AWeber Vs. Mail Chimp Vs. Other E-mail List

Actually there was a guy here last week who had an account closed with 500,000 subscribers.

The thing is, the CEO of Aweber is a Warrior and he was here answering questions, like he's probably watching this now.

Those horror stories you saw. Did the people who had their accounts locked actually tell you the truth? Did you see the emails they were sending out? Are you sure you have the whole truth? Did you speak to them or did you just "hear" about it?

Just asking because the guy here who had his account closed said the same, then the CEO came on and the guy whose account had been closed said all he'd done was send a dating site email to a Farmville list. Talk about totally unrelated. Naturally some of the list reported it as spam. The guy didn't think he'd done anything wrong. He'll probably now tell people horror stories too.

Which brings me to my point. Maybe those people with the horror stories didn't actually read Awebers TOS, maybe they sent out an email that got an unacceptable complaint rate but they thought it was fine, maybe they think they didn't do anything wrong but in actual fact they did. Maybe the stories are complete BS. What I mean is, there's often 2 sides to most horror stories and most people only hear one of those sides.

...Also and it's highly advisable, you can back up your Aweber list in seconds, so if they did go around randomly deleting accounts, you lose nothing. I do this morning and night.

"For no reason", or "for no reason the poster purported to understand at the time he posted?

I see other people's articles all the time which have been declined by EZA "for no reason", and I'd never have accepted them, either. :p

One person's "for no reason" is another person's "for an obvious reason".

It seems to me that the situation with established, commercial autoresponder companies closing accounts (typically to protect themselves, as they need to do for the good of all their other clients!), and the situation with free autoresponders doing the same thing are not comparable at all. Not quantitatively and not qualitatively, either. Just my impression.

A little, Mary ... I just think (as many others here do, too) that it's very unwise indeed to entrust the safe-keeping and security of your business's greatest, most important and least replaceable asset (your list) to a free autoresponder.

I think that it's right at the start of their internet marketing careers, when people understandably have the least judgement about such situations, and the least awareness of the facts and realities involved, that such mistakes tend to be made.

I suspect that people imagine something along the lines of "Well, I can always start with a free autoresponder until I've made some money, and then make the switch to a better one". Usually, one can't easily do that. Moving established lists from one autoresponder company to another is typically hugely difficult, and very commonly results in all one's subscribers needing - at best - to opt in all over again. Many Warriors have commented here that they've lost between two-thirds and three-quarters of their lists, this way!

Some people just shrug and say "Well, you can always back it up regularly, can't you?". Easily said. What are you going to do with it, after you've "backed it up"? How are you going to import it elsewhere? Who's going to allow you to import it elsewhere, and under what conditions? (People don't always think about these problems. But the experience of Warriors who have actually had to try to do this seems to me to point to its being something of a nightmare and a disaster).

In the case of Mailchimp, the situation is, I submit, very clear to anyone willing to make the effort and click on the links above.

In the case of other "free autoresponders", very much less so, unfortunately.

Typically, those recommending one, in my opinion, are only recent list-builders themselves and may not yet be aware of some of the longer-term pitfalls.

Some of these companies attach to every email their customers send out to their lists a clickable link advertising their own free service! :p It's the autoresponder equivalent of having a little website advising people about <whatever> sitting at Yola, with a big clickable link at the bottom of the page advertising "Get your free website here with Yola". How professional does that look?! :confused: :rolleyes:

Some of these companies also don't yet have a very well established business model. Who really knows if they're still going to be there 3 years later? But if they're not, that can be an absolute disaster to your business!

On previous occasions when I've made that point, someone with a financial interest in a "free autoresponder" business has replied, mentioning that I don't know that Aweber or GetResponse will still be there in 3 years' time, either. I honestly think it's a very silly point, because it should be clear to all of us that the odds are stacked in one's favour if one uses Aweber (for example) and against one if one uses a "free autoresponder".

Aweber costs $1 for the first month and then $19 per month.

That gives you two months to make $20.

What sort of "business" doesn't make $20 in two months?!

If necessary, I'd make a sale or two without having a list, and then start when one has $1.

The set-up costs even for internet marketing businesses which do everything professionally, right from the start, are absolutely minuscule ...

$1 for a .info domain-name, or about $8 for a .com; professional, reliable, advertising-free hosting is available free of charge (byethost.com and others), $1 for the first month's service of a professional, industry-acclaimed autoresponder ... how low can the financial entry-barriers be?! :confused:

There are some ways, actually ... self-hosted solutions using plug-ins and your own little databases, and so on and so forth. I'm not the person to advise you about them ... for myself I probably wouldn't touch them - but I do acknowledge that they may well be a better bet than building a list with a free autoresponder company on whom one would rapidly become dependent without even being a paying customer, because in my view that's the worst and most misguided way to try.

I like being a paying customer. Whatever people say about the "theory", the reality - in my opinion - is that one's always better-placed, that way. It's only when something goes wrong that it matters. And that "only happens all the time".

My perspective only - there are others who disagree, of course. (One or two of them are owners of free autoresponder businesses, and some others, I think, are pretty inexperienced and have maybe not yet encountered any problems - in contrast to others here whose posts can be found with the search function).

Mary,
Going with a free autoresponder is a bit like building a house with concrete to save money. It may be great for a while but then again it may come crashing down loosing you everything!
Your list is (to me and many on here) your most valuable asset and when done right has the ability to earn you 6 or 7 figures for years to come.
On aweber if you sign up you get the first month for $1 anyway. Other autoresponders do deals as well.

Rich

Myob,

I would love to hear a response with fact.

RE: Sorry, I'm just mildly confused.

Yes, I've been selling commercial software since 2005. I created a email marketing program that thousands have used since 1998. Regarding new to internet marketing, what I mean is I am new to finding channels to market my product. I am not new to email marketing. Hope this clarifies things.

Mike

It is not cheaper, and don't even go there unless you are a very experienced marketer and knowledgable in CAN-SPAM Act laws as well as other governing regulations in other countries. The commercial autoresponders (even the free ones) have built-in stop gap measures and policies that will protect you as well as the provider.

I do use this method myself, but only because I have very large lists, and am a well-seasoned email marketer. The cost for a legal set-up (including a dedicated server) is a much greater investment than would be relevant as an option to the OB and is far beyond the scope of even discussing in this thread.

Thank you so much Mike! I knew there had to be a do-it-yourself approach. I am more fond of a do-it-yourself approach because I would like to be able to back up the e-mail addresses on a couple different hard drives. Plus, having access to the e-mails (even perhaps printing a hard copy as a back up) gives me much more security.