Should I Use An Autoresponder?

Some "free" autoresponders are monetized by sending their business opportunity/make money offers, with their affiliate links, to your subscribers. You have to decide for yourself how professional you think that will look to your subscribers. For myself, I wouldn't dream of it, but your judgment may be different.

re: autoresponders
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Here's the reality: nobody actually "needs" a free autoresponder.

People only imagine that they do, and that there'll be some long-term benefit to starting that way, and that in some meaningful sense it'll be better than not having one at all.

Aweber charges $1 for the first month and $19 per month thereafter. GetResponse gives a month free (or is it for $1? No, I think it's free) and then charges $15 per month. If you're not covering $15/$20 in two months, the reality is that you don't have a business at all, and that's not something that using a free autoresponder is somehow, magically, going to correct.

In my opinion, using a free autoresponder is one of the very most ill-advised and misguided things one can do, in internet marketing.

Few people are more keen on list-building than I am, but I think for most people it's better to start without an autoresponder, temporarily, than it is to use a free one. And (unlike the situation with regard to free hosting), with autoresponders it IS specifically the fact they're free that causes the potential disasters/risks, in my view.

The question you have to ask yourself is whether it can possibly be wise to entrust the safe-keeping and security of your business's greatest, most important and least replaceable asset (your list) to a company whose business model is that of being a free autoresponder. I think that it's generally 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, obviously enough, the situation's very clear to anyone willing to make the effort to read their Terms of Service. In the case of other "free autoresponders" (of which there are several), it's usually very much less clear, 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 even attach to every email their customers send out to their lists a clickable link advertising their own free service! It's literally 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".

You'll find it hard to believe, I know, but some even send their own email, with their own promotional links to some kind of "business opportunity", to your customers/subscribers!!

How professional does that look?!

Take care. Take the time to do your research and see how other Warriors are saying it looked to their subscribers/customers and why they'll never use a free autoresponder again.

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 this a pretty silly argument, 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".

If necessary, I'd make a sale or two without having a list, and then start with Aweber or GetResponse.

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

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 warning-posts can readily be found with the search function, by those willing to look.

The situation many would say is that it takes a person on the internet about 7 - 10 exposures to you before they trust you enough to spend their money with you.

The auto-responder will help you to get these 7 - 10 meetings in.

If you have really good messages in your autoresponder you will make money. If your messages are weak, then your unsubscribe rate will be high.