An autoresponder is an automatic way to send e-mail. Most successful Internet marketing businesses use one in various ways. In this article, let's take a look at 10 creative ways you can use yourautoresponder and some of these you may not have thought of.

1. Give away a free report in autoresponder messages. As opposed to creating a PDF file, break your report into several different email messages and send those out to your list.

2. Do surveys on various things that could be helpful to your mailing list and then publish the results in your autoresponder.

3. Have a weekly contest and announce the winners by email. You can also tie this in with your blog and allow people to compete online as well.

4. Publish a prewritten newsletter and continue to add to it until you have a good amount of pre-written content. This is a great way to really automate your business.

5. The most common way to use an autoresponder is to build your list with it. Put a sign up form on every web page and blog page that you have and direct people's contact information to your autoresponder for future follow.

6. Use your autoresponder to actually sell things. Many people concentrate so hard on relationship building that they forget to actually sell to their list.

7. Published a list of all the products and services you offer on your autoresponder. Include a product description, pricing, and other things that a person might be interested in. Then direct them to an order page on your website.

8. Send out a frequently asked questions e-mail. You may already have a FAQ page on your website or blog, but putting it out in an autoresponder message can tickle people's memory and ask them back to your site.

9. Offer private label products in an autoresponder format. For example your hard drive is probably full of free ebooks that you have accumulated over the years. Break one of those down and turn it into a useful series of messages that teach your mailing list something.

10. Request testimonials from previous customers and publish those periodically out to your list. This allows them to see how effectively you have been dealing with your customers as well as build your credibility.

This is 10 effective ways you could use an autoresponder that you might not be currently doing. The key is to constantly be building a list and then work with it in as many creative ways as you possibly can.

A quality mailing list that expects to hear from you, and looks forward to it, can be worth a fortune to your Internet business for many years to come!