Tuesday Blog Tool

I am having trouble writing this recommendation. Here’s why:

As you read this article you will be tempted to think no service can be this good, this important. You will be tempted to think I am exaggerating. By the time you read this through you will realize just how impressive and indispensable this service really is.

This week I want to profile the Aweber.com autoresponder service, a tool I use every day and that has literally made me hundreds of thousands of dollars for a few pennies a day. If you will use it wisely, it will do the same for you. Really.

What is Aweber.com?

Aweber.com calls itself an “autoresponder” service. And it is. It accepts emails sent to it and responds with a customized, pre-written message to the person who sent the email.

But over the years it has become much more than an autoresponder.

How You Can Use Aweber Autoresponder Service

Aweber.com is now a complete business management system. It can be used to keep and maintain your in-house email and snail mail lists, track and maintain relationships with your customers and prospects, automatically deliver products, collect contact information from article readers, notify your blog readers about updates, perform automated customer service and more.

With Aweber.com and a website you can run just about any business. It’s how I do just about everything.

What Kind of Customer Service Does Aweber Supply?

Of all the businesses I have dealt with over the last 7 years online, Aweber has the best customer service I have experienced. In addition to simply providing customer support, Aweber has been pro-active in listening to their customers and providing a growing list of features designed to make their service better and more effective for their customers.

It’s also remarkably inexpensive. Your first 10,000 list members are less than $20 per month. That’s going to be large enough for many businesses, but can be scaled up with each additional 10,000 subscribers being another $9.95 per month.

Aweber.com verses GetResponse.com

When choosing an autoresponder/list management service you want to look at features and make sure you choose one that allows unlimited multiple lists at no additional cost, broadcast capability (the ability to send out bulk email to your list), automation, price and customer service. While I prefer Aweber on most of these, putting Aweber v. GetResponse they are pretty much equal.

But there is one other area where Aweber.com has a distinct advantage: Deliverability.

Deliverability is a measure of how many of the emails you send actually get to the inbox of the recipient. This is usually expressed as a percentage. “87.5% deliverability”, for example, would mean that out of every 1,000 emails sent, 875 actually reach the recipient.

In my experience and testing I have found Aweber’s deliverability to be well above 98% for my personal lists. Yup, 98%.

In studying responses others have to both services online as well as asking friends of mine who maintain large lists, it seems GetResponse–while a good service–misses this mark by a few percent.

Don’t get me wrong, GetResponse has thousands of happy customers who use their service to make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. What I am saying is you will likely see a lower number of your emails delivered if you choose GetResponse over Aweber.

But what difference does it make? Well, let’s do the math on a 10,000 email list, sent out once per week.

In 52 weeks you would send out 520,000 emails. If you have a 3% lower delivery rate, your message is not going to reach 15,600 recipients. If you do 12 promotions a year (like I do) that works out to around 5-7 lost sales per month. That ads up to around $7,000.00 per year in lost revenue for me.

That’s why I recommend Aweber over GetResponse.

If you already have a significant list at GetResponse it probably makes sense to keep it there. If not, get an Aweber account.

Will Aweber.com Work for My Business?

Yes. I have never seen a business–even an offline business–that can’t use Aweber as an effective tool to increase their sales.

In my opinion if you want to make money online having Aweber.com is just as important as having a website. You need to sign up for their service now.

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