sammyj

Hey all.

I need to assemble email marketing campaigns, approx 5 lists that will be subscribed to across maybe 10 inter-related websites.

I want options for the information I collect and I want to be able to cross-promote to the different lists too.

What is the best email marketing / list management software? Must have custom opt-in form generation tools and be simple to install.

I've come across:

Aweber
OfficeAutoPilot (has lead management and task delegation, etc)
iContact
ConstantContact

It needs to be professional for a large organisation to be able to brand and utilise. Are there many delivery problems with Aweber given the email comes from 'xxx@aweber on behalf of xxxx'?

Love some tips and ideas here, anything I should know about email marketing set up, resources i can check, blogs, reports, etc, would be awesome.

Cheers

Sam

marketing2day

I am a big fan of aweber because their emails get through and they have useful stats on clickthrus.

Another email list management solution is 1shoppingcart. I haven't used it for a while because my clients all use aweber. But, when I did use 1shoppingcart, it had additional features, such as it could be set up to automatically take a person from your prospect list and put him on your buyers list once he buys.

mrs spencer

well iv only used getresponse and its working for me

dem0x7

You can try MailChimp, I haven't had any experience with it but it looks pretty good.

Email Marketing and Email List Manager | MailChimp

Anyone have any experience with it?

gcornelisse

I've had both aweber and getresponse accounts. I prefer aweber. I think they're a small notch or two better than getresponse.

jh3000

It is really all in what you need and how you will use it.

First, when you start talking about email crm tools, there are many professional tools, some above what most people on this forum are familiar with or would use, as well as all the popular ones you have mentioned and a few more. Any of the ones you mention may serve your needs, depending on your focus.

I mention this as you say this is for a large professional organization, so I am thinking in those terms for this email.

Aweber and Getresponse-majority of people here probably use one of these as they are easy to use and highly promoted to small beginner marketers through their affiliates. IF you are just looking for basic email, it may be an ok way to go if you are not worried about how your headers read, are ok for smaller lists, when you primarily are collecting email leads from serious prospects and customers through landing pages, so you can followup with them with autoresponder tools. These will provide you tracking of your emails, as will most services now adays. Both have easy usability, but limited in scope. These 2 companies are auto-responder services that have become well known over the years. Basic features, no API, premade to work with a limited number of carts. A great place to start, and both comparable and inexpensive. Personally I prefer getresponse of the 2. Many small internet businesses use both these services successfully and both are certainly popular.

ConstantContact- this service tend to be used by more serious business, and from what I have been told, they focus their tools in that way, they have all the features from aweber and getresponse, with more advanced abilities. I do believe that you gain a bit of list control and ability to import customer lists, as well as a few other features, but I have not used this service, but spent some time investigating it. It is supposed to be similar to icontact which I use. This would be a more option for the more serious business. advanced usage and api

This, like all the following won't have the "From" / "On behalf of" Issues

Icontact-I consider Constant Contact and Icontact direct competitors, and I personally prefer this service. You get more a feel of commercial usability than you do with aweber or getresponse. Tools seem more advanced compared to aweber/getresponse. Although maybe harder to use for some, I find it really easy to use and provide more of what I am looking for in terms of not feeling as restricted to only limited types of use and extra tools. Keep track of all your customers and as well as new prospects(like importing customers and even prospects from other marketing campaigns unlike aweber and getresponse). Tends to be used by more serious or real world business like constant contact. They do include some features which constant contact charges extra for, such as making survey's. Appears to provide better deliverability than aweber or getresponse. If you are looking for a well priced email tool that recognizes more advanced users, this is a good way to go. advanced features, advanced usage, api

sendpepper/OfficeAutoPilot

A lot of online direct marketers are raving about this service, however I have not yet used it. Sendpepper is basically the service for 20k or less, and officeautopilot for those with more. With the pro sendpepper system you can have full features and api access. You are able to also send postcards as well as email, and keep track of all leads in one place. This one would be something to consider, but I would look at if you would use the features first. As for if you should go with sendpepper vs officeautopilot, I am pretty sure that list size is the main difference *if* you get the pro package on sendpepper, however they could tell you more if you spoke with them. They try to provide advanced features, focused towards direct marketing, and make it simple (in relative terms) and their users seem to love.

