Aweber - Auto Responder &
List Management
Name: AWeber
Purpose: Email Auto Responder And List Management
As requested by a number of my readers, here's my
AWeber review and inside infromation..
This review is intended to help you reach a decision on whether AWeber is the right email auto responder for your online business, and whether you need one in the first place.
Why would I need an auto responder in the first place?
An auto responder is used and needed in online business, to help
you to build lists of customers and prospective customers so that
you can keep in touch and soft-sell your products or services, if
that is what your business is about.
Also thinking of the long term, if you wanted ever wanted to sell your
online business, your customer list would be one of your most valuable
assets, so you will need to be collecting the email addresses of your target
market from day one.
Why use AWeber Auto Responder?
The three main reasons why I would recommend AWeber as a list building and management service:
Email Deliverability
Even though we have no way of proving this, but since we’ve read it in many places from different sources, I’ll mention it here. There is a big concern in email marketing circles about mail deliverability, which refers to whether emails sent (broadcast) to your lists make it through. The problem is a lot of mail servers block mass emails sent out and unless the email responder service provider has pre-arranged to be white listed your mail won’t get through. That’s pretty detrimental to any online company.
AWeber has the enviable record of the highest percentage of email deliverability, which means AWeber is doing a pretty good job to make sure your emails actually do make it to your customers. This fact alone is enough of a reason to choose them as your auto responder provider, however moving on.
Functions
There is always a learning curve to using an email auto responder, but you will find that with any system and you just have to learn your way through. We found AWeber’s system a lot less clunky than some other we’ve checked out, Marketers Choice for example. It’s simple in design with all the core features available through tabs at the top. It takes little time of playing around with the system to get the hang of it.
One of the best features is when someone unsubscribes for one of your lists. Yes this is not a good thing but what makes it a good thing is that they are given the opportunity to leave a comment telling you why they choose to leave your list. As a business owner I’m sure you know how valuable feedback like this can be. It’s so nice to know why someone doesn’t find what you do satisfactory and often leads to some big improvements in what you do simply because you didn’t realize there was a problem until someone told you about it.
How I Use AWeber myself
Currently www. Web Business Reviews .com uses AWeber for all of its online promotions and it controls all our email lists. We use Aweber to distribute our newsletters to all our subscribers on a week-by-week basis and we can also do once-off broadcasts whenever we need to.
A new feature AWeber recently implemented is an RSS-to-email service. This service is very helpful because we can create an email mailing list for people who want to stay up to date with our blogs via email. We just plug in our RSS feed; tell AWeber how many blog articles to send out in each broadcast and it will automatically control the mailing list. The service is not branded either and we have complete control over the presentation of the broadcast emails which makes it superior to almost all the other RSS to email services out there.
I also have various other small lists to keep in touch with certain groups. It makes it a lot easier to control your email contacts. From a sales point of view it’s a very powerful resource because it keeps you connected with your prospects and clients.
How Technical Is AWeber?
It took us about 1-2 hours collectively to master AWeber. AWeber has been built to be as “cut and paste” as possible and you certainly do not need to know HTML to implement it. Most of the interface is simple forms you fill out and once you have a play you will understand how everything works. Of course there is a very good helpdesk and live support if you need it.
If you are not familiar with web basics like online forms you may need help. Read through the instructional materials now and then until you get the hang of it – We did this a few times when we first started using the system.
Price
AWeber provides a no obligation $1 trial option, which is great for testing their service.
Since we knew we were going to use email lists extensively in the future we chose the yearly option with the heaviest discount (it works out to be $15USD per month). There is a money back guarantee so if we didn’t like the service we knew we could get a refund, no questions asked.
Choosing An Email Auto responder
I don’t think of email auto responders as the most complex programs yet they are a vital tool for successful online business. The main considerations are: Email Deliverability, Reputation and Ease Of Use – AWeber satisfies us on all counts.
I would highly recommend before choosing any auto responder, that you use your own due diligence and read forums and ask for opinions from current customers. Narrow down your list of potential providers based on your most important criteria and then test one out. Remember making a purchase doesn’t lock you in; most online companies offer 30 day money back guarantees (just make sure there is one before buying). Always opt for a trial first.