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Why Talk About Email Marketing Services?
Regular readers of my blog may be surprised to see a post about email marketing services – because the vast majority will already be using their own favourite.
To my regular readers, who know all about auto-responders, I apologize for “teaching them to suck eggs”, but please feel free to add your comments about the importance of email marketing. Also, please note my update below.
However, for anyone new to starting an online business, I hope this will be instructive.
Update 2019
For a while I was tempted to focus more on Social Media Marketing than on my blog, because that seemed to be the way “the masses” were going. So I put a lot of work into that. Then one fateful day I logged into my business page and found:
To cut a long and depressing story short I couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong and what I needed to correct, so eventually I just abandoned the page to start again with another one. All my followers and content, built over two to three years were lost. Thanks goodness for what I had on my blog.
While I was beginning to feel very inept to have lost my page, I noticed that another far better marketer than I was also “missing” from Facebook. I reached out to him another way and discovered that his Facebook account had been hacked which was why he had also been offline quite some time. He managed to recover, but he’s far better technically online than I am.
It refocused me on my blog and mailing list as the primary place to build my business – because I OWN them, rather than a free social media platform. Yes, I will still be on social media, but the time and work I have lost has been a salutary lesson and warning.
Update 2020
Once I re-started building my list, and refined what my offer actually is, sales have started coming in 🙂
I had too many diversions, I’ll freely admit. But in 2020, with extra time on my hands thanks to lockdown, I have found well-established programs that I’m proud to promote, and I’m focusing on them now.
While I’m not (yet!) earning a fortune from my blog and email list, the income that’s coming in is from repeat subscriptions, so it will be coming in month by month, for work done previously.
Facebook marketing is ‘sort of’ in my marketing mix – and has proved successful – but because I’m still working very hard offline, I find it too time-consuming for me.
However, it is the recommended source of warm traffic in the affiliate marketing training I promote. Click here. Learning from that helped me make sales.
But because of time-pressures, blogging and email marketing are what’s working for me.
Starting An Online Business
When you start marketing online there are two vitally important components you need.
- Your OWN website – ideally a blog
- A system that lets you build a contact list of visitors to your site – I refer to this as an autoresponder and will expand on this software below.
Whatever else you do or don’t do, building a list of your website visitors is a stage you should not omit.
Why Use An Auto-Responder?
An auto-responder is an application used to collect the contact details of visitors to your website who may not purchase from you on their first visit.
In a nutshell, you invite them to receive more information from you and if they accept, they have “opted-in” to receive your information emails until they “opt-out”, after which you no longer have permission to contact them by email.
Offering what’s known as a “lead magnet” on a “lead capture page” is a good way to invite them to opt in to your list – perhaps a discount on their first purchase, or some free information targeted to their interests. Making a lead capture page manually isn’t impossible by any means, but if you’re running a business you probably have better things to do with your time.
The training I recommend actually gives you the training course (worth tens of thousands of dollars) ad a very sophisticated lead magnet – and if you start at the $7 level, you can earn 100% commissions when you sell the course to others.
You can also use your autoresponder to keep details of customers who HAVE purchased from you. So you ideally need at least two lists so you can send them different messages:
1) For Prospective Customers (Leads)
It’s unlikely that anyone will make a purchase when visiting your website for the first time.
- They may just be doing research and not ready to buy “today”
- They may be ready to buy but not complete the purchase for any number of reasons (interruption, failed card transaction, last minute questions, quickly popping over to another site intending to return but….)
In fact it’s said that potential clients may need to see your sales message as many as seven times before deciding to make a purchase from you. So you need to send “follow-up” emails to show them the benefits of your product / company over your competitors’.
Even when they genuinely intend to return and buy from you, if prospects leave your website / blog and they haven’t left their contact details with you, there’s a risk that they forget or end up making their purchase from another website owner who had the foresight to capture their details and follow-up with them.
2) For Existing Customers
Having made a sale, it’s good business sense to maximize revenue from existing customers with future offers. If you have a happy customer, it can be easier to make repeat sales than to find new customers.
So an auto-responder lets you stay in contact with existing customers by means of a newsletter (known as a broadcast) and send new or special offers. How often you send a broadcast depends on your own business and audience. Some businesses send daily (which personally I think is too often) others send weekly, monthly – or just when they have an important announcement.
You may be tempted to save money on email marketing services and imagine you can maintain your own list of customers on an Excel spreadsheet and mail them manually to save a few dollars. (Yep, I tried it, and it was a bad mistake and these days would almost certainly breach GDPR!)
