0402 – Setting Up Your List and Emails
Which Email Autoresponder Should You Choose?
There are many email autoresponder services online. Some are free, or have free starter options, and others are paid services. You want something you can grow with over time.
If you absolutely don’t have the budget for an email autoresponder, then get started with a tool like Mail Chimp. But if you can spend under $20 a month, go with a professional service such as Aweber, GetResponse, or others.
Normally, these services have you level up over time. So for instance, on Aweber, it might be $19 a month for up to 500 subscribers, but you get unlimited email sending abilities.
As you grow to 2,500 and 5,000 or more subscribers, your rates go up slightly. That isn’t a problem, though, because the list will allow you to make more profits, so the autoresponder ends up paying for itself.
Whenever you go through the process of setting up your email autoresponder, make sure you provide a P.O. Box as the address or else it will show your home address to everyone who subscribes to your list.
Make sure you go in and set up a welcome email for your new subscribers that they will receive after they confirm their email address. You want to use a system that makes them confirm their subscription so that you’re not accused of spamming anyone without their permission.
In your welcome email, make sure you share the link to whatever opt in gift you offered, like a short report. Invite the reader to contact you if and when they need help, and give them a link or instructions on how to do that.
Set up your opt in form on the sidebar of your blog, and share it at the bottom of each blog post as well. You can have a little eCover made if you’re giving away a short report, and have that positioned right above the opt in form on your blog.
When it comes time to use your email list, you’ll log in and choose between a follow up or broadcast email. A follow up email is good for if you want new subscribers to see whatever you email out about from here on out.
But if it’s something that might be temporary, like a coupon for a sale, that wouldn’t go into your follow up series because it will eventually expire, and people 6 months down the road would get an expired promo code.
Broadcast emails are emails that go out to everyone on your list at that time. But people who join months or years (or even days) down the road wouldn’t see this email. Some people strictly use broadcast emails while others strictly use follow up emails.
If you do use follow up emails, make sure everything stays up to date. If a link gets broken or a site gets deleted, you’ll want to make sure you edit and repair it in that email so that future subscribers don’t see it.