By Eric T Seil
Have you ever thought about how you want to keep in touch with your readers on your website? If you run a business and have a website, (no matter what type of business), it's crucial that you keep in touch with your clients or readers. Staying in touch with your customers is important to maintain a great relationship so that they know you want to continue doing business with them. For instance, you might have new products to offer, and they may consider using those products later on. You can do this in the form of weekly/monthly newsletters where they can stay updated with you services. In this review, I'm going to briefly go over a few choices I think have best quality and deliver great newsletters to your readers. As usual, I'll go over three great choices: ActiveCampaign, GetResponse, and Aweber. Also, I will recommend which one has the best value and will benefit long-term in email marketing skills.
ACTIVECAMPAIGN
Founded in 2003, ActiveCampaign provides great email marketing services, especially for small businesses. This company is good at setting up all types of marketing campaigns, along with nice features for beginners and experienced marketers. They seem to focus on individuals and small businesses because they are one of the few companies that have good starting prices for those just beginning out. Their lowest prices begin at $9/month (for up to 500 contacts/subscribers); however, you can sign up for free during the first month of their services. There are other plans they have for small businesses, along with enterprise plans as well. But if you were just starting out, the small business plans would be great if you're looking for affordable options at the moment.
ActiveCampaign has a very easy setup process to get your marketing campaign going. Once you are set up, you can make any type of email campaign that includes autoresponders, RSS emails, and A/B split tests (not all companies have these essential features). With their easy setup, you can also build customs forms to put on your website. Most importantly, you can add these to your social media accounts if you want your followers to connect faster. In addition, the contact lists can be imported from many sources; for instance, storing lists can be formatted through CSV, XLS, and TXT.
To help you continue getting started, ActiveCampaign provides great starter resources that are helpful for beginners. To get the most out of your experience, you can get one-on-one training with experts, and sit through live interactive webinars to learn more about their services. Experts are also active on social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Google +) as well. This seems obvious since more people are using social media to communicate with each other. Also, they give user guides and video tutorials that can guide you step by step to setting up your marketing campaigns. So ActiveCampaign has plenty of resources to help people get on a roll and stay in touch with their readers.
But there are some things they lack from some marketing companies. Some things they're missing are some contact management features; for instance, contact lists can't be merged into one big list, or create small groups in a larger list. Another thing to note is they have no survey creation tool. They use to have a tool available to everyone, but it's now disabled particularly for new users today. As of the moment, you can pay to get this type of feature if you want to make surveys for your readers. But if you don't want to pay extra, you may want to look elsewhere other than ActiveCampaign.
GETRESPONSE
The company's CEO, Simon Grabowski, founded GetResponse in 1999. Grabowski started this business in his father's garage/attic with only $200 cash, and slowly went up the ladder. GetResponse has become one of the most popular companies for simple email marketing today. Through their flagship product, Implix, the company operates internationally (in 14 languages), and serves over 350,00 customers worldwide. The company has great features, and comes with advanced options than most email marketing companies offer.
Some things that stand out from other companies include GetResponse having a variety of email templates to create website newsletters. Their templates have modern, relevant designs to how websites should look today; for instance, this includes dashboards, email editors, and analytical charts (which are easy to navigate). One awesome feature is their email creator, which gives quick screenshots of emails (including Gmail and Outlook). This is very convenient and less time consuming when people need to check their email, plus, you can get a free trial for the first month you take advantage of it. In addition, they have a feature called the landing page creator, where you can create and publish landing pages for your readers to instantly check on updates for your business. This is great for customers to learn more information about your company, and encourages your readers to buy the products you may be offering.
Some things GetResponse lacks include not having some event management features. For example, if you wanted to create an advertisement/banner for a special event (meeting/webinar), there are no features to show how you can create this in an effective way to your readers. If you do this occasionally, this is important if you want to host events and inform your readers about it. If that is the case, you may want to look elsewhere. Another thing is a little disadvantage with the costs to use their services. The cost of signing up ($15/month) is slightly higher than what beginners are looking for to start out with. But if looking at the long-term outcome, it's still great to save money overall.
AWEBER
AWeber is a well-known company that provides opt-in email marketing services for individuals and business owners (or as they say, they're for the busy entrepreneurs). Founded in 1998 by Tom Kulzer, AWeber is used by more than 120,00 small business owners, bloggers, and entrepreneurs. One thing where AWeber stands out from others is they're known for developing the original autoresponder provider. The autoresponder is a quick, convenient way to get emails (newsletters) out to your readers immediately. I've tried AWeber's services (and know others who used it), and they're satisfied with what AWeber has to offer for email marketing.
AWeber's autoresponder tool allows you to make an automatic process of sending out emails to your subscribers right away.
I think the capabilities of this tool are phenomenal and work great. AWeber also has plenty of integration options, which includes sign-up forms on social media sites. As I mentioned, this makes it easier for subscribers to view immediately. On a regular basis, they have live webinars with real-time instruction, and have a question and answer (Q & A) segment to follow up on questions people may have on their services. In addition, they provide an introductory course for new users to get a jumpstart on their first marketing campaign. One more thing to mention is they have easy access to reports in to understanding how subscribers interact with your regular email updates to them. This is great because these reports can give you good feedback, and figure out how to make more effective campaigns if you need to make some improvements.
Unfortunately, unlike some email marketing services, AWeber's pricing is a little higher than what most beginners are looking for. Plus, they have no free trial if you're just curious to try their services, but you would start out with a $1 trial for the first month. After paying $1 for the first month, their lowest price starts at $19/month (up to 500 subscribers), or $194 annually. That's much higher on a monthly basis, and it sure doesn't sound appealing for those who are on a limited budget (I know this is how I feel these days). Also, AWeber have limited data importing capabilities; for instance, they don't have accounting programs or online customer management services such as Zoho or Salesforce. This may be a problem for those who are starting out, but not a problem if you continue using AWeber.
Recommendation: GETRESPONSE
At this point, I'm still on the fence whether or not I want to purchase email marketing, so I'm still figuring it out but probably will use it at some point. But after going through the reviews, I believe GetResponse is the best choice based on the overall experience (quality, design/format, customer service, etc.) people have had with the services. Clearly, I believe it's the best value option for those who want to save a lot of money in the long-term. Even though it's a little higher for an entry-level price, it's worth it because GetResponse has great quality and some advanced features than other companies. As I mentioned earlier, email marketing is crucial if you're running a business, and I want to be sure you make a well-informed decision on how to stay connected with your customers. Hopefully, this review was helpful, and that you enjoy using whichever services will work best for your needs and business services.
If you would like more information about email marketing, please visit my website.
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