This is false economy because as soon as you have more than a handful of customers it becomes time-consuming. Also it totally misses the point about staying in contact with visitors whose details you do not have because they did not purchase on their first visit.
Another important point to note is that using an auto-responder protects you from being labelled a spammer for emailing people manually – because they will have “opted-in” to receive your emails.
Online customers have short memories and quickly forget that they were interested in your product, especially if they already bought from a competitor. One bad-tempered day they may label your email as spam; a good auto-responder company will handle this correctly on your behalf.
I hope the reasons above have convinced you that as soon as you get a blog / website your first priority is to add a list-building (or lead capture) form.
Which Auto-Responder To Use?
You may think that cost is your top priority, but it shouldn’t be, because your prospect and customer lists are valuable assets in your business, to be protected zealously.
Believe me – I lost a big list once and it hurts. An affiliate company I was working with closed down their company, restarted under a different name, “stole” my contact list which I had foolishly entrusted to them, and started marketing to it with a competing offer. At the time I was too inexperienced online to realize the need for maintaining my own “list” so it was my own fault on several levels, but a mistake I won’t make again!
- There are free autoresponders – some will be free to start with and then start charging when your list size reaches a certain number. I have tried several free services, but abandoned all but one for a variety of reasons, for instance: directly competing ads shown, poor email deliverability, lack of “follow-up” feature, slow or non-existent customer service (who wants to support free?), or the auto-responder owner just gets fed up of not earning and stops running the service.
- Some free autoresponders will not accept affiliate marketers in certain niches, and have just closed down the accounts built up because they tool a disliking to what the list owners were promoting. Check first!
- At the other end of the scale there are high-priced auto-responders that deliver services far beyond what many small businesses may be willing, or need, to pay (top-end products can cost $100+ a month).
- In the middle there are some excellent and very affordable email marketing services – and I have tried several of them. The few dollars monthly fee should not be an issue to any forward thinking business-person. Most of them actually let you earn a commission if you recommend their services to other businesses. This is entirely optional but a nice steady stream of monthly income, because switching auto-responders is not something you undertake lightly.
The market leaders for small to medium sized businesses are probably Aweber (affiliate link) and GetResponse (affiliate link). I have/had accounts with both of these and they’re very good.
For anyone really cost conscious, an autoresponder I can recommend (and am using for a particular purpose) is MailerLite (affiliate link), which is free for your first 1,000 contact names. That should be plenty to get new list-builders earning enough money that they don’t resent the monthly cost (which isn’t high in any case). There are a few extra features in the paid version, but nothing I have missed enough to pay for yet.
One of the most important features is…..
MailerLite’s Deliverability
All the low cost and good features count for nothing if your emails don’t land in the contact’s in-box. Which is why I abandoned certain unnamed services. So I was delighted to find this independant information about MailerLite’s deliverability. (Correct at the time of writing, which pre-dates the Google and Yahoo email changes.)
“MailerLite has seen a huge improvement in deliverability rates, claiming the #2 spot. Improving deliverability rates is clearly a high priority for them.” – EmailToolTester More about the deliverability research: https://
www.emailtooltester.com/en/ blog/ email-deliverability-jan-20 19/
Update 2021
Obviously the main reason for having an autoresponder is a cost-effective way to send out emails, as described above. And that may be enough for someone whose business is – for instance – a hairdresser, plumber, or any other regular business.
If if you’re an online marketer, did you ever consider a secondary purpose for having an email program?
An auto-responder that pays you can be a part-time online business in its own right.
Autoresponders Pay Commissions
Six years on from when I wrote this original article about email marketing services I discovered that another happy benefit of using an autoresponder, which is that – if you choose the right one – it can be a source of passive income, month after month. (And in 2024, I’m still getting paid those commissions. That’s the value of making a sale of a good auto-responder.) It was GetResponse – one of the first auto-responders I used, in case you’re wondering.
I’ve found out the best possible way, and I now receive a regular income because I recommended an auto-responder to colleagues who are happy with it and have continued to use it month after month.
While I would never recommend an auto-responder solely on the basis that it pays me a commission, it has to be said that, if you have one you can trust to look after your clients – and be affordable – it’s a winner as a business model in itself.
Update 2024 – My favorite autoresponder
As I have learned more about Internet Marketing over the years, I have come to value most of all, a free service that I dismissed as ‘too complicated’ in my early days online.
That was largely because I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. As my knowledge and needs increased, I found that LeadsLeap was always there – one step ahead of what I needed.
