July 2, 2008
How to pick an autoresponder service, and avoid pitfalls
Choosing an autoresponder service is a critical business decision. A mailing list company can break or make your business ventures. If you have joined an inferior service, your messages may not be able to reach your prospects and your marketing efforts are wasted. Worst of all, the losses are proxied and not easily measured. Thus in this article, I have listed out criteria you should always bear in mind when you select an autoresponder service.
First and foremost, deliverability is the most important factor. Consider the scenario: if your message is routed to the spam folder by ISP, your prospects cannot read it. And even worse, your reputation is ruined as you are on par with other spammers. Even if you take all the spam policies into account, your email cannot get through when the IP source of your service provider is blacklisted. While the case is rather extreme, you have to be wary about the reputation of the service. Read reviews for autoresponders you are interested. On this regard, I recommend GetResponse or Aweber, which are highly reputated in the industry.
Beside deliverability, you also need to take note of the spam policy. National laws vary from one country to another. In United States, the rule is particularly strict, as it can relate to criminal offences. For instance, you are advised to append your own mail address to every email you send. Usually, you also need to enforce double opt-ins for subscriptions. The restriction for list transfer is another issue. Be sure to familiarize yourself with the terms of service of your choice of autoresponders. But in practice, if you generate leads from United States, there are not many options for you to get around the issue.
Definitely, there are also features you wish to look for in mind. These include number of subscribers, messages; price is a concern as well. But most importantly, customer service is one big issue. If you experience technical problems or receive complaints, you want quick and rapid support from the staff.
Building a list is a vital process in the internet marketing industry. And you usually stay with the same autoresponder service for the whole business life span. You can't swap the list from one service to another in case of problems. Prospects will be annoyed and the loss is unpredictable. Thus if you look for a once-and-for-all solution in your email marketing, GetResponse and Aweber will be a definite choice. Don't take my words for it, test drive their services yourself. They offer 30 day money back guarantee, and you have nothing to lose.
The links:
GetResponse: http://go.hotebiz.com/gr
Aweber: http://go.hotebiz.com/aweber
Filed under Mailing List by Ken
























