Send Replies to Adoring Fans, Angry Mobs with The Form Letter Machine

I get letters. Lots of letters. And while I'm not quite as popular as Ringo in A Hard Day's Night, I get enough e-mail from readers that I can't respond to everyone. To make my e-mail duties easier, I keep three or four fairly standard replies in my drafts folder and modify them as needed, but I wish I had some sort of tool that would help me craft a customized form letter from a menu of pre-generated choices. You know, something like The Form Letter Machine.

The Form Letter Machine displays a tree of options: You can start with a standard, canned introduction, then choose from among a variety of optional body elements, and finally wrap up with a choice of closing. If you're replying to customers that send inquiries to your Web site, for example, you can figure out the top ten reasons people contact you, then build a menu of responses in The Form Letter Machine. But unlike a simple set of draft e-mails, you can easily mix and match multiple snippets with the Machine for a largely unique form letter each time.

The Form Letter Generator isn't a mail client, so it won't send the messages for you. Nor does it have any fancy formatting features. When you're done crafting your e-mail, you can copy and paste it into your e-mail program and send the response from there. There's even a video on the Web site to help you get started.

Do I like The Form Letter Machine? You bet. Now I can send a customized apology to readers, instead of this generic message:

Dear sir or madam,

I apologize for Rick's behavior/sass/typographical error/dog. He is very sorry/repainting your fence/entering rehab.

Thank you for writing,

Dave

[Via Download Squad]