You can open a free account to learn more => HERE (The free service lets you earn if you make sales yourself.)
It’s rapidly becoming the preferred service for smaller marketers like me – and also for some very big marketers, because they can give ‘share codes’ to team members they sign up, so that they can quickly replicate (and tailor) the pages that successful marketers are using to train their subscribers. It just makes duplication so easy.
LeadsLeap a Free Mailing Program
This auto-responder includes marketing tools and many tools you don’t even know you need when you first start out.
Trustworthy – A tried and tested program that was been online since 2008 and is still being enhanced
Affordable – While most auto-responders increase their monthly fee as your subscriber count increases, this one is free forever, although their pro account has additional features but at one price for unlimited subscribers.
Tech-free – While many marketers were tearing their hair out to comply with the February 2024 Gmail and Yahoo deliverability hurdles, LeadsLeap users had everything ‘done for them’.
A Profitable Business – Introduce just two clients and even the Pro version is free. So yes, I don’t PAY for this service, I earn from it. Check it out => here (and learn from all the training included to walk you through the site step by step.)
Over To You
I’m conscious that over the years, my own understanding of email marketing services has expanded way beyond what I knew when I wrote it in 2015! Here it is, updated for 2024.
Hopefully, rather than being confused, newcomers to email marketing services will have found my increasing understanding helpful.
Feel free to ask me any questions via the contact me page – but please add ‘Questions about auto-responders’ in the title. I promise that my advice to you will be based purely on what is best for your circumstances, rather than on my commission prospects.
Very useful, thanks. This is definitely something I need to look at implementing.
Hi Lisa
Glad you liked the article and hope you get round to installing Aweber.
Sorry for the delay approving your comment, I had to rescue it from spam comments because you have no gravatar setup:-) You can get one free from http://en.gravatar.com/ and that will help you get your comments approved. Let me know if you need any more help.
Enjoy the rest of your week, Joy
An informative post as always Joy, I used to use Aweber and found it very useful, but these days I use and am a huge fan of Active Campaign mainly because of its integration with my Nimble CRM system.
Hi Mike
Glad you liked the post, and liked Aweber when you used it.
I must confess I haven’t come across Active Campaign before – there are so many services out there – but as long as you’re using a service and you’ve found one that fits well with your particular needs, that’s what’s important.
Have a great week, Joy
Hi Joy,
Let me start by wishing you a very Happy New Year 🙂
During all my years of blogging, I’ve been guilty of not paying much attention to my list. I did try Aweber for a few months a couple of years back, and it was good, but I found it to be expensive for me. So I moved over to a free one, because I was not serious about list building.
I do have the facility of auto-responders, but I don’t use it much. Also, I don’t have any products on my site yet, so all I send my list are latest post updates and occasional newsletters. But yes, I’m going to change all of this.
But I understand and agree with everything you wrote about auto-responders. I also don’t advise on maintaining the list on Excel spreadsheet. And you’re also right about the spamming issue.
It shocking to know what happened to your list. I agree with your logic and suggestions for free, high-end, and middle affordable email marketing services. AWeber is definitely the leader, and those who can afford it, should opt for it.
List building is a must, so an email marketing service is essential too. Thank you for this important post for all bloggers. Have a nice week ahead 🙂
Hi Harleena,
Welcome back and Happy New Year to you too.
Your blog is so successful without a list because of the hard work you devote to it on a regular basis, plus the top quality posts. Unless my clients are as hard-working on their blogs as you are I suspect they’d have no chance of emulating your success. I (and many others) actively come and LOOK for your posts! There are only a few sites online that I go to find 🙂
So I’m glad you, as a very successful blogger) agree with and understand my choice of Aweber to recommend to customers. It’s only a few dollars more per month then the competition and although I know of (and use) less expensive services myself there are issues I’m having with the cheaper services that I can’t overlook – so I’m playing it safe for client recommendations. I don’t my want clients coming back to me with some of the problems I’ve had on cheaper services.
Great to see you again, and ave a great week, Joy
Hi Joy!
I always wish I would’ve gotten with a good email marketing service earlier, and set up an autoresponder ASAP. Nothing is better than automating such a huge part of your business, knowing that it’s working for you even when you’re not working.
I actually spent a few hours this past weekend setting up my autoresponder for another site of mine. I’m not very active with it but it does get a ton of traffic, so I knew this was something I had to do. I currently have two months worth of an autoresponder sequence set up, giving a lot of good info and promoting relevant products.
