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How To
Fulfill Orders In Your Sleep
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So you have a digital product to sell, but
how do you make it automatically downloadable so you don't
have to be sending out emails at all hours of the day (and
night)? The solution is really very simple. Just use your
autoresponder and the good news is most web hosting accounts
already come with a basic autoresponder system.
The general idea is to create a special dedicated email
address where payment notifications will be sent to. Once
the autoresponder detects email being sent to this address,
it will immediately kick back a reply email that you
pre-programmed with download information and that is it.
You're in business.
Easy as it is, this system does have a few flaws. For one,
any email sent to that special address will return a reply
with your product download information. Secondly, some
payment processor's notification emails come from the
payment processor themselves and it is only within the body
of the notice will you find the customer's email. This is a
problem because autoresponders that come with your web
hosting account are not very sophisticated and can only
reply to the originating email address. In plain English,
this means all your order thank you emails will go to your
payment processor, your customer receives nothing. And that
is not good.
Thankfully, there are autoresponder systems that are much
more robust and truly intelligent. They can literally scan
the payment notification email, extract your customer's
information, add them to the database so you can follow up
with them later and send out a reply immediately to the
customer using the information it gathered. All of this is
done immediately behind the scenes in a matter of minutes
(and even seconds); all your customer sees and experiences
is one seamless process. These intelligent autoresponders
come in the form of monthly services or scripts.
But what about securing the download? That is easy too. In
many web host control panels, you will find a 'Protect
Folder' or 'Password Protection' feature. By putting your
downloads in a special folder and password protecting that
folder, you will now keep spiders, robots and people who do
not have access to the password out of your downloads.
What if you want a stronger protection system? In that case,
you can use a membership manager where people can create
their own logins. You can also get scripts or hosted
shopping carts that will generate unique download links that
expire after a certain time. These systems can set you back
from $50 to $200 or more.
Up till now, all the options discussed only protect the
download, not the product itself. If you're really concerned
about piracy or if piracy is getting out of hand for you,
the best way is to protect each download with its own unique
key code. Fortunately there are services who can do that and
integrate seamlessly into your existing checkout system.
They cost $9.95 to $24.95 a month. If you are losing a big
amount to piracy, the price may be small to pay.
Some food for thought, there will always be a small
percentage of customers who will try to do what they know is
wrong. The more control you exert, the more resentful
customers will feel. Regardless of copyright, people do not
like to be limited over something they already paid for. You
just have to weigh it out what matters to you, keeping the
majority of good customers happy or you want to spend time
on a few rotten apples and of course don't forget to spell
out your copyright and terms of use clearly. That's about
the best you can do.
About the author:
by: Lynette
Chandler
Lynette Chandler helps entreprenuers leverage readily
available technology for their marketing. Learn to apply the
power of technology to your marketing today
http://www.TechBasedMarketing.com
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