For a large professional business I would recommend icontact, but you may went to take a look at sendpepper/officeautopilot to compare. By this I mean make a list of needs and questions, contact and speak with reps at both to compare.

sammyj

Wow, thanks Jeffrey and everyone for your great responses. It looks to me that iContact, Mailchimp (seems to compete with iContact) and Sendpepper/OfficeAutoPilot are more along the lines of what I need. Will have to go and do more research on these.

Thanks again for all your help, if anyone else has anything else to add along these lines that would be great. Also again if anyone know any GREAT examples of email marketing for me to get ideas from that would be awesome.

Cheers

Sam

sammyj

By the way, if anyone is looking for a pretty awesome, fully featured email marketing system that is free for up to 500 subscribers, and cheap for higher numbers, I'd recommend Mailchimp. Been looking into it and I reckon it's the way forward, way improved deliverability and professionalism over aWeber in my opinion, plus more functionality.

I;m not associated with these guys, but I'm definitely going to try them out. If they're good enough for Mozilla they're good enough for me. For my own projects not this big one, but they're still in the running.

Thanks for the recommendation Drew!

jh3000

I have to admit I had never heard of mailchimp before so went to check it out. I looked at a few real reviews and looked for forum feedback.

Here is what I found:

-my understanding is that you have to pay extra for autoresponder features

-integration with web 2.0 and email newsletters seem to be their big push and is where they excel over other services.

-smaller service, and only offers web support, no phone support available. This may or many not be an issue, depending on your needs, but some had issues with getting help, and the quality of assistance they received from live support. (most issues are simply ticketed for response). Take that with a grain of salt, as it depends on how important support is to you.

-they don't white label like other services, so keep that in mind if for client

-built in analytics more basic (compared to the better solutions mentioned previously) like aweber and get response probably, but it does integrate with google analytics. Some did like the pie chart of opens, bounces, and clicks.

-While it does look like it has some unique features, some features of icontact and sendpepper are not included.

-does have api and specific integration with some web 2.0 sites like wordpress and facebook.

-everyone seemed to like the clean interface and talk about how simple it is to use.

The issues I would look at are support and pricing, as once you reach 500, they are more than other competitors with similar features.

My opinion would be to still look at icontact or sendpepper/OfficeAutoPilot

disclaimer: Once again this is based off of what I found in research, I have not used mailchimp.

dwatrous

While I've got my gripes about aweber, they do a reasonably good job. I don't care for their "my way or the highway" approach, but I'm technical enough that I can skirt around most of the elements of their service that I don't like.

In the end, I think the real differentiator won't have as much to do with the software as how you use it. Even the best email service will send out crap emails that get virtually no response.

As a side note, I know that many of the marketers that outgrow aweber go to infusionsoft. I haven't used them personally, but I think they are a full service solution, including billing, email, support, etc.

Best of luck.

danes1

I use aweber and have a few different list that I combine with other campaigns. It has worked great for me thus far. Also look into getresponse they have a few additional features that you might find useful. Fyi there is a company called rent a list that for a small fee (differnt options available) can send targeted emails to potential buyers in your niche to drive traffic back to your product and or site. They have worked out great for me.

cypherslock

Don't forget there is Imnica Mail, by our own Richelo Killian. They're getting ready roll out new features and brand new interface. The support is excellent as are the features. And you can NOT beat the price. Keep your eyes peeled on here because I'm almost sure they'll be doing a WSO when they launch!

zivaviv

I am a fan of getresponde so it's another option for you.
Make your best choice that you feel comfort with

activosenred

hi there,
I used in the past Aweber, Getresponse and Icontact. All has very good service, in my opinion Aweber and Icontact was the best.

Actually I use ComF5.
ComF5 is a suit of Mail, Media Library, TV Online, Web template manager and the mos powerfull email-marketing/video-marketing system that I know. Why. Basically because you can integrate video on all your mail marketing campaing and direct email. And the video, reach sure to destination.

