Choosing The Best Autoresponder Service
There is no other tool more critical for your email marketing business than your autoresponder. Choosing the wrong autoresponder service is going to cause you significant headaches.
It could mean that the delivery rate of your emails is low and a host of other issues that you don’t want to deal with when running your business.
Read this article carefully so that you make the right decision.
Is the Autoresponder Service Established?
Do not overlook this point. Check the time that the autoresponder company has been operating and providing its services. Established companies will have developed a good relationship with email providers such as Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail and this is vital to get your messages through.
If your autoresponder does not have this kind of relationship, then your emails could end up in spam boxes rather than your subscriber’s inbox. Look for companies that have been in existence for at least seven years or more.
What about Delivery Rates?
The more established and higher quality autoresponder companies will publish their delivery rate metrics for you to see. The higher, the better of course and you will be well advised to go with a company that provides good delivery rates. If your emails are not getting to your subscribers, then you will not make any money.
The best autoresponder companies will probably publish delivery rates in the region of 99%. Be sure to check out their public numbers on this. It is also a pretty well-known fact that if you use double opt-in your delivery rate numbers will be better than single opt-in.
Is it Easy to use the Service?
The first two points are more important than this one, but this is still something that you should investigate. Take a look at the website of the autoresponder company and see if the navigation is straightforward. If it is, then there is a good chance that the autoresponder service will be accessible too.
Processes that are counter-intuitive and chunky are not recommended. Most services offer drag and drop facilities, and this is good. Take a look at training videos provided by the company to see how smooth everything looks. There will be more videos on YouTube.
How much does the Service cost?
Your autoresponder service is precious to you so the cost should be your last consideration. It is true that the best autoresponder services can be pretty expensive and they usually charge more per month as your list of subscribers gets bigger. Try to arrive at a final three autoresponder services so that you can make a comparison on price.
Take advantage of any 30-day free trial offers (or $1 offers) that the autoresponder companies are offering. Add some emails and send them to email addresses that you own (you may have to set up a Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail accounts). How do they perform? Did the emails get delivered?
Make sure that you play around with the user interface to see how easy to use it is. Use all of the trial periods and make your decision just before the trial expires, and if you have provided payment details then cancel this if you are not going ahead with the service.
Take your time to choose the best autoresponder service, and it will support your email marketing efforts for years to come.
Three Email Campaign Providers we recommend are:
Email Campaign Providers
If you are looking at setting up an Email Campaign we use and recommend the following Email Campaign Providers
Aweber is one of the most popular email marketing service providers in the world. It is easy to use and connect seamlessly to wordpress and most website platforms. AWeber offers a 30 day free trial. After that, their pricing starts from $19/month.
MailChimp is one of the most popular email marketing service providers. They offer a very easy to use interface with great tools. MailChimp offers a forever free plan which allows you to send 12,000 emails for upto 2,000 subscribers. Their paid plans start from $10/month.
GetResponse is a hugely popular email marketing solution. It is extremely easy to use and simplifies email marketing for small businesses and absolute beginners. GetResponse offers a 30 day free trial. Their pricing starts from $15/month.
