rhlduncan

Ok well a couple days ago I was introduced to an autoresponder called listwire. It offers a free service. It's pretty new. I mean so new that it hasn't even been ranked in google. I want to know if anybody has ever heard of it? And if so, what you think? Will it last or will it plummet?

Rahel

salegurus

I don't know it looks ok, but the only way to rell would be to test the service.

Paleochora

It is a powerful new tool. Some nice features only found on the expensive big boys' services.

Personally, I would say it is maybe best for IM niche list building rather than non-IM niches but that's just my opinion. I have been testing it and it works great and have just started using it on a couple of new sites.

Its early days to offer a full review but I am confident it will tick all of the boxes. The support is great and friendly. Give it a whirl!

As Gary Ambrose is the guy (well, one of the guys) behind it, I think it will be very, very unlikely if this goes south.

Alexa Smith

Nice site - clean, honest-looking approach.

For myself, I couldn't possibly risk a "brand new service" just because my own assessment, on the basis of the very limited information I have, is that Aweber are less likely to go south than they are.

I didn't watch all the video, because I found the music so unpleasant and offputting that I wasn't willing to struggle to hear the guy (what on earth possessed them to imagine that that music was a good idea?!).

But during the first 2 or 3 minutes that I did see, he didn't address at all the "number one thing I wanted/needed to know", which is "How are they going to remain in business? What's their income source?". I'd need a very good answer to that before trying them, myself. And if they're aiming at internet marketers, that will surely be "the uppermost question"? The last thing anyone wants is to build a list and lose it.

Maybe he dealt with that later in the video, but if so, I missed it. It would have been nice to know at the start how long the video ran for!

Gasen

I browsed through their terms. It mentions an aff prog. I assume that the "free" part will only be during the beta stage.

jbode

I think it's always hard to tell if a new autoresponder is any good or not... the only way to really know is with testing on a big list - I don't need another autoresponder, but I look forward to finding out more opinions on it for the sake of help people on my list choose the right autoresponder for them

webbie

The problem with any new autoresponder service like this is:

#1) Is there support?
#2) If they go out of business, can I take my list with me?

It will cost me time and money to build my list so...

Even if I can take my list with me, if they close, I can't just upload it to another service because most services (including Aweber) require double-optin subs so they will all have to opt-in again. The "re-optin" rates are horrible in general. So you'll have to basically start building your list all over again... unless...

... You decide to run your own dedicated mail server (not recommended for most people).

If I only have a few dozen subscribers it's no big deal, but if it's a couple of thousand or more than that then the fact that they are new and un-proven will be a problem for me.

If you're just starting out and need a 'free' solution I guess it might work for you but you're better off thinking long-term and using a more established and reliable service.

Just my 2 cents.

Gary_The_Ace

Hey all,

I'm not going anywhere, and neither is List Wire ... I've been in the IM space since 1998, and was one of the original members of this forum.

It's free, period. No upgrade, at any point, ever ...

Just to clarify. Not now, not after beta, not in a year, not in two years ... not in ten years. Not EVER!

How do I plan on monetizing the thing? Well, I can't exactly reveal all my secrets, now can I?

That said, the only "ad" in your outbound messages will be a referral link for List Wire...

Are we currently new? Yeah, there's not a heck of a lot we can do about that though ... it'll just take a little time. That said, this isn't a "new idea" for me. If you have the interview from the original Butterfly Marketing release, from way back in January in 2006, I mention List Wire, by that specific name, in that interview ...

I didn't just cook this thing up, and throw it out there ... it's been in the works for nearly 5 years now. Obviously, I don't plan on it going anywhere, anytime in the forseeable future.

- Gary Ambrose

Gary_The_Ace

Stop being such a skeptic. It's free ... period.

- G

Terri LC

I quite like the ease of use and the link to Listwire is no big deal.

I appreciate you clarifying the 0 cost Gary.....great service!

Thank you!


TLC

Gary_The_Ace

I'll take it.

We're not going after ANYONE with an existing autoresponder account at any current service ... and, if you're happy with Aweber, stick with them. We fully expect thousands of our clients to "graduate" of sorts to another solution at some point in the future ... we're most likely not for you.[/QUOTE]

I love the music, and it's actually at a lower volume than I'd like ... that said, you're not the only one to complain about it.

Honestly, I really don't care all that much. It's fine for now, and that's all that matters ...

That said, If you couldn't stick it out for a 4 minute video, you're probably not someone who was REALLY looking for a free autoresponder in the first place ...

Why on earth would I reveal every source I plan on using to monetize the thing? That's crazy talk ...

