Doing it manually instead of an autoresponder?

Yip, this is correct. Also your delivery rates will be higher with an autoresponder as they have a much better setup to get through spam filters.

Dunno about the CAN SPAM stuff. I've sent emails to multiple-thousand recipients from Gmail, no worries, when my AR had some 'unscheduled maintenance'.

I'm more inclined to agree with the above point. Too much work. Because this is the easy life, innit?

Cheers,
Steve

Dude. Here is a link to a video tutorial about how to set up your own autoresponder on your server (hosting account - whatever the f**k), using a free autoresponder script.

I do believe this is what you want.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/44136186/Ins...rOwnServer.zip

I'll piggy back off of Chrissy's post as it is very true. I started it this way when I first put up my sites. The website editor I was using had a subscriber box, but, it doesn't have the ability of creating an autoresponder series. So, what did I do?

I literally created a way in my Yahoo email (don't ask me to explain because it's difficult to and I'm surprised I did it for so long before getting my autoresponder) that would allow me to know who got the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd emails (I could only do three as it was too much to keep up with). I did it manually earlier on when I was only getting 2 or 3 subscribers a day. When it started increasing, I found it very time consuming. Keep in mind I was doing this for not one, but both of my merchant sites.

After awhile, I kept searching for an autoresponder. Tried Get Response and they were good until they changed things around and increased prices (especially with me just starting out on a merchant site, this wasn't very practical spending for someone that wasn't starting out making many sales to the sites), so I looked around. I finally wound up making a few sales in one day and with that, I decided to invest the money off of those sales into another autoresponder. Thought of AWeber, but wanted something else instead.

I found AutoResponse Plus and after debating for several days, took the plunge and bought it. I think I had paid $147 for it. They installed it on one of my sites, but the purchase granted me 10 domains total, so I read and set it up on my other site myself.

This was a few years ago. I've been happy overall since then, and I couldn't be more happier with NOT having to do things manually ANYMORE! lol! Though every autoresponder has its little issues or learning curves, this one I was able to learn easily (probably since I also had an understanding of it having had GetResponse before). I set up my autoresponder series and I believe in the next week or two, it helped increase sales a bit further and paid itself off within the first month of my having it.

I would never go back to manual after having tried it once. It's too tedious and time consuming and having to keep up with excel sheets or knowing who you sent #2 to, who needs #1, who should get #3 and making sure you don't accidentally send #2 to someone who was already on #3, etc. Yeah, I think I'll stick with my AutoResponse Plus autoresponder. Good luck though with manual... It's rough, I've done it, trust me it's rough. lol

Thanks for this... I was thinking that might be the case.

Now I'm just on the lookout for the autoresponder service with the least amount of emails getting into spam folders... i tried imnicamail but the beginning emails always get sent to spam in gmail :/

Mailchimp doesn't allow affiliate links

Cool... I haven't heard of ARPReach before!

I haven't really looked into any solutions other than mainstream autoresponder services like aweber and imnicamail... that's why i posted here

Lol at scam... do you mean with the transition to ArpReach? Or AutoResponse Plus altogether? I have them (have had them for a couple of years now).. probably the best savings on an autoresponder system I've had. I paid I believe the $147 back then for it... and I've been able to use it on three different domains (I still have 7 domain slots left before I need to extend my license to more domains). I like it though. I know AWeber will probably still be the best altogether, but as far as I know, it's worked pretty well for my merchant sites and has helped me make some sales too as a result. It's more than paid for itself since I bought it, so I can gladly say that I use it and have not been scammed at all.

I felt exactly how you did when I first looked at the site, but took a gamble on it anyway (not typical of me to gamble that much nonetheless)... and I'm glad I ditched GetResponse and went with ARP. With the 1k+ subscribers on one domain, the 3k+ subscribers on my other domain, and the third slowly starting to build subscribers, can you imagine what I would've paid per month on AWeber or GetResponse or VerticalResponse or others? I'd be gouging my eyes out at the bill! lol

Matt,

Oh, I think people did try to create a system on what you've just said. But the day will come when the number of subscribers will overwhelm you. Which is a good thing because now you have more people to give your message too. But being in business requires recurring expenses. And I think the most basic business expense would be to have an autoresponder that is dependable. There are plenty out there for sure but beyond that, insuring that your subscribers are on your list for a reason, you need to nurture them.

The overwhelming management task of insuring that all your subscribers get the messages you want can take up most of your day if you have a lot of them.

So yes, some messages get sent to the spam folder but then most do not. I think it's just part of the business portion that we have to contend with.

The good will outweigh the bad.

So the bottom line is that you can work hard or you can work smart. Your choice.

Jim

At a minimum, you'll need a Virtual Private Server to be
able to send out e-mails from your own server reliably.

Otherwise, if you're on a shared hosting package then
your deliverability will depend upon the behavior of
the other people who share your I.P. address.

Interspire is a decent option but the best self-hosted
autoresponder solution that I've found so far is
ActiveCampaign Email Marketer.

Their support is fantastic and they update the software
regularly. I tested out Interspire a while back and found
that their support was slow and reticent and that their
software was buggy with infrequent updates.

Dedicated to mutual success,

Shaun

I tried out listwire and tested it and found how he monetizes it... tries to upsale you to join other email lists (when the user confirms their email), which I do not want

mailchimp doesnt allow affiliate marketing

The time that you spent to create your own manual list can use it on productive things.Creating a manual list is a waste of time since there is auto responder to increase efficiency. Creating a manual list may be easy in the beginning, when your list gets bigger, would you want to send it to the people one by one:confused:

Another service you may want to consider is iContact. I've used them and they are pretty good. They are whitelisted with the major providers like aol, etc., so less email ends up in the spam folders. I recommend them for high deliverability.

I would find this task extremely tedious. once you start getting into 1000s of subscriber you will be worn out/burned out before you know it. this is just like building your house on sinking sand.