Sample Boilerplate Responses to Common E-Mail Requests

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Boilerplate responses to common questions are a huge time-saver. Depending on your e-mail program, these can be called "signatures," "templates," or "stationery." Once you set them up, you can use them to respond quickly to a lot of your e-mail.

Here are some examples of boilerplate responses I've prepared to deal with the most common inquiries in my business. I often personalize the first sentence or two, and lead with the correspondent's first name, "Dear Susan..."

Signatures

Each of my e-mail messages and replies conclude with a closing, often:

  I wish you every success!

  God bless you,
  Ralph

At the bottom of every message I send a "signature". It contains all the contact information necessary for correspondents to get in touch with me if they like, as well as a one-line plug for my business and the names of my information products.

  ------------------------------------------------------------
  WILSON INTERNET SERVICES            http://www.wilsonweb.com 
   E-Commerce and Web Marketing Publishing and Consulting
  Ezines: Web Marketing Today, Web Commerce Today, Doctor Ebiz
  Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, Director                 (916) xxx-xxxx
  PO Box 308                    Rocklin, California 95677, USA
  ----------------- xxxxxxxx@wilsonweb.com -------------------

If you don't already have a signature, why don't you develop one -- even before you complete this article. A signature tells the world you're in business and how to contact you. Even AOL's e-mail program enables you to have a signature.

Here are some of the boilerplate responses I currently use:

Ad Copy Okay

Your ad copy looks good and, upon payment, I'll plan to run it in
the issue you specify.

The easiest way to pay online is by Credit Card (Visa, Master Card,
or American Express) at [URL here for my online payment site].
Of course, the 2-line ad is "pay in advance," but if for some
reason the ad doesn't run, I'll refund your payment.

Your ad's placement order among the similar ads it's placed with
is determined by two things: (1) how many times you've
advertised in the past and (2) how quickly I receive your payment.
Incidentally, you can save 10% to 25% if you'd like to schedule
three to six insertions of your ad at the same time. If you
like you can mix and match 2-line ads in Doctor Ebiz and Web
Marketing Today (www.wilsonweb.com/ads/2-line-ad.htm) with
Sponsored Links (www.wilsonweb.com/ads/splinks.htm) -- it'll
help you save some money on effective advertising!
If you'd rather, you may pay by check made out to "Ralph F.
Wilson" mailed to

   Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
   P.O. Box 308
   Rocklin, CA 95677-0308

Just make sure your check ARRIVES prior to your ad's appearance in
the newsletter or I won't be able to run your ad.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to phone me at
(916) xxx-xxxx. I appreciate any feedback you can give me about
how your ad performs. And I'll be happy to work with you to
improve your ad copy so it pulls as well as possible -- just ask.
 

Address Change Request

You have asked for a change of address, but you didn't
indicate which publication this was for. I have five publications:
Web Marketing Today www.wilsonweb.com/wmt
Web Commerce Today www.wilsonweb.com/wct
Doctor Ebiz www.doctorebiz.com 

MAKE CHANGES at www.wilsonweb.com/change/

------------------------------------------------------------------
 
The Joyful Heart www.joyfulheart.com/joyful
JesusWalk www.jesuswalk.com

MAKE CHANGES at www.jesuswalk.com/change

We'll sure appreciate it if you can make the change yourself
online. But if you'll indicate which specific periodical(s) the
change is for, we can process it for you also.

Joint Venture or Business Proposal

Thank you for your kind note, and business proposal.

As you can probably understand, our company is constantly asked to
become part of all sorts of joint ventures, affiliate programs,
business proposals, and the like. Many of these, I am sure, are
wonderful programs.

However, we need to decline your kind offer at this time for two
reasons:

1. We are overloaded, saturated with offers. Each one requires a
   serious amount of time to investigate on its own merits and
   then come to a decision as it relates to the other aspects 
   of our business. We just cannot take the time right now to 
   carry out the due diligence required.

2. We have several wonderful new directions to our own business that
   are in progress. Each of these will be extremely fruitful, but
   require focus and time. And we just can't divert and diffuse our
   focus at this point from them to other proposals.

I hope you understand. This is no reflection on you or your
proposal. It's just an honest assessment of the direction we need
to take at this point.
 

Request to Look at Website

Thanks so much for your kind note. I am happy to hear about your
online business.

Unfortunately, I'm unable to take a look at your site at this
time. As you can probably imagine, many people ask me to check
their site and make suggestions, and though I'd love to help in
this way, my own project schedule is quite pressing.

However, I want to encourage you in your effort. And I hope that
my publications Web Marketing Today (www.wilsonweb.com/wmt), 
Web Commerce Today (www.wilsonweb.com/wct), and Doctor Ebiz 
(www.doctorebiz.com) are helpful to you. You can also find many 
resources searching our database of thousands of online articles 
and resources (www.wilsonweb.com/cat).
 

Complex Questions - Consulting

The questions you ask are important ones. Unfortunately, I can't
give you a quick or simple answer since a number of factors are
involved. It would take time for me to consider the different
issues and then let you know what I think.

Though my time is extremely tight, I do a limited amount of
telephone consulting (www.wilsonweb.com/consult). Perhaps
that would be a better approach, so that I don't give a quick
and ill-considered answer to a complex situation. Let me know
if I can help in that way.

Linking to You

Thanks for the great resources you are providing on the Web.
I'll be linking to your resource from the wilsonweb.com site,
in the next week or two, both in our online searchable database
of Web marketing and e-commerce articles and resources, as
well as on the appropriate category page in our Web Marketing
Info Center (www.wilsonweb.com/webmarket/) or E-Commerce
Research Room (www.wilsonweb.com/research/).

Keep up the good work. If you have any more articles or
resources, please bring them to my attention.
 
P.S. I'm still in the article collection stage for this
month's issues, so it'll be a few days or weeks until these
appear.

P.P.S. I'd appreciate a reciprocal link on your site, though
I'll be linking to you anyway. How about it? :-)

Reprint Request

Thank you for your very kind words.

Unfortunately, I cannot give you permission to host my articles on
your site. However, you may link to any article on my site at no
charge.

However, I have two items you CAN place on your site.
www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm and Doctor Ebiz
(www.doctorebiz.com/syndicate). The latter involves pasting a
couple lines of code on one of your page templates, and the
content updates weekly.

If you'd like to have articles from my website for your site 
visitors, you ought to consider signing up for my modestly-priced
content syndication service (www.wilsonweb.com/syndicate). You can
have a license to have one, 3, 5, 20, 20, or 50 articles on your 
site and rotate them with new ones under this program.

Research Request

(Sent in response to students who ask me to e-mail them information for a school assignment or a term paper)

Thanks for your note. I am pleased that your are studying about
the large field of Web marketing/e-commerce. There certainly is
a lot of material to cover.

Of course, I know you don't expect me to do your research for you, 
nor can I e-mail anything to you. But I have provided a tremendous
resource of online information in the form of articles I have
written (www.wilsonweb.com/articles) as well as a database
of links to nearly 8,000 articles and resources 
(www.wilsonweb.com/cat) You'll find it all there,
neatly organized for you to use in your research project.