Email Marketing Software - iContact

[Carbonite Australia]

I was looking through the Tech and Marketing threads to see if anyone had raised the issue of selecting an online email marketing service to manage client leads, newsletters etc. Since we started marketing Carbonite in Australia, we have been using a service called iContact. It's pretty affordable and allows us to create various lists to place customers within and then send them autoresponders. We pay about $40 per month and we can hold 2500 records and send 15,000 emails. It also has an API for you to tie it into your systems for auto emails.

We use it for customers who access a free trial of our service and also newletters. It allows us to send them emails through the course of the trial and try and convert them to a paid user.

It's navigation is a little odd (too much of it) but it does everything we need it to. The only thing that could use some improvement is reporting. More of it would be great.

What is your experience at using these types of services?

[warrenc]

Hello Arthur

We offer an email marketing platform. The core elements are:

A sign up form

A thank you for signing up form

An edit profile form

A confirmation form

A set of standard templates for email newsletters

A flexible database platform... with the ability to create unlimited fields to capture any data you wish to allow segmentation of your list into sub-lists determined by any combination of fields.

Ability to set up automatic email sequences for any list

Forward to a friend capability for tracking emails.

Complete set of reports on all email blasts of any size covering (by example) such things as:

• If the customer received the email
• If they opened the email
• How long it took them to open the email
• How many times they opened the email & when
• What they were interested in reading
• Did they forward the email to a friend

... with the ability to export any of that data to a new list or separate report.

Although there are standard newsletter templates I always recommend that a client should opt for custom designed and branded templates for a totally professional look.

[mexham]

I've used a service called mailchimp before and have found it pretty good. Good stats and very easy to setup and use.

[markevelyn]

Hi Arthur,

I use a new system called Attain Response for my Restaurant. It is brillaint I have been having great success with it.
It combines Video and or audio with Emails and has all the statistics you need to follow up businees and increase your sales. Plus autoresponders and a whole lot more.

I find it works much better than just plain old text campaigns.

If you woudl like some information
email me
markevelyn@vmdirect.com

[exstatic]

Originally Posted by mexham

I've used a service called mailchimp before and have found it pretty good. Good stats and very easy to setup and use.

I tried mailchimp originally for our e-mail campaigns but I found it to be very slow and its delivery rates appalling.

For this kind of stuff you can't really go past aweber (http://www.aweber.com), it is the industry leader and is constantly working with ISP's to ensure that their email servers aren't black listed and have the highest deliverable rates around.

Did you know that for a typical email campaign that you send out, it has been researched that only 40% of emails that are sent actually reach the inbox of your clients.. and then after that only 15-20% open it?

The main reasons for this is the email gets marked as spam even before it hits the inbox! So a good email marketing service is a must.