Here's what you need to know. I won't advertise in your messages with the exception of a referral link for List Wire ... that's it, ever.

I don't mail to your list, I don't share the leads with you ... they're YOUR leads. I'm not sure why anyone would think I'd be doing this, but just putting it out there.

As for "how we're going to remain in business". I've been in this business longer than 99.9% of everyone on this forum, and will likely outlast a good 99% of the people here right now ...

I wouldn't have put 4+ years into a site that wasn't going to work ... I had PLENTY of time to think about it, and ran the ideas over with a lot of my mastermind groups. Not a single person thought I'd go out of business, in fact, they all thought I'd likely grow faster than my current staff allows.

And, it's looking like they were right.

Longer than you were willing to watch.

-G

Paleochora

While I can see your point here, remember that Aweber etc etc were all new services themselves not that long ago. They entered the market when there was less competition and were able to decide upon a cost for their services.

More recently, there have been newer players which offer a reliable service at half the cost of the big boys. Suddenly the market starts to change with greater competition.

As an example; in my town 3 or4 years back, you paid a couple of Euros an hour to connect to wifi at the few cafes & bars which offered it (including my own place at the time). Now it is free everywhere. The quality of the connection hasn't gone down, in fact it got better. Markets change.

Not to take anything away from Gary & the team who have done an excellent job in putting this together, what we are actually talking about is a few dedicated servers, code to make things happen, people to fix things if they don't happen, customer support and...er...thats it really. So if Listwire has all of those things (which it has) and Gary (who is nobody's fool) has a way of making it work financially whilst offering the service for free, why wouldnt it be as good a bet as Aweber and all the others?

I am not saying Listwire will be any better than the expensive, established outfits but why does everybody jump to the conclusion that Listwires' service will be any worse than anyone elses?

From my experience with Listwire so far, the only thing it lacks is a track record. Just like Aweber et al. lacked a few years ago.

Dennis Gaskill

Gary, in all fairness, Alexa raised some good points. There have been dozens, if not hundreds, of free web hosts and autoresponders that one day just disappear. No one wants to spend a year or years list building and lose it because the company couldn't sustain it's free model.

Of course, it's always possible that any company could go out of business, but a prudent person can and should question how a new company can survive long term without a visible source of income. Sustainability is a very reasonable concern for any serious business owner. I respect your right to keep proprietary information confidential if that's the case, but questioning long term viability of "free" is not crazy talk.

You're basically asking people who don't know you to trust you based on your word, at least in this thread. While I might be able to say I like your enthusiasm, and I might be able to say I believe you have good intentions, there's no way I can say I trust your vision and business model because you aren't giving us a look at either.

Having said that, I might consider using your service in some offbeat niche I wanted to test and wasn't afraid of losing a list in. I'm not saying I'd rule it out, but I would be very careful about it.

Have you been working with the major ISP's to assure the highest deliverability possible? I guess I should go watch the video before slinging a bunch of questions at you. I didn't need to see the video though, to know you were being a little elusive and perhaps coy about legitimate concerns.

Edit: Okay, I watched the video and checked the features page. It seems impressive enough. Does you service have mail merge capabilities? Also, I agree with others, the music is not only too loud, it distracts from the message. I couldn't understand everything you were saying. Seriously, don't take that personally, it's not a knock on your music taste, it's just not serving you well, IMHO.

Gary_The_Ace

Sure there have, but there have been absolutely ZERO released by a guy with my credentials, and history in the email marketing, and internet marketing arenas ...

Let me put it to you this way ... the dedicated servers are paid for. And, even if monetization source, one, or two, or three, or four, or five doesn't work, I'll find something that does without putting ads in the outbound emails. I'm think I'm a pretty sharp marketer ... and I've released quite a few guides and courses on email marketing over the years.

That's a hint ... do you think I MIGHT have a market for those anywhere?

I'm not asking you to trust me ... you're not my market.

Either way, not a big deal on my end ... as I said, you're not my market.

We're deadly serious on that end. And without getting into the fun email technology terms, I'll just say that we have ALL of our bases covered ... even more so than a few of the more well known paid services out there. ( and no, I'm not hinting at Aweber or GetResponse )

Yeah, no worries ... it's loud, but it's not going to be changed for probably a month or so due to time constraints, and putting the focus on more pressing things.

So, I'm not really going to worry about something I know is going to change.

But, to sum this all up ...

My market isn't the person with an existing list, or a lot of knowledge in the email marketing space ... I actually talked with Tom and Sean at Aweber about this very service at the Underground seminar a few years back, and for a while.

They're not concerned about it because they know, as much as I do, that we're not really in the same business, even though from the outside, it might appear that we are ...

