I have been poking around on my favorite social media sites, and lately I’ve seen more than a few people plugging various new autoresponders, not for the service and reliability they offer, but for their commission payout terms.
This is ridiculous. No one should ever pick a service that is an integral part of their business because of its commission payout terms. All these users say about their service is how much you get paid if you get someone to sign up under you. They mention nothing about the actual services they provide.
What Is An Autoresponder Service?
An autoresponder is an automated email service that you can use to contact your email list automatically with a series of newsletters that start at the beginning for each new user, to send them a new blog post they’ve subscribed to, or to broadcast a message about an offer or program you want subscribers to have first crack at.
Your list should receive value from you in the form of free information that would be useful to them. You can sell to your list as well, but your first priority must be to provide value. If you don’t, your subscribers will unsubscribe.
This service should be chosen for reliability, customer service, training, ease of use and utility for your purposes, and most of all, to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. Price may be an issue, but when you are ready for an autoresponder, you should be making enough money to cover the cost. It’s only $19/mo or less to start out. One account can support an unlimited number of lists and automated messages. The price only goes up when a list exceeds a certain threshold of subscribers. This is a small price to pay since most of the money in an online business or increased sales to an offline business from online marketing is in your email list and email marketing.
If you can’t afford a paid email autoresponder, you can improvise with a free service by Google called Feedburner. You can start a blog (paid or free) and get subscribers to join your free email list through Feedburner. Instead of sending autoresponse emails, you would write everything to your blog as posts and subscribers would receive emails of your posts from which they can read your content and perhaps buy something you might be marketing in a given post. Feedburner requires a double opt-in before it sends messages to subscribers.
Why Double Opt-In?
You want double opt-in to be sure your list complies with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. You do not want to spam your list ever. Spamming is the fastest way to get a very bad reputation and essentially put you out of business in a heartbeat. You don’t want that to happen. Even if you’re just blogging for your own personal satisfaction, you don’t want to spam anyone. If someone doesn’t want to get your emails, you don’t want them to get your emails and you must encourage them to unsubscribe. Otherwise they may mark you as spam, and you don’t want that.
When you have an email list of subscribers, you want to first be sure the subscribers have double opted in to your list. It works by the user signing up using your web form. Then the user receives an email from the system making sure they want to join the list. They must click on the link in the confirmation email to become subscribed. If they don’t, they are not subscribed and won’t receive emails from your list. This is necessary to cut down on the number of your automated emails that get marked as spam, even though subscribers had to confirm their opt-in.
Your autoresponder provider should measure the number of emails sent in a given broadcast, the number opened, the number not opened and the number marked as spam. If they can’t provide this data for you, they aren’t worth a penny. You need to know how well your messages are being received.
Another way to decrease spam complaints is to put a notice at the top of each message a subscriber receives that they signed up and opted into the emails they are being sent, and if they don’t want to receive them anymore to scroll to the bottom of the message and unsubscribe instead of marking your message as spam. I started getting a bunch of my emails marked as spam on one of my lists, and after I put that message in them, my spam complaints decreased about 20 fold, below the threshold at which I was about to be contacted by my autoresponder provider.
If your provider is worth it, they will contact you if you present a spam problem, and they will shut down your account if you don’t fix the problem and reduce your spam complaints. Spam by you also puts their reputation on the line and they won’t have their business ruined by a user abusing their service.
Who Are Good Quality Providers?
First on my list and the autoresponder service I use is AWeber. I have 12 blogs and websites, and I have all my email lists for them through AWeber. It costs me $19/mo for all of my lists, and I can add many, many more before my fees would increase. When my lists exceed 500 subscribers, the price will go up. If you are a non-profit or a student, AWeber has special pricing for you. Learn more here:
Another very good quality provider is Prosender. I’ve never tried them, but I know others who use them and they tell me the service is equivalent to AWeber. The cost for 500 or fewer subscribers is also $19/mo.
Another service I’ve heard of and seen a few marketers use is GetResponse. It offers very similar services to AWeber and Prosender, but is a much newer company. Their price for 500 or fewer subscribers is $18/mo, not really a difference.
The only free service I recommend is Google Feedburner’s email blog broadcast service.
Remember, always pick services you need for your business based on the service provided for the price, not the affiliate commission it pays if someone signs up through your link. An affiliate commission is nice, but it’s not the primary reason you should choose a service.
