Obviously what business owners are looking for is automation, but this must not be to the detriment of the business.

The automation must preserve the integrity of the business, the customer service, order fulfilment and after sales service must be kept to the highest standard.

Therefore in order to choose the ways we can automate the business we must choose methods and techniques that preserve the quality.

There are major areas for Internet businesses that can be automated, here's a breakdown:

List Management

This is certainly a key component of any internet business. Keeping effective communication with your customers is key to up selling and automating this process really does boost your sales.

Email autoresponders are widely used by online marketers to strengthen the relationship with their customers after the deal is made. An email auto responder is a program that sends emails to a person at regular intervals. Auto responders can help you boost your online business. Auto responders can be used to give instant information to your customers.

Autoresponders are also key in your Customer Relationship Management - this ensures that your business keeps in constant contact with your customers and people that have visited your site, thereby enabling you to sell further products to your prospects.

Newsletter / Ezine

Email marketing is by far one of the most effective and inexpensive ways of advertising available to businesses today.

Many businesses use newsletters as a way of informing their customers about new products and new features of their business. This again can be automated so it is sent as an email to all your customers and prospects.

There are autoresponders out there that allow you to send out newsletters and ezines.

Very effective method of up selling to existing customers and getting prospects to buy from you for the first time.

Ad Tracking

Whatever form of advertising businesses conduct, there is an absolute need to know if your ads are successful or not. You can do this manually, however if you are conducting a number of advertising campaigns then it is certainly recommended to get Ad Tracking software.

It is essential to know the impact of an ad upon the audience to assess its productivity. There are many software programs and services that assist the Internet marketers in the whole process of ad appraisal.

Ad tracking software can give the ratio of profitability of your ad marketing campaigns, such as all the click listings, pop-ups, e-books, affiliates, newsletters, reciprocal links, banners and articles to your business. They can also track the off-line ads. Many software affiliate providers provide this ad tracking software.

Affiliate Management

This is a great way for a business to increase its sales and get affiliates to the work for you. However in order to automate this process, you will need to get some specialist software. Affiliate marketing software makes it possible for you to manage your affiliate program with less effort. Affiliate marketing software enables you to host and support sales of your ebusiness, by keeping track of your affiliates and customers, as well as, tracking your marketing campaigns.

Product Management

Product management defines how you deliver products to your customers once they buy from your ecommerce website. The best product management systems should allow you to choose how you would like to deliver your products to your customers. You must ensure you deliver tangible goods physically and digital goods digitally.

Shopping Cart - A good product management system should also handle payment processing, as well as automatically calculate shipping/handling and tax for your physical products. You should also be able to cusotmize it from a central location. You should be able to set-up your products using a shopping cart as well.