Define your purpose
Before picking an autoresponder it’s good to define why you need one.
Most people want to build an e-mail list because they want to make money. Their plan is to send out a newsletter every so often with advertisements in it.
Other people simply want a way to broadcast their message via e-mail to others and they’re not interested in making money.
There are many solutions out there ranging from simple PHP scripts that you host on your own web hosting account, to fully outsourced solutions like AWeber and get response which manage pretty much all aspects of sending e-mails and managing the people on your list.
If the purpose of your e-mail list is to make money and you plan to grow that list to as large as you can then I highly recommend going with an outsourced solution. It doesn’t take long for your list to outgrow a simple PHP script that’s run on your web host.
If your not interested in making money but you do plan to have a sizable e-mail list I still recommend it outsourcing this to a solution like AWeber.
Ask your friends
If you’re not sure what service to use it’s a good idea to ask your friends.
See what they use and ask them how they’ve liked it.
Be sure to ask them about the features and see if it’s a good match for you.
What if I have no money?
Frequently I sure people say something like,”I want to start an e-mail list to make money but I don’t want to invest any money to get started.”
I think this is a silly idea. In the real world of brick and mortar stores the expense to start a business is very high.
On the Internet it costs a lot less to start but if you want a reliable autoresponder service it won’t be free.
To sign up for a service like AWeber which fully automates everything is going to cost you roughly $20 per month and I think they give you a free 30 day trial.
It doesn’t get any better than that.
What I recommend
Personally, I use AWeber. I know there are others like get response and to be honest I have no prior experience with them.
I started using AWeber a few years ago and haven’t looked back.
Now I receive no benefits from promoting AWeber in this post. I’m just a happy customer.
AWeber allows you to have multiple e-mail lists and lets you schedule when you want to send e-mail messages to your list. So I can go in right now and say that I want to send a message for the next three Fridays at 2 a.m. if I like.
AWeber also allows you to set up a series of follow-up messages. So instead of messages being sent on a certain date and time, they are sent at a certain sequence after a person signs up for your list.
So if someone signs up on my list today I can set it up so they see a welcome message immediately and then a second message three days after they signed up. And then a third message four days after the second message. Or I can have it send them a new e-mail each day after they signed up.
It’s very flexible.
What do you think?
I would love to hear your thoughts on this so please leave a comment below.
What do you think?
I would love to hear your thoughts so leave a comment below!
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Hey Nick,
Aweber is certainly the best ESP on the market today. I recommend that people are up front with their intentions, if you are going to send a newsletter and promotions state that clearly that way no one gets something they wasn’t expecting.
Aweber has so many functions that in my opinion make it the easy choice when choosing an ESP.
Thanks for sharing,
Karl
Aweber seems to be expensive starting @ $19/mo. Is there someone cheaper?