It’s generally true that the lifeblood of any online business is your email list. Therefore, building an email list is something you should do early on. Building lists can be a very simple process, if you have a few tools before you start. One of the most important tools you are going to need is an autoresponder. Without an autoresponder, building your list will be much more difficult, if not impossible.
Fortunately, there are a few different autoresponders out there, and they’re usually easy and cheap to get. Some are even free. And most are extremely easy to use. You won’t need to shell out a lot of money to get started, nor will you need specialized skills.
What is an autoresponder?
Auto-Replies are messages set up by you to automatically go out to your email list. They help you by automatically sending emails and newsletters to recipients who have signed up to your list.
You can schedule each individual set of messages (known as a campaign) to go out to your list in a sequence that you set. You can decide which messages are sent by which campaign and even control the speed at which they are sent. For example, you might want to email a new subscriber on days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and then slow down the emails to say days 7, 10, 14, etc. Automated responses are invaluable because they allow you to write your messages ahead of time and keep track of who they were sent to and when.
They also give you a breakdown of how many of your recipients opened the messages, clicked on the links, etc.
The best autoresponders also give you the ability to create and manage newsletters, even giving you hundreds of templates.
As you can see, an autoresponder service really is an essential part of your list building arsenal. Without it, it would be nearly impossible for you to collect and manage email addresses. It would also be a nightmare trying to keep track of the messages you have sent to each individual address.
There are two types of autoresponder services…
Self-hosted autoresponders
Self-hosted autoresponders typically won’t cost you a monthly fee. They will usually have an upfront charge for the autoresponder itself. However, what you save upfront may cost you later due to the problems that can arise when using this method.
First of all, with self-hosted autoresponders, you have a very real chance that all your messages will end up in your recipients’ spam folder. This is because a self-hosted autoresponder generally does not contain the ability to prevent messages from being filtered as spam.
Second, you’ll have to deal with any spam complaints you receive on your own. When you use a hosted service, they will usually handle any spam complaints you may receive on your behalf. Also, with a hosted service, you have the option to use the dual option. This ensures that you will have additional protection in case of spam complaints.
Third, hosted services usually give you the ability to back up your lists in case something goes wrong. With a self-hosted autoresponder, this is entirely up to you. Add to that any maintenance that may need to be done and suddenly the money you’re saving may not seem like such a good thing after all.
Hosted autoresponder services
Hosted autoresponder services are much less painful to use. They are typically not only whitelisted by most major ISPs, but also ensure that you are protected from any spam complaints you may receive. They also have a lot of extra useful features that you wouldn’t get with a self-hosted autoresponder.
There are numerous hosted services that you can choose from and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. If you’ve never used an autoresponder service before, it can be very difficult to decide which one best suits your personal needs.
With this in mind, I’ll give you a brief overview of the five most popular autoresponder services available today. You can then better decide which one is right for you. Remember, once chosen, you will generally have to stay with the same service for as long as you operate your business. If you decide six months from now that you want to change your autoresponder, you’ll have the unenviable and somewhat complicated task of transferring your list to your new service.
Transferring your list to a new service can be a time-consuming and cumbersome job. Your new autoresponder service may even require you to ask everyone on your list to reconfirm their subscription. At best this could take a long time, at worst you could lose a huge chunk of your email list in the process.
Obviously, if you’ve spent the last six months building your roster, this would be a major setback. So, as you can see, it’s important to choose the right autoresponder service from the start.
Popular Hosted Services
aweber.com
Aweber has been the most popular autoresponder service for a long time. The reason is that they are a very reliable service, with great features and a pricing plan that will grow with your list. So it’s not too expensive at first, in fact at the time of writing it’s free for 30 days and then only $19 a month. As your list grows, your monthly fee will increase. Aweber is also pretty easy to use, and with access to over 700 templates and 6,000 stock photos, it’s well worth considering. It also has an excellent customer support system.
GetResponse.com
GetResponse is second only to Aweber in terms of popularity. They also have some great features including a pretty sizable image library as well as over 500 templates. As with Aweber, Getresponse is easy to use and also has plans that will grow with your business. Starting at $10 a month they are cheaper than Aweber and also offer the option to get an 18% discount if you pay 12 months in advance. Again, at the time of writing, they offer a 30-day free trial.
iContacto.com
Like Aweber and Getresponse, iContact offers a 30-day free trial. With packages starting at $14 per month, competitively priced, and at a 15% discount if you pay annually, it’s well worth checking out. They provide a very reliable service and although they are not as easy to use as Aweber and Getresponse, their autoresponders are still very good. Add to this the fact that you can manage a list of up to 15,000 subscribers, they offer a very attractive autoresponder service. Another great point to note is the ability to import your existing list and add contacts manually.
constantcontact.com
Constant Contact also offers a free trial, but unlike the others, this is a 60-day trial. Like Aweber and Getresponse, they offer a service that grows with your list, with packages starting at $20 a month. They also offer a good-sized image library, templates, and a phone app. They are a bit disappointed in the lack of features compared to Aweber and Getrsponse. But with a really good support network, they certainly offer a service worth considering.
mailchimp.com
Finally we have MailChimp. Mail Chimp is a bit different than other autoresponder services, because they offer a free service geared towards new businesses. If your list falls below 2000 you will not have to pay anything. After 2,000 names on your list, you can upgrade to the paid plan that starts at $10 per month. However, with the free version, you are limited to the features you have access to, so you may want to start earlier with the paid plan to access additional features.
Bottom line
All of the autoresponders I have listed have very good integration features and work very well with WordPress. Since WordPress is used to build around 28% of all websites on the internet, being able to integrate with this platform is an important feature.
Although I’ve listed what are probably the five most popular autoresponder services, that’s not to say you should ignore the others. By all means check out some of these and decide for yourself. We all have different wants and needs and you may find a service more suitable to what you need.
Have you already started using an autoresponder service? If so, which one and how are you finding it? Do you use a self-hosted autoresponder? What problems have you faced and how have you overcome them?
