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You spend all that time trying to get people
to your website.
You send emails to your friends, you post on blogs and forums, you
optimize your web site for the search engines, you send out articles
with a link to your web site...
And people start coming.
They look around, see stuff they like, but they are just not ready to
buy yet. Maybe money is tight right now, but next month it will loosen
up. Maybe they don't need your product this month, but they want to get
it two months from now when they have more time to work with it. Maybe
they are just not convinced...yet!
So, they wander off your website...NEVER TO RETURN! Yes, they
bookmarked your page, but how many pages do you have bookmarked that you
never return to? I have hundreds!
In an online business, out of sight is out of mind. If they do not see
you or at least hear from you on a regular basis, you are COMPLETELY
IRRELEVANT TO YOUR CUSTOMERS!
Can I be any more blunt?!?
This is why an automated email system is the life blood of your online
business. It allows you to tell people about your company and what you
offer. It allows you to give away a ton of free information and tips, so
that you are seen as the guru in your niche, and they will come to YOU
when it is time to buy!
It also allows you to follow up on purchases to make sure they got all
the bonuses, see if they have any questions and perhaps get a
testimonial. Then you can recommend a related product. Since you bought
the hamburger, "would you like fries with that?"
But how do we set up a system of automated emails for our newsletter,
our products and our product launches? Well, we need to find an
autoresponder service.
Now let me tell you two things before I recommend an autoresponder
service:
First, DO NOT try to do this in your regular email system like
Outlook or Yahoo. You will have too many emails and you will have
deliverability problems. And if you do not do it right, you will be
reported for SPAMMING and your whole email account could get shut down.
So, hire a professional service to avoid all the headaches.
Second, realize that autoresponders have TWO purposes. The first is to
send automatic emails on a sequential basis. For example, a mini-course
or a newsletter with message 1,2,3, etc.
The second purpose is to send a broadcast message. These go to everyone
on the autoresponder list AT THE SAME TIME, and are perfect for
time sensitive events such as seminars, product launches or
teleconferences.
What does it do?
Aweber is an online autoresponder service that allows you to:
-
create forms to put on
your web page to capture your visitor's email
-
create sequential emails
that will be sent to your visitors at predetermined intervals
-
send out broadcast emails
to all of your visitors at one time
- track how many emails are being opened and how many
actions within your email are being taken (how many are clicking on
the link in your email)
-
create mini-courses,
newsletters, product follow-up and product launches
Things I Like:So, which
company do I recommend for an autoresponder service?
Well, I had been using 1 Shopping Cart for my autoresponder service for
about a year and a half, and I did not want to switch. But I
finally bit
the bullet and bought a subscription to Aweber for my membership site.
Here are the differences I have found...
First, Aweber sends your emails
IMMEDIATELY. That is important when
you are sending a reminder for your teleconference call in 30 minutes.
With 1
Shopping Cart, your email waits in line behind other people's jobs in
front of you. One time, my "30 minutes until the teleseminar" email
arrived
the next morning!
Not a great way to endear yourself to your readers.
Second, Aweber makes it very
EASY to create an email capture box. Just
click a few buttons and it is ready. With 1 Shopping Cart, you create
a form,
copy the html, place the html in about 3 DIFFERENT places in your web
page and hope for the best.
And there is no way to tweak the email capture box if you want to change something. You
have to create the form from scratch again, and place it into your web
page
again and upload your web page to the server again, and...well, you get the
picture.
Aweber ties the email capture form to the particular autoresponder list (VERY handy)
and keeps it on file. When you make changes to the form (like colors, text
or spacing), you do it online in your Aweber account and you don't
have to
change anything on your web page...VERY SLICK!
Third, you can generate
a separate "thank you" email for EACH email
capture form. 1 Shopping Cart only has generic "thank you" pages. No more "Thank you for subscribing to the Family
Entrepreneur
Newsletter" going to your dog newsletter subscribers. Of
course, your dog
newsletter readers have no idea who Family Entrepreneur is. That tends
to make people testy and unsubscribe.
And last, REAL stats for your emails. How many
of your readers opened your email and
how many clicked on the "offer" or link inside? That is
important, because if you have a jump in open rates, you can look at
what made the difference (probably the headline!). You can even track
sales and
see at a glance how many people bought a product as a result of your
email.
Aweber even allows you to SPLIT TEST your emails. Imagine being able
to rotate subject lines to see which emails have a higher open rate.
Or
rotating your "offer" in your emails to see which sales copy generates
more click-throughs and thus, more sales?
Things I Would Change:
Well, the first thing I would change is the double opt-in process...but
of course, that is not Aweber's fault! You see, when people sign up for
your newsletter, an autoresponder service like Aweber sends them a
confirmation email to make sure that they really do want the newsletter
and you are not just spamming them.
Now, here is the rub.
Many people outside of internet marketing circles do not know what a
confirmation email is and may not open it up and click the link EVEN
THOUGH THEY WANT YOUR NEWSLETTER! So, you need to tell them the
confirmation email is coming on your website. Aweber has a great custom
thank you page that does just that...1 Shopping Cart does not. In
Aweber, the one thing I haven't figured out is how to automatically sign up a
customer to my email list when he purchases a product. Since I use 1
Shopping Cart for my shopping cart and they obviously do not want me
using Aweber for my autoresponder, I am kind of stuck.
I have heard that I can send the 1 Shopping Cart purchase
confirmation emails to the parsing function of Aweber and it will extract
the necessary information, but I just do it the easier way and put an
email capture form on the download page. If my customers want their
bonuses, then they have to sign up AND confirm to my Aweber
autorepsonder and the bonuses will come to them in the first email.
A little cumbersome, but it works.
Hopefully this review has helped you make a decision in favor of
autoresponders in general and Aweber specifically.
Rating: (Featuring
the Beefy/Nacho Cheese Rating System)
 
Ratings rank from 1 "T"-bone to 5 "T"-bones. A
really bad product gets nacho cheeses!
Click on the link below for more information on Aweber:
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