In our last post we discussed marketing automation and automating your email and website opt-in functions using Mailchimp. For heavier email users or those with larger lists, there is another program which we really love – Office Autopilot. This is not for everyone so we would like to give you an overview of the program…
As mentioned, Office Autopilot is really for heavier users, it will cost you USD$280 per month so it is those who use it a lot and have larger lists who will get the best value from it. This might sound expensive, but there are a whole lot of great tools available to you for that price. Whereas programs like Mailchimp or Aweber allow you to store basic data and perform basic email functions, Office Autopilot is more like a full system for your office. For example, you can store more complex customer data such as birthdays, notes about them and what products they have purchased from you.
Like the other programs, you can also set up email auto-responders and opt-in forms. It integrates with sales gateways such as Paypal and Eway so that you can set up sales forms that ‘talk’ to your chosen payment gateway. This means that sales information about each client is also stored in Office Autopilot rather than you needing to look it up through your payment system.
Office Autopilot is also great for membership sites with a plug-in available for WordPress. Probably one of the most exciting and state-of-art functions available is that Office Autopilot allows you to create rules. For example, if someone has signed up with you but not taken the next step, you can create a rule that has Office Autopilot automatically email a member of your team after a set period of time so that they give the person a call, or you could have a reminder email automatically sent out to the client.
There are many different rules that you could create in Office Autopilot, even sending out birthday greetings to clients. If you are looking for a complete package that allows you to use multiple functions, then this really is a great program. We recommend that you start out with a basic program such as Mailchimp or Aweber, especially if you have a small list or are just starting with your website. You can easily export email lists to Office Autopilot later on should you choose to use it.