So you've worked hard in creating your website, regularly adding content to it, and building links and increasing search engine placements. The next step, that many overlook, is to capture your visitors by using an autoresponder.

Here's a scenario for you to consider. A visitor finds your site through one of the many ways that you have been carrying out to generate traffic, and finds just what they are looking for and is about to make a purchase. They are distracted while at their computer and leave the site.

Although the example above is hypothetical, the reality is that visitors may leave your site for a number of reasons without you making the most of your opportunity. That is unless you are using an autoresponder.

Capturing the email address of this visitor would have allowed you to contact them at a later date to potentially make the sale that you originally missed out on. Autoresponders are remarkable, flexible programs that do much more than just automatically answer your emails. I'll outline below a number of ideas that you can use to creatively and productively use your autoresponder to transform the casual visitor into a profitable customer.

1) Publish a newsletter.

High quality autoresponders will manage subscriptions and follow-up with those interested prospects that have signed up. This allows you to keep your autoresponder list updated about your products or services, and also build your reputation as an expert in your chosen business area.

2) Contact affiliates.

If you have an affiliate program you can easily contact your affiliates to inform them of any offers you may be running, or to provide them with promotional material that they can use to increase their commissions and your sales. You could provide any tips and advice that you feel would benefit your affiliates.

3) Promote advertising opportunities.

You may provide, or plan on providing advertising on your website, ezine or newsletter. You could setup your autoresponder to send out information about the cost of advertising, and how to find out more information. Of course you could also notify your list of any advertising discounts or offers that you may have.

4) Write reviews.

Write reviews on products and services that you found to be useful. Send this review out with your autoresponder along with your affiliate link to the product.

5) Provide email courses.

Provide valuable information in the form of email courses. These can be setup to send out each lesson at certain intervals. It is important not to solely provide a sales pitch but to provide quality content. You can then provide a paragraph at the end of the email course to entice the prospect to make a purchase of your product.

6) Distribute free reports.

Give your visitors a taste of the information that you provide, and the quality of your product and service. Again, do not make these out to be sales letters, or you stand to lose customers instead of gain.

7) Product tasters.

Provide your prospects samples of your product, whether it be an ebook, software, course, membership, etc. You can capture email addresses from your website this way, and follow-up to make the complete sale.

8) Provide hidden links to pages.

In exchange for a visitors email address, you could provide a link to an affiliate page containing promotional material. You can then gather a list of visitors that are interested in becoming your affiliates.

9) Order page autoresponder.

Provide a form on your order pages that allows visitors to be kept notified of special offers or discounts. This offers a great opportunity to create a mailing list that contains the names of people who are already your customers, and who are interested in any future products.

10) Distribute articles.

Allow visitors to sign up to your autoresponder in order to receive articles. There are many ezine publishers and webmasters looking for content, and this allows you to provide this content whilst including your bio and description of your service or product in a resource box.

Here I've provided ten examples of how autoresponders can be used creatively, but there are many more. Autoresponders are valuable to all internet marketers, and you should seriously consider using one if you do not already.