To AWeber…or Not To AWeber?

“Everyone who is serious about marketing over the Internet needs an autoresponder.”  How many times have I heard that?  What’s the big deal and how does it help me?  Well, the short answer is it’s an automatic responder that automatically answers emails that are sent to it.  The long answer is an autoresponder can be used to do all sorts of things like confirm subscriptions, send a series of instructional emails, send content, redirect customers to squeeze pages, give unsubscribe confirmation, assure someone that their help ticket will be handled shortly, and more.   

You can think of an autoresponder as your own personal secretary who replies to every one of your customers yet who doesn’t get benefits, get sick, or take vacation.  Your autoresponder can follow up with your prospects and subscribers, and do it in a personal way. There are several great autoresponders out there and in choosing one, I first had to figure out just what features I wanted from an autoresponder.  Your wants may be different from mine, but here are the features I wanted: 

·         unlimited # of autoresponders (one time and sequential), unlimited follow ups, unlimited broadcasts
·         personalization features (especially first name, but many different fields to chose from)
·         unlimited list size – this will matter pretty soon! J
·         data analysis
·         split testing
·         automatic handling of subscribers and unsubscribers
·         live chat and good support- very important for me as I’m one of the technically-challenged J
·         cool templates to use for the newsletters I send out from one of my sites
·         affiliate program
·         cost in line with the features I want 

In order to figure out which autoresponders to look at without taking up too much of my already stretched time, I started with looking at which autoresponders the big internet marketers use.  Since I’m on most of their lists, I simply went to my email in-bin and looked at the last line of their emails.  Here’s what my unscientific and informal poll showed:  

AWeber -            21 people (including private label versions)
GetResponse -    3
Infusion Soft -       2
Autocontractor -   2
Other -                   9 (1 vote for each) 

I then took a closer look at the top two, AWeber and GetResponse and tried to compare features.  Check it out here: 

Features	AWeber	GetResponse
Automatic handling of subscribes and unsubscribes	Yes	Yes
Data analysis	Yes	Yes
Split testing	Yes	?
Stylish message templates	Yes	Yes
Live Chat	8am-8pm M-F, 9-5 Sat	9am-8pm M-F
Customer Support	Yes	Yes
Blog and forum	Yes	Yes
Unlimited autoresponders	Yes	Yes
Unlimited broadcasts	Yes	Yes
Segmented broadcast capability	Yes	Yes
Unlimited campaigns	Yes	Yes
Unlimited follow ups	Yes	Yes
Personalized fields	Yes	Yes
Web form generator	Yes	Yes
Form pop-ups/ overs/hovers/exit pops	Yes	?,  at least a pop-over
My customized subscription page, removal page, and opt-in confirmation page	Yes	Yes
Moves people from an advertising campaign to a customer list	Yes	Yes
Cost	$19.95/mo./10,000 leads and $9.95 for each add’l 10,000 leads	$17.95/mo./10,000 leads and $4.50 for each add’l 5000 leads

My conclusion to this informal autoresponder comparison?  They both have everything that I want, plus way more cool features than I need right now.  Most of the features are the same for both autoresponders, so you probably can’t go wrong with either.  It depends on what you want.  Since I really am not sure what will come in handy in the future, I decided to go with the one that my 21 successful internet marketers use – AWeber.  My reasoning is that since these gurus are farther along in needing and using features right now than I am, they must be satisfied with AWeber’s features or they wouldn’t use AWeber.  

I have to tell you, after deciding on AWeber and signing up, I have found it very easy to use.  Their How to Get Started Guide made it extremely easy to get my first autoresponder set up in no time.  When I signed up they hooked me up with an autoresponder series on how to get started.  They then followed up offline with a letter that included a handy dandy little card with my log-in information on it.  A few days ago, I got a follow up phone call from them welcoming me and making sure everything was going fine for me.  Today I got an email from customer service asking how they could be of service.  Now, I haven’t submitted a help ticket or called live chat (yet), but I’m pretty impressed with AWeber’s customer service so far. 

I hope this helps.

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