- G

Gary_The_Ace

Just wanted to confirm ... yes, we're on multiple dedicated servers, and at least one of them is an email specific appliance.

And yes, we have the people to deal with the code ... anyone who has been on our forum knows we've been killing bugs left and right since we went into the beta phase. My main developer is someone I've been working with for 8 years now, and he lives just a couple of miles away. Obviously, we're both in this for the long haul.

- G

gcintermed

I'd feel a lot better about this if I knew where the "strings" were attached. No one offers anything for free without expecting to make money somewhere. By not revealing how you're going to monetize this, you leave us to imagine worst case scenarios. Sorry, but the hidden business model does not exactly inspire trust. It was the one thing that kept me from signing up...and the old adage, "If it seems too good to be true..."

If your intent is to market training courses or other products and services to us, i.e. if you're using this to build YOUR list, that is legitimate. Why not just say so?

Gary_The_Ace

Well, I'm sorry you feel that way, but there won't be any ads in your messages, there won't be any upgrade fees, and we're not charging anything to deliver the email ... that's really all that you should be concerned with.

Does the service work? And, are we doing what we promised ... in terms of where all of the revenue is going to come from, well, there isn't a business on the planet that just flat out reveals every source of revenue unless they're trying to get funded.

If you don't feel confident, that's fine, and you're more than welcome to feel that way ... that said, we've had over 5,000 people sign up in under a month, and we're already profitable. Give it a shot, and if you don't like it there are plenty of other options out there.

I'm not trying to sell anyone on using the service ... I know that, over time, our reputation will do that for me.

- Gary

allrok

I have just Googled their site and find a grerat services like: list building, Automated Follow-Up Marketing Campaigns, Broadcast & One-Time Messages, Hit The Inbox.
Thanks @rhlduncan for sharing with us.

Sadhu

Hi Gary , I'm on your list 2 years now and I think I have good overview. I respect your style and offer but with LimeWire you overpowered all other of you campaigns I saw.

I just signed so I cant say from experience BUT I just know you do deliver what you promise and I have no reason to doubt that now with LimeWire.

In fact this is really smart move Gary . Tons of people out there DO NOT HAVE or DO NOT WANT to invest in Aweber , GR etc. so I'm convinced you will get a HUGE number of members very soon.

I hope you count on that ....

DJL

I set up my first Listwire autoresponder today. The process was easy and quick, and everything appears to be functioning exactly as expected. Aside from that, Listwire has a user forum with plenty of members who go out of their way to be helpful.

Votoshka

So... I signed up for Email Aces yesterday (basic plan) and today learned about Listwire. It seems like EXACTLY the same thing, with the same owner... but FREE!

So, I've signed up for Listwire too... to give it a test!

Still, I am wondering why I would stay with Email Aces if I can get the same thing for free?? It seems to me as if Gary would be losing out by doing this! (Although I'm sure he's planned it well!) However, given I don't already have a list, there doesn't seem much benefit in staying with a paid AR if I can get the same service for free. There WOULD be a benefit, obviously, if I had a list already. But as I don't have a list...

Any advice anyone?? Should I stick with the paid AR (where, at the moment, I get only one autoresponder, and eventually I'll need to upgrade), or should I go with the free version?? I know some people will say paid, but I can't see a benefit with sticking with the paid one if I get everything I need with the free one... I have tested both, and they both seem fairly similar (I like Email Aces better for a couple of things, but I also like Listwire in a couple of other ways).

rypher21

i havent tried it..but it seems good so i'll check it out and see it myself

2d0k

I just signed-up, yet the question of how will Listwire sustain itself, given that it's free, keeps bugging me..

workfromhomejobs

Well. My best guess is listwire could make money thru the one time offer at sign up and build its on list exponentially. So perhaps it is a win-win situation.

2d0k

I guess I finally know how Listwire earns income. There are two ways I guess, when someone confirms his subscription, he is directed to a confirmation page with links (positioned at the right side of the page) to affiliate pages, and when he stops his subscription, the same thing happens..

I could be wrong though..

Gary_The_Ace

Hey Guys,

Just a quick update... we're up over 10,000 users at this point, and we haven't asked a single person to send a promotion out for us. So, 100% viral, and word of mouth growth...

Give it a look, I think you'll dig it.

- Gary Ambrose
List Wire

Richnana

Just signed up with listwire. In fact, I submitted the same question earlier today. I am using it on one of my sites. will report back how it is going.

kb24

I am thinking about signing up but I have a few questions:

Will I be able to create seperate lists in different niches?

Can I have an unlimited amount of subscribers?