It’s nice because I know it won’t be too long now until I’m getting a steady flow of sales from that list. That’s one thing I love about autoresponders as well – they allow you to make a consistent income. Heck, without an email list my income wouldn’t be consistent at all.
I put all of this off for so long because it’s challenging to see just how effective autoresponders actually are until you use one. Now, it’s absolutely clear that it’s my business’s most valuable tool – even more valuable than my blog itself!
Thanks Joy!
Hi James
Thanks for making those excellent extra points…
a) it works when you’re not working, and will work over and over again for the few hours first setting it up.
b) you can arrange it so that the follow-up series, a well as containing information tips, can generate sales of future products that you might never have thought to tell your customer about if they weren’t in your follow-up series.
Yes, even if your blog were to disappear tomorrow (perish the thought) you would still have your list – actually that’s another good reason for keeping these two services with separate providers, and remembering to back them up.
I’m glad you’ve got your auto-responder series set up now and I’m sure you’ll soon start reaping the rewards.
Have a great week, Joy
Hey Joy,
No doubt, Email marketing is very essential to get success in online business. But, choosing a perfect email marketing service is one of the difficult task for beginners. You’ve mentioned well about email marketing in this article.
Aweber, is nowadays very popular service for email marketing. It has been improving in their service day by day and are making it more easy for their customers.
Autoresponder is very vital to alert your blog subscriber. I’m not using any autoresponder service yet. But, this post point out most of my mistakes what I’m doing. I gonna follow your tips to get most out from it.
Thanks for writing such a worthy article and for sharing with us!
-Mustafa
Hi Mustafa
You’re right – chopping and changing, trying to choose which auto-responder to settle with, wasted me months (and a lot of money). Probably lost me some subscribers too, moving from one to the next. There was always something I was unhappy with….
So that’s why I’ve finally come back to recommending Aweber. The few dollars I saved by using cheaper services has long been eroded by the costs of changing each time I decided to “evaluate” a different auto-responder.
Have a great week, Joy
The intimacy factor is huge with me Joy. I started building my list last month. I was too busy writing eBooks and my 7K word posts to do otherwise 😉 But I find doing the convenient thing for your readers makes it easier for them to stay in touch with you. Most people are email junkie. Give them what they want. They’ll stop by, read your posts, share your post and they’ll also tend to buy your products and services if they can check your updates via email.
List building does indeed rock and I have to say I’m glad I started doing so last month.
You using those auto responders is smart too; adds a passive element to your email marketing campaign. Good go with Aweber. I like them but just vibed more with MailChimp.
Helpful read here Joy. Keep up the inspired play!
Ryan
Hi Ryan
That really says it all 🙂
When someone with as big a brand and following as you already have starts list building too, it must say something for its importance. Not to mention your 7,000 word posts…..
I wish I thought any of my clients (or me!) would put a quarter as much effort into their blog as you do. Yet you still see the importance of list building. If anyone was in any doubt, there’s a message there….
I’m sure most of my clients will appreciate the passive element too. Work done once and bringing rewards for months on end is the small business person’s dream.
Thanks so much for reinforcing the need for list-building – even for well established sites like Blogging From Paradise.
Enjoy your next trip 🙂
Joy
Hi Joy,
I am a strong believer in email service providers.
In the US the CAN-SPAM act almost requires that you use one.
And, really they save you so much time and frustration. The only downside could be cost – but even some very reputable services offer a free starter level, which is perfect for those that are just beginning.
Thanks for the valuable info!
Hi Neena,
Although some people (including myself) were initially deterred from using an auto-responder by the cost, I’ve since come to accept that “free” is usually paid for by hours and effort / stress as opposed to using a reputable auto-responder.
I’m trusting that the clients in my target market will value professional service more than the few dollars they would save. I can’t “judge” those who disagree because I was all for “free” until I realized the true cost of all my deliberations.
Thanks for re-emphasizing the importance of the CAN-SPAM act too.
Enjoy the rest of your week, Joy
I haven’t used neither have considered utilizing the email services for my blogs. But with the comments and your article I am thinking now of starting.
Thanks for the eye-opener topic.
Hi
I’m pleased I’ve given you some encouragement to start list building – it’s such a shame when we work so hard to get visitors to our blog to let them disappear without attempting to retain their details to bring them back.
Enjoy the rest of your week, Joyk
Hi Joy,
I am so thankful I’ve found your blog. I just started my website and your input here is very helpful for me. Thanks for sharing great information.
Cheers,
Ron
Hi Ron
Glad you liked the article and hope you get round to installing Aweber. List-building is very important and the sooner you start it in your Internet Marketing career the better!
