Email marketing internet mailing list software

The importance of a 'list'

The most important component, that keeps my business together - my email marketing internet mailing list software. I use Aweber and the more I use it the more I find out about what it can do and the more the service improves. I pay for Aweber yearly, which I think is $179. This might sound expensive but it has easily paid for itself many times over.  Clever programmers and coders may try to build their own solution, but really - why bother?

This article is intended to help you reach a decision on whether AWeber is the right email autoresponder for you and whether you need one in the first place.

My life with an auto responder

I decided I needed an autoresponder in the summer of 2006, but I wish I had done it 5 years ago!

As I educated myself in online business I realized that I needed to build lists of my customers and prospective customers so I could keep in touch and soft-sell my services. Thinking long term, if I wanted to sell my business my customer list would be one of my most valuable assets, so I needed to be collecting the email addresses of my target market from day one. Unfortunately I realised this way too late and I only started last year. 

Don't make the same mistake as I did. Get Aweber today!

Aweber

Aweber has been in the autoresponder business for 6 years and they are the first program I tested a number of years ago, when I first got involved with online marketing. Since then their remotely hosted solution has become more and more powerful, making it a top choice for those seeking a solution managed by a third party. Prices are very fair at $19.95/month allowing anyone to be up and running within minutes.

One of the things that I really like about Aweber is they have some of the best help/support in the business. When I first got started with autoresponders I was completely lost. I was surprised to find that an Aweber professional answered all of my questions very promptly and efficiently. Even better Aweber has recently added flash demonstrations for almost every task you could want to accomplish. A very nice touch for those new to these types of tools.

The Aweber interface has a tabbed view for navigation and includes descriptions of all the major sections. I found it very easy to navigate and find the tool I was looking for. The initial landing page contains some quick stats, the help videos I mentioned, and a step by step user guide. It is completely recommended you go over the help feature, which as I said is very good.

Aweber has all the features you would expect from a professional autoresponder, including: unlimited autoresponders, unlimited campaigns, unlimited follow-ups, unlimited broadcasts, a sweet inline message editor, message scheduler, and much more. Aweber also has several features that many other products neglect which we will touch on later.

As expected creating your user list is a breeze. You can manually enter contacts, import them, snag them via your inbox, or like most of us collect them via a form. Aweber also has the best form generation tool in the business allowing pop-ups, pop-unders, on exit popups, the ubiquitous un-blockable DHTML slide in pop-up, and more. Creating your form for email collection is simple and requires only 1 line of javascript in your website to operate. Additionally Aweber supports 25 custom forms for collecting useful data like your subscribers name, gender or location. Where Aweber really surprised me was its ability to segment my email lists based on criteria. For example I was able to single out all of my female users and name a list based on this choice for use in my mailings. Super handy.

Building my actual emails is always a pain in the keyster with most services offering lackluster editors or none at all. I’m happy to report that Aweber is an all-in-one solution with a great inline editing tool. Creating a message for my autoresponder (Aweber calls this a follow-up) was simple.

As an added bonus Aweber recently included a handy spell checker eliminating the need for an external editor completely. Also included is the ability to easily add any of your custom fields to your emails adding a real personal touch to your efforts. To finish up your autoresponder you can choose when the message will be delivered, ie: immediately or after x number of days. As mentioned you can have an unlimited amount of these follow-ups, dramatically increasing your effectiveness.

Don't waste your potential 'repeat customers' get Aweber today