I've recently noticed people getting the terms Autoresponder and CRM mixed up. This leads to confusing conversations as they think they are talking about one, but really mean the other. Let's take a moment and review the differences.

Autoresponder

An autoresponder is a service that will send emails to subscribers for you. They are commonly used by those who want to build a list of people who are interested in following them. This could be an individual person, small business, or a mega million dollar corporation. Despite what some people think, email marketing isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

CRM

CRM, or Customer Relationship Manager, is a server that is used to track your relationships with your customers. Common tasks of a CRM would include keeping track of contact information, the last time you talked to a customer or emailed them, their social media information, and possibly a field to keep general notes about them. Some enterprise grade CRM's (think Salesforce) allow you to even keep track of what the customer ordered, their service plans, etc.

While a CRM could act as an autoresponder, that's not it's primary goal. Unless you are using a very high end CRM, or one that you've written yourself, you should not assume that the CRM has an autoresponder. You will want to go out and get your own autoresponder for your own use.

Don Recommends

I've used aWeber for email marketing for a while now, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants or needs an autoresponder.

You can learn about aWeber here. - Pricing plans are reasonable for anyone who wants to start sending emails to those who sign up for them. Remember, this is a great way to build YOU or your business.

You know the different between these two great online services, and can help others out as well.