It is said that “your business is your list.” But what is the best way to maintain your list?
There are quite a few companies that offer an autoresponder service. While it is possible to have your own autoresponder software program installed on your server, the benefits of using an emailing service far outweigh any possible benefits of using such installed software; chief among these benefits is the high deliverability of the emails sent with a service as opposed to the deliverability of email sent from any program on your server, not to mention the risk of being blacklisted by major servers around the world.
This article focuses on four selected emailing services with built in autoresponder capability: mailchimp vs constant contact, Aweber, Constant Contact, iContact, and MailChimp.
Costs: The typical cost structure is a monthly charge based on the number of confirmed contacts stored in your lists. Presumably, since the number of contacts will grow as your business grows, it is useful to think ahead. With respect to the four reviewed services, the pricing advantage changes as the number of contacts grows: For under 100 contacts, MailChimp is the winner because it is free. If you are not going to have more than 1,000 contacts, iContact and MailChimp are nicely priced. Above 1000 contacts, the monthly cost for all four services is very close.
However, three of the companies offer various discounts based on an annual prepaid account (MailChimp is the exception). The way in which the discounts are calculated differ considerably. However, when your total contacts are under 2500, the lowest annual costs are provided by iContact and MailChimp review (in the case of the latter, it is a total of the monthly charges). When your total contacts are in the 2,500 to 10,000 range, the lowest annual prepaid cost is provided by Constant Contact.
MailChimp alone offers an optional plan that does not require any monthly fee. You simply buy credits which carry over from month to month and use the credits like stamps: one credit = one emailed message in any campaign.
Adding Names to Contact Lists: All four services in this review support the use of double opt-in. However, only Aweber requires it for every contact. MailChimp requires it for sign ups from your forms (eg., from your “squeeze pages”), but allows you to upload a carefully screened list of contacts without requiring a double opt-in.
Also, all four services allow you to manually add names to your list or import a list of names to your list with the understanding that these are individuals who have specifically indicated to you that they would like to receive your emails. The ability to add and remove names to your autoresponder manually is vital, as for example when people contact you without having gone to your landing page, and request to be put on your mailing list.
In the case of Aweber, however, you can only import a list of names if:
1. That list was created on another service where you chose to use the double opt-in method for every name and you can prove it. In that case, an Aweber customer service rep will step you through the process. Otherwise,
2. You must use their program to send your list a request to re-confirm their interest in receiving email from you. Aweber provides advice on the best way to do this.
In the case of the services that allow you to use a single opt-in process, you must “sign” (click or initial) a statement swearing that the names you are entering have requested to receive email from you. None of the services allow you to load contacts or lists of contacts unless you have personally been given permission to put them on your email list. So that means (among other things) -
* No contacts from a purchased list.
* No contacts from someone else’s list.
* No contacts from a list you have put together by scraping together email addresses from web sites and the CC on emails received from others.
* No contacts from your own customer list if you haven’t communicated with them for 6 months.
Perhaps you can see why it is critical to create your own list. As many would say, if you do not have your own list, you do not have a business at all. When you start out with internet marketing, you might earn an affiliate commission by attracting people to the squeeze page of other internet marketers (Mike Dillard, the Renengade University, Charlie Page, the 90 Day Marketer, and others). However, the prospects that you have attracted did not sign up on your list, they signed up on someone else’s list. In order to add them to your list, you will have to send them an invitation to sign up in a personal email.
This is why the wise marketer will first attract prospects to her own list, and then direct them to affiliate sign up forms.
Tracking and Analytics: Not having the ability to track responses can cost you business. If you can’t track response rates, you won’t have any way of knowing whether your messages are doing you any good. A good autoresponder will provide the ability to track responses.
Some important things to check include: Who is opening the email? Which emails bounced? Which links are receiving clicks? All of the four services reviewed allow you to track those three items. All four services also tell you who is clicking which links - except that MailChimp charges extra for that information.
Only MailChimp provides clear steps for integrating Google Analytics.
Some of the best analysis comes from split testing. This is where you divide your list into two groups and send each group the exact same email but with one change; for example a different subject line. Why? To learn which subject lines work best with your group. However, of our four email service companies, two make this job very easy: Aweber, first of all, and to a lesser degree, MailChimp. In the case of the other two services, any split testing must be devised by the user and done manually.
Conclusion: I currently use two of these services. Yet I do not make an across the board recommendation for any one of them since each of the four services provide benefits that attract on different points - pricing, method of adding contacts, and tracking results. Consider your needs, then examine the detailed benefits for each service.
Tags:
autoresponder service,
autoresponder software,
blacklisted,
constant contact,
deliverability,
emailing service,
free email marketing