The people that I get on my list will I be able to seperate the "buyers" from the "information seekers"..

hopefully.. someone can answer these questions

Frank Ruffoni

Gary, thank you for creating this free auto-responder. I for one greatly appreciate it. This is truly a great service, especially for newbies who don't have a list already. I signed up and found List Wire to be very easy to use and implement.

Again, Thanks!

Frank

Gary_The_Ace

Of course...

Yup.

Not in an automated way, but you're free to ask them to subscribe to another of
your lists on purchase ... this is pretty common.

-Gary

kb24

Have another question about listwire: say I have 100 people signed up to my list.. and I only wanted to send a message out to 25-50 prospects would I be able to do that?

Randy Smith

To Answer the first poster question....

Yep - heard of it (I co-own an autoresponder service so I make it my business to know take a look at what else is being offered)

Will it stay around - Anyones guess... BUT the fact that Gary Ambrose has been around for a long long time (I've been in IM for ten years) and I've seen plenty of his sites make a lot of money, would lead me to think that he has this well planned to ensure he makes money somewhere along the line!

Gary also own email aces - another paid autoresponder, as well as other sites I've seen or been a member of over the years ... TripleYourList, YourLuckyList, ListBandit etc. - and has run seminars, bootcamps, and JV 'ed with many of the big names most people recognize ...

I still wouldn't go with a free service - but I am biased (totally), just because I know the running costs and effort required to run a good service. I also lost two lists years ago with free services before joining a paid service!
But if I were to want a free service today - I would probably give ListWire a try just because I know Gary has been around forever and a day!

Hope that answers the initial question
(without the usual sheep like remarks about the 'must have' service so many 3 month long experienced marketers claim to know is the best)
Apologies in advance to those with a few years under their belt who also use the brand leader... hey I used them myself for years too! (obviously not now...lol)


Randy

kb24

So Mr Ambrose can you answer my question?

Gary_The_Ace

I don't want this to turn into a support forum for List Wire, that's not fair to anyone ... that said, if you want to mail to a part of your list only, we don't do that. The solution is to segment prospects onto separate lists when they sign up.

-Gary Ambrose
List Wire

P.S. If anyone else has any questions, remember ... the site is free. Just sign up, and you'll find the answer your looking for.

Thomas Michal

It's free you just have to sit through a 30 minute sales pitch on a list building course that runs like $200 or something

And I'm pretty sure you must leave a logo link to listwire on the bottom of your optin

natorob

Just now trying out ListWire for a brand new list and I'll also post results as I go along.

So far, I've found that...

The interface is clean and easy to navigate
Uploading my messages is no more work than with Aweber
The first 100 odd subscribers to this new list are getting their follow up exactly like a paid service

I'll use this for while, and continue to add updates as I come across them.

But overall, for someone just starting out, I don't see why this would not be a very attractive service.

After all, the price is right; and a new member just learning about list building and doing for the first time can learn some stuf here as well....

Jassim

What's the real catch here? Please tell me Is there any restrictions with number of subscribers we can have or number of list we can create?

Jassim

Gary_The_Ace

Hey Jassim,

There is no "real catch" here ... which I know is hard to believe, but times have changed. You used to have to pay thousands of dollars a day to stream video, now you can do it for free. You used to have to pay for blogging, now it's free ... domain names used to cost $70 a pop, and hosting ran several hundred dollars a month at one point.

Hardware costs have come down dramatically, while server power has gone up. And, a lot of the grey areas of email delivery have become much more clear over the past 4-5 years, so we don't need to have as many people on staff as we used to...

As has been mentioned by plenty of others in this thread, I've been around for a long, long time ... all using my real name, and if you search around, you'll find that I don't have people out there calling me a scammer, or questioning my ethics.

List Wire is the result of hearing thousands of people tell me they need a free autoresponder service, something to get started with ... and as I stated above, I'm sure that people will eventually "graduate" to a more advanced service at some point in their careers, but it's not going anywhere.

We put more than 3 years into development (on and off), which anyone can verify themselves if they have the original Butterfly Marketing CD interview I did ... I mention List Wire, by name, in that interview which was recorded in December of 2005. This wasn't something we created on a whim, it' something we believe in, and it's going to be around for a long, long time...

Thanks,
Gary Ambrose

Gary_The_Ace

That's not required ... but, we'd appreciate it if you left the logo on our optin forms. We don't pay for advertising, and if you like the service, we'd love you to spread the word. I don't know what the purpose of you post was, but let's go over some facts...

If you want to use YouTube, you're going to be forced to include their logo, and use their player...

