like today, there were a lot of scams out there, and being so young I was especially vulnerable. I wasted hundreds of dollars.

The weird thing was I was a pretty smart kid. I knew value of a buck. But when I came online I didn’t think that “real world” rules applied.

All too often people come online and lose all sense of reality like I did. I see two types of people who fail online.

The first type of person thinks EVERYTHING online is a big scam. They don’t think they should have to pay for information in e-books or for tools they will need.

If you have to put money into your Internet business, it’s a definite scam. They also may be freebie seekers and try to suck all your time and knowledge away for free.

Don’t get me wrong. You should always have your “Scam Radar” up when you’re online. But let’s think about this logically. Can you startup an offline business without investing any money into it? Even a small family owned business requires some startup capital.

Autoresponders return previously stored messages or sets of messages in response to any email sent to that autoresponder address. Almost all paid web hosts and many of free ones provide autoresponders as part of their hosting service.

When do you use autoresponders? Normally, they are used to follow up with a visitor who has made an inquiry. If a customer does not initially buy, you can utilize their email address to follow up later. It could lead to future business. The reason for following up with client is that you want to refresh their memory about having been to your place of business. Remind them that they viewed your products. You can use this opportunity to boast your product’s advantages. You could offer special discounts or other bonuses to entice them to purchase. Don’t give up easily just because they didn’t buy first time. This is your lead-in to a possible sale. Rather than approach each of these potential customers individually, an autoresponder does it for you. This saves you time, stress, and effort. It is done for you automatically.

There are several types of autoresponders. Each type has different capabilities. For this reason, they range from free to very expensive. It’s up to you to choose autoresponder that best fits your business needs.