You may have used an auto-responder and didn't even realize it. Have you ever signed up for a newsletter or anything similar that sent you daily, weekly, or monthly emails? That was an auto-responder.

You input your email address to receive a notification, newsletter or alert and it is automatically sent to you. By keeping in touch with your subscribers, they feel as though they are getting to know you, and in knowing you, they start to like and trust you.

An auto-responder allows you to delay the content you want to send on a predetermined timeline. These techniques can be utilized in many different ways or even for different reasons.

If you are very busy or even simply are getting ready to leave on a vacation, you can set up prepared content and delay sending it with an auto-responder so that it can be sent even while you are away from your computer. Ideally, you can set up a learning course and utilize this time-delay feature to ensure that deadlines are not missed. You can literally put your message on autopilot!

Now that you have your articles written and your email addresses compiled, don't forget to create and embed your affiliate banners into the emails. You can now put your auto-responder into action. It will not only send out your newsletters, messages, of course all bearing your banner ads, to your designated email lists on preset dates.

One of the nice things is that you can send someone a thank you letter when they've confirmed that they are joining your list (through responding to an automatically generated "opt-in" email) as well as a follow up letter three days to a week later - whichever works best for you. Through experimentation and a little bit of research you can fine tune and make this determination.

Additionally, aside from these preset intervals from the time your reader joined the list; most auto-responders will enable you to send broadcast emails to your entire list. Utilizing time delays is ideal for a learning course in which you don't want to flood your readers with a great deal of information all at once.

A word about opt-in lists - if you have ever subscribed to a newsletter and been sent a confirmation email and then clicked the link in the email to confirm your subscription, you have used the opt-in method which I am referring to.

The reason for this multi-step format is so that someone can't just type in your email address to receive messages without your permission. Since you have to click the link from inside your email account, it validates your account and allows you to receive the subscription. Just as importantly, this safeguard is a valuable tool to ensure that you are not accused of sending spam.

Since you have an email address, you have probably used a squeeze page. This is the actual webpage used where you entered your information to set up your email account. You can select what email address you wish to be subscribed under, your password if applicable, a screen name, and other pertinent information.

So, to use what you've learned so far, you can post articles all over the place with your affiliate link. Additionally, for any endeavor which you wish to promote, you now understand how to use a list.

You can use the articles to drive traffic. If you ever have your own product, or even wish to develop your own list, you can simply use the link to your squeeze page. Once they have joined, you can have the eBook automatically sent to your subscriber as a free gift. You can set up articles for automatic delivery.

Now that you have subscribers, your regular delivery of content, which can be on autopilot, will allow you to deliver regular content of value to your list. In doing so they will grow to know, like, and trust you. There are those key words again! You see, once you have this relationship with your list, they are more likely to respond to what in advertising is called "The Irresistible Offer", or TIO.

There's a lot of information to digest here, but I recommend you start putting it to use immediately.

E. Alan Cowgill