I think you’re using P1 Traffic Machine, am I right? How’s that working out for you?
Hope you won’t mind a quick tip your comment, I had to rescue it from spam comments because you have no gravatar setup:-) You can get one free from http://en.gravatar.com/ and that will help you get your comments approved. Let me know if you need any more help.
I tried to leave a comment for you, but couldn’t see where to comment on your blog. The link below may help you.
Have a great week, Joy
Hi Joy, you’ve written a useful and educational post for those who need it here, well done.
When I started my first blog back in 2010, I left list building and email marketing on the shelf, I was too busy trying to win search engine traffic instead of collecting little emails. Well I learned from those costly earlier mistakes and when I started Magnet4Blogging back in 2013, the first thing I set out to do was start list building.
I’ve never tried Aweber before, though I’ve heard a lot of marketers and bloggers rave on about it. I started off with Vertical Response back in the day, but gave up on them a few years ago because they didn’t have an auto-responder service. I went straight to MailChimp and have been with them ever since.
I was stunned to read the part you wrote about how you lost a list to an affiliate company, the cheek of them regardless whether you made a mistake.
Anyway, enjoy the rest of your week Joy.
– Fabrizio
Hi Fabrizio
Glad you think the post will help newcomers.
I too tried some email marketing packages, innocently assuming they “MUST” have an auto-responder service. It seemed completely obvious at the time, but I know better now. Shame I wasted time on them – but I know better now what questions to ask!
Have a great weekend. Joy
Hi Joy,
Fine post about email marketing services.
I have an Aweber account, but have only added an email capture form to my blog this week. (One of your suggestions for my blog, as I recall 😉
Have a great weekend.
Edward
Hi Edward
Glad you found the post helpful and especially pleased you’ve added email capture – your blog is a perfect candidate!
So now I’d better pop over and subscribe 🙂
You have a good weekend too.
Joy
Great article you have here especially for those who are having a hard time implementing email marketing in to their businesses.
Hi Michael,
Glad you liked the article. One of the reasons I recommend Aweber is that they have good training videos and a help desk so those people who are finding it tough to implement email marketing will have the maximum possible support.
I hope you get started with an auto-responder soon – you won’t regret it!
Enjoy the rest of your weekend, Joy
Hello Joy. Seems like a very logical next leg in the online marketing stool. I was just searching for email marketing services until I came across your blog. I must admit that I’m still new to online marketing. In fact, I just set up my site since last week, still in work in progress though. Thanks to my friends who are helping me out. I checked your old posts as well and they are all very helpful. Just bookmarked your site. Thanks again and keep up the good work!
Hi Diane
Glad you found my posts helpful and good luck with the work on your site. Hope you won’t mind a tip, but if you enable commenting people can leave comments for you – there’s a post below about why this is a good thing. Also, adding social media sharing icons lets visitors share your site.
Setting up your email marketing service is the next big job after you’ve set up your site – don’t make my mistake and wait. Do it as soon as possible.
Good luck with your site and I hope to see you again soon.
Joy
Hi Joy, first of all must admit I am torn between whether to continue using AWeber or switch back to MailChimp. I am still having dilemma in this. Hope to settle my thought by this mth end ;p
Hi Sandy
MailChimp is one I never tried funnily enough, given that I tried so many others.
I’m certainly not one to talk about switching because I’ve switched more than once:-(
Hope you make your decision soon as it’s frustrating to have something like that preying on your mind. You’ll feel better once you’ve decided.
Have a great week, Joy
Hi Joy,
First time commenting here, and I must admit I don’t pay attention too much about my mailing list as I should. I was thinking to switch from Feedburner to MailChimp. What do you think?
I agree with you about using the auto-responder and all the benefits. Since I’m adding some services to my blog I find this very important.
Thanks for sharing this post.
~ Dragan
Hi Dragan,
Welcome to my blog, I am so pleased you found me and I hope you will find plenty of helpful information here:-)
Many people neglect their mailing lists – I did too for a long time.
I haven’t used MailChimp myself, so I can’t comment from personal experience, but I know of others who are pleased with the service. The important thing is to start using something as soon as possible.
An auto-responder service will be an important add-on service you can offer to your clients on your new site.
Good luck with your new business,
Joy
Hi Dragan
Isn’t it always the way…. ?
Just when I said I knew people HAPPY with MailChimp, I find James McAllister who doesn’t like them – and while I can’t comment on MailChimp personally, I do trust James’ judgment on many things.
You can connect with him via his interview on my post below. Please tell him I sent you 🙂
Joy