If you want to use a blogger blog, or a squidoo lens, you're going to be forced to include their logo... if you include Google's custom search on your site, you're going to include their logo. I don't think we're doing anything out of line in the slightest...

That said, if you'd like to remove the logo, you're free to modify the forms in any way you'd like... we do allow you the option to modify the HTML on your own.

As for the sales pitch ... if you're not used to seeing offers made, especially on a free service, you might be in the wrong field. It's a free service, but we're not a charity.

-Gary

Jassim

Hi Gary,

But u still didn't answered my question. I was asked are they any restriction on having number of subscribers in total & any restriction in creating as many list we want. Because i seen only 12 list we can create inside members area.

Please can you explain this little more.

Jassim

Gary_The_Ace

Only 12 lists? Do you currently have more than 12 lists?

And this is answered on the site already ... as long as people subscribe through our system, you're unlimited on subscribers.

-G

Clubland

Hi Gary,

I totally understand how your making money on listwire.

I do not use listwire - yet! However, i am very intrigue to use it, for a starter base for new projects.

The thing is, yeah, i have only really been in the IM field for about 3 years, but i have learnt a great deal in that time. But, only really used email marketing for the past 10-11 months or so.

In those three years, i have came across some unique ways to make money. And to be honest, some ways are so unique that most people don't even know its even there.

So, my hat goes off to you. Because at writing this, listwire is still going. And also, i have been viewing other forums, and they don't like it one bit. But, to hell with them.

So, to your success.

Gary_The_Ace

You lost me on this one... care to share?

-Gary

Clubland

Yes i will.

OTO's! In this day and age, everyone thinks things are free. Well, things that are free, aren't free, there are always catches.

For example, someone is giving away hand cream, but you have to pay for s+h. Nothing is free these days.

There is always a catch, but with your listwire, its the OTO.

So, my reasoning about my last post begs the question, how many people lose out on using OTO's?

Its common sense really.

And Gary, great OTO though. And to think you said you weren't going to do it. And everyone asked where is your OTO, when you let some people trial listwire.

There are a lot of people out there, cursing you for using the OTO format for this. But, i think its great.

There is one more thing. There are a lot of people out there wondering why people using affiliate links for something that is free. Well, if only they took a look to find out.

Gary_The_Ace

Can't please everyone.

Yeah, there's an OTO, but if people would bother listening to the video for about a minute, they'd see that there's no upgrade for List Wire, and that the OTO is for some information products that are related to list building... so, it's still a free service, and taking the OTO, or declining it has no bearing on your account status.

As for the affiliate links... yeah, a few people are confused how they'd earn money with a free service, but that's not all that affiliate links are useful for... they can also be used to earn credits, track ad results, and a number of other things.

So basically, the people complaining think there's some kind of catch, even though there isn't one... it's free, just as I said... it's unfortunate that even when you're 100% up front and honest, people still don't believe you.

-Gary Ambrose

gcintermed

Well, it's been around long enough to convince me to give it a try. I'm new to list building, so as a "starter system", I'd prefer something free.

That said, there's still the perception that you're NOT being "100% up front" by being secretive about your business model. From a marketing point of view, I think you'd be better off to have an explanation, even if it is not the real one, than to say it is a secret.

If I offered you a car for free, told you I'd make money from it, but didn't tell you how, wouldn't you be suspicious? But if I offered you the same car for free and told you I can afford to do this because a certain percentage will buy my engine upgrade, you'd likely have fewer hesitations.

Just some user feedback

Clubland

Like you said, can't please everyone.

Anyway, good luck with it. I have just started using it, and looking good so far.

I'm just going to use it for testing the waters of certain campaigns that i think might be profitable. And do not want to add more lists to aweber if not profitable.

Back to it now.

kurttasche

I've been using ListWire for a few years now. At first, I noticed a few bugs and I had questions about the "how's" and "why's" regarding certain things. But, overall, I am very happy with the service at ListWire.

Even though my main A.R is Aweber, there are some things that Aweber doesn't let you do (like add leads through co reg services). I've found ListWire to be a great alternative.

stanli

Marketers would be way ahead, especially in a forum like this, to be more upfront and direct in their responses. After a lot of beating around the bush, facts eventually emerge. It's better if the facts are offered immediately as a response to the question and are supported by the observations and experiences of users, rather than the other way around. Makes them look sneaky and predatory rather than the good examples they often have been in many ways.

Sell

I have had an account with Listwire for a year, and it is free, but where does the money to pay for Listwire bills come from?

I think it is the emails(1 a day) to Listwire members from Listwire that pays the bills, i hope these emails are not going to my Listwire subscribers as well.