Of coures you has also all the capabilities of another competition, statictis, import contact without optin (pleae make sure no to import emails bought. Everybody heat spam, and CoF5 also), unlimited campaing, unlimited autoresponders, custom fields, etc. They has a throttle system for deliver emailmarketing on imported campaing, and if they detect mor than 0.001% of spam, your account will be be cancelled.

The mos important for us that work on internet marketing is that our videos can be deleted or our account cancelled from public platform (Youtube, viddler, vimeo...). The videos on this system are your videos, and don't be deleted if you use it for a commercial purpose. Also You have a lot of space for storage and bandwidth.

I'm spanish, and know what's the problem with other people in my language. They don't speak spanish for support. ComF5 has spanish support by phone, email and live chat.

To finish, the price.
5000 users 39.95
15000 users 99,95 (allow to resell their services)

I don't know to this day nothing with this services and competitive fee.

You can wath more specification directly in their page

AttainResponse

click on buy option (top right) for prices and detailed specification.
If you are insterested, please pm, because the only way to sing up is through a "Certified user".

azizkasam

I am using turboautoresponders.com and I am very happy with it's service...

emmedi

You can customize the FROM email and put whatever email you want, so it looks like coming from your organization.. You can customize everything so subscribers don't know you are managing it with Aweber unless they want to unsubscribe or change their info.

I have used all 3, Aweber, Getresponse and iContact. They are mostly equivalent, even with prices and offer all the features you as to an autoresponder.

There are pros and cons in every service.

AWEBER

Pros

- fast
- flexible management of followups
- stats

Cons

- you cannot import contacts even between Aweber lists unless they re-optin
- very strict and known to close accounts that they think are spamming or behaving wrongly
- quirky interface (the form manager is awful for me)

GETRESPONSE

Pros

- less strict than Aweber regarding optin (I convinced them to import a permission based list I had, but it was only because it was big and we did some tests)
- some multilanguage capability

Cons

- interface (was great before the upgrade 1 year ago)
- dependability (after that upgrade there was a period of instabiity)

ICONTACT

Pros

- they are flexible and let you import your lists (they control you in different ways)
- overall they seem a nicer company to deal with, compared to the other two (esp. Aweber)

Cons

- slower to start the send (plan in advance because it can take time with big lists)
- bizzarre way to manage followups (you need to get used to it)
- too basic statistics and tracking (no tracking with text emails!)
- generally they treat followups like a lesser brother to broadcasts

Today I am using both Aweber and iContact and used Getresponse for a client project. In general, I prefer the iContact interface (but why they had to create that overly featured new editor is beyond me) but I can do things faster with Aweber because I know it better and work "around" it. Getresponse used to be great and cheap, the last update (May 2009) messed things up quite a bit, so now I think less of it.

My advice: at the end of the day, they are all very similar and will get the job done, so try them and see how you feel with the interface and overall working with the service.

Best,

Marco

gcornelisse

Mailchimp.com is free for 2000 subscribers and 12,000 email per month. It seems to have all the features of aweber and my delivery rates seem pretty good too.

James Campbell

** DO NOT GO WITH MAILCHIMP **

This provider seems to be discussed once or twice a week.

They do not allow affiliate marketing of ANY kind, and are definitely not IM friendly.

Please search the forum for the exact reasons why, but if you read their TOS you will see why.

Also, if you choose to you use them for internet marketing purposes. You run the risk of having your account shut down and losing your list.

KunTaoM

Sammyj,

Since started Internet Marketing for the past 5 years, Aweber is the only autoresponder that I used for my online business.

I don't worry about their delivery rate because it one of the most trusted AR by ISP.

Since it has been using by many internet marketer (Guru), at such situation the level of confidence to open email from Aweber (on behalf) is much higher.

My review mybe sound biased, I could not really review other AR (below) since I have never been using them.

1. GetResponse
2. iContact
3. Marketer Choice
etc

I did test using own autoresponder from Interspire but you need external SMTP or Dedicated Server to run email campaign since the shared hosting has email throttle 500/hours.

Hope my input help you on your research.

gcornelisse

James, you are correct. Mailchimp's TOS has several restrictions most of us here would find impossible for our business.