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Free Email Autoresponders – 7 Tips To Choose The Best Free Autoresponder
When it comes to email marketing and list building, everybody is searching for a free autoresponder.
Any person who wants to make money online is entirely conscious he needs autoresponders, since email marketing has become over the course of time the best long term online marketing approach.
Through autoresponder services you can correspond with your leads, sending them multiple offers, increasing their level of familiarity and assurance towards you, which can be a winning process for long term sales.
On the other hand, given the current economical situation and depression, many people have an appetition to make money online but they don’t have the budget to face monthly fees, at least at first. That’s why the urge for free autoresponders is so high.
De facto, free autoresponders can be a solid alternative to paid accounts for email followup services, but only if the quality of the service is high enough to:
- Secure you won’t have point at issue with your prospects, customers and clients.
- Allow you to accurately followup your leads.
- Offer you the customization attributes compelling for good quality marketing.
Here is a list of 7 things you should check before signing up for a free autoresponder account.
1) Check the monthly fee
Most of the best quality autoresponder brands offer a front end free account allowing you to sign up for the full feature service, but at the end of the first month you’ll be asked to pay for the monthly fee for the rest of your life. I’m not saying al all that this is a tricky thing, they clearly state the subscription conditions in the form you’ll be led to, but this is not so clear in the ad you can find browsing, screaming for a “FREE AUTORESPONDER”. Yes, it’s free, but for one month only. What you need to do is carefully check the terms and conditions before subscribing.
2) Check forced advertising
Free accounts usually come with ads in your outgoing emails. Each email you upload in your account will be sent with an ad you have no control on, which can be at the beginning or at the end of your own text. Can you figure how this can be dangerous from a marketing point of view? You send out your own offers probably with your competitors’ ads inside them.
Besides, an ad inside each message is an easy way to get your leads pissed off faster and more often.
Make sure to check that no ads will be included in your emails.
3) Double optin feature
A good measure to comply the anti spam regulations and standards is to structure your subscription process through a double optin system: in the first step, the lead enters his data (usually name and email, at least) and in the second step he receives an email asking him to confirm his intention to subscribe by clicking on a dedicated link. This click informs the autoresponder service that the lead can be validated as an active subscriber.
Most of the free autoresponders don’t offer this feature, which is limited to the paid option.
4) Messages limitations
Check the number of emails you can upload in each campaign. As a rule of thumb, you will need at least 7 to 10 emails, which is a basic number for an effective followup sequence.
5) Followup series limitations
Check the number of followup message series you can build in your account. You should know that for a basic simple marketing campaign you need at least 2 series of messages: one for your prospects and another one for your customers: you can send different offers or gifts to the people who already bought from you rather than to your general leads.
6) Broadcast message feature
Followup messages are great, since you can put each lead through your marketing funnel, no matter the date he subscribed to your list. Anyway, you will need to make general edicts too, such as events you are taking part to or special limited offers. Of course you cannot schedule these emails in your followup process. That’s why you need an email broadcast feature, allowing you to send an email to the whole list at the same time.
Some free accounts don’t come with this feature. Again, check before subscribing.
7) Export subscribers option
Imagine you have a great idea about a new surprising product. You make a small research and it turns out there is an enormous demand on the market. You set up a marketing process, you get your free autoresponder account and you launch your campaign. Then things go even better than calculated and you instantaneously build a large list of leads and customers. What happens when you reach the limits of your free account and you still need to enlarge your business? Either you upgrade for a paid account, if the service offers this option, or you need to transfer all your list and system to a new service provider.
And here is where the pain comes: did you check in the first place that you can export all your data (subscribers, messages, stats…)? If you cannot, you’re in big trouble.
As you see, you need to be careful even when you get something for free, above all if you are going to use it as a marketing weapon. Follow the advice I gave you and you will be able to succeed in the long term.
For more tips about free email autoresponders, I suggest you to visit my website and try our featured free autoresponder.
About the Author
Giovanni Farotto is a contributing author on this website and he is an acknowledged expert in online marketing. He can be found on his website http://blogautoposter.free.fr/blog
Follow up Autoresponder Script-21st Century Marketing Bootcamp Day#5