Picking the right autoresponder is no easy task. There are dozens of things you can look for in an autoresponder, as well as dozens of autoresponders to choose from. Choosing the right one is essential, because your autoresponder is the backbone of all your customer communications. Choose the wrong one and you risk communicating and selling poorly – Which will directly result in lost profits.

So how do you choose the right autoresponder? Here are the top 10 things to look for.

#1 – Deliverability

Of all the features you could look for in an autoresponder, none are more important than deliverability.

Deliverability is the number of emails that actually end up in your customer’s mailbox. That means it wasn’t caught by spam filters and it didn’t disappear in some black hole somewhere.

Deliverability is a big issue. People have often found that switching from a shopping cart autoresponder to a professional autoresponder can increase their open rates by as much as double. Why? Because their emails are getting delivered.

#2 – The Right Price

There are many different levels of pricing for autoresponders.

On one end, you have autoresponders like Mail Chimp that are literally free as long as you have fewer than 2,000 subscribers. On the other end, you have autoresponders like InfusionSoft that cost thousands of dollars to setup and hundreds of dollars a month to run.

Price is a big consideration when you choose an autoresponder. Pick a service that’s in your price range, that scales up in a way that makes sense for your budget.

 

#3 – List Importing

If you run offline events or need to import lists from outside sources, it’s important to consider what you can and can’t do in terms of important email contacts.

For example, Aweber is extremely restrictive about this. You either can’t upload your contacts at all, or you can but they all have to double opt in. In other words, there’s a very good chance you’ll lose 70% of your list when porting to Aweber, simply because their system isn’t setup for people who need to regularly import contacts.

On the other end of the spectrum is Autoresponse Plus, where you can upload as many as you want from whatever source. For example, you can upload your own co-registration leads if you’re using ARP.

Most services fall somewhere in between.

 

#4 – Tracking and Analytics

Tracking and analytics are crucial to email marketing success. Email marketing isn’t about getting it right the first time. It’s about learning what your customers respond to and learning about what’s working and what’s not over time.

What kind of emails do your customers open? What times of day work the best? What about days of the week? Do personal emails work better or do factual emails work better? All of these questions can only be answered by tracking and statistics.

When you’re choosing an autoresponder, make sure you take a look at what tracking and analytics data they give you.

#5 – Cloud Hosted vs. Self-Hosted

Autoresponders can be split into two categories: Those that are an online service and those that you install on your own server.

The online services are a fantastic simple way to manage autoresponders. They handle all the technical issues for you so all you have to do is send out emails.

On the other hand, self-hosted services give you a lot more control. There are no restrictions on uploading contacts. You can send as many emails an hour as you want, whereas most autoresponder services have a limit. And often time’s creating your own email server is the only option if your list is big enough.

Having your own server has its down sides of course. You need to install it, which is quite technical. You also need to manage your server’s deliverability and make sure you don’t end up on any blacklists. It’s a complex process.

Most small businesses start off with a cloud solution and only go with a self-hosted solution if they really need the extra functionality.

#6 – iPhone Capability

Are you regularly on the go? If so, try to get an autoresponder that you can take with you.

Let’s say you launch a broadcast in the morning. If you have an autoresponder that has an app, you can check all your stats while you’re on the bus. You can see exactly how your campaign is performing at all times.

You can also write your emails on your phone and do just about anything else you need to do all from your phone.

#7 – Spam Scoring

If you want your emails to get where they’re going, it’s crucial that you know you spam score. Your spam score is basically how likely your email is to end up in the spam folder.

If you use words like “buy now!” or “viagra,” there’s a higher chance of your email getting caught in the filters. If you don’t use personalization, you’re at a higher risk as well. Having a spam scoring system will allow you to tweak your emails to reduce your risk of getting blocked.

 

#8 – Unlimited Lists

Some autoresponder services only give you a limited number of lists. Some only give you one. Some will charge you more to have more lists.

You really want to have an autoresponder service that’ll give you unlimited lists. That way, you can run multiple sites and split up your lists all in the same account without paying extra.

 

#9 – Segmentation

Your autoresponder should be able to segment out just one section of your email list and target your emails to only those people.

You should be able to segment your email list by location, by name, by whether or not they open your emails and by custom fields. This kind of segmentation gives you a lot of power to really laser target your messages to the right people.

#10 – WYSIWYG Editor

If you plan on using templates to send your HTML emails, it’s essential that the autoresponder has a good WYSIWYG editor. Too many autoresponder services use just pre-made templates or have very bare bones WYSIWYG editors.

When you send out HTML emails, your email’s design is every bit as important as your website’s design. People will judge you and judge your brand based on your design. It has to be stellar.

Having a good WYSIWYG editor will allow you to customize those designs to your brand, as well as make sure everything really looks perfect before sending it out.

These are the top ten things you need to pay attention to when you’re choosing an autoresponder service. There is no “perfect” autoresponder out there. However, for each specific business, there is one service that’ll be better for you than any other service. Use this criteria to figure out which one that is for you.

GetResponse was first founded in 1999, before the “dot com bubble,” making it one of the very first email responders in the world. It has lasted throughout the years and is still a major player in the autoresponder space. They’ve pioneered many features that are today considered standard. GetResponse delivers over ten billion emails every year and has more than 220,000 paying customers.

Even today, GetResponse still has many features that other autoresponders just don’t have. Here are some of the unique things GetResponse brings to the table.

 

#1 – Built In iStockPhotos

GetResponse has over a thousand iStockPhoto images that you can use for free built into their system. You can use these to spruce up your emails or to make a point.

 

#2 – Upload Videos

Want to put a video in your email? You can. GetResponse will even host your video for you! Just upload your video to GetResponse and it’ll be stored in your documents.

#3 – Record from Scratch

Want to record something new and send it off to your list? Instead of having to get your camera, record it, edit it, export it to web format then upload it to YouTube, you can just use GetResponse to handle the whole thing on the spot.

Of course, if you’re going for maximum production value and video quality, you shouldn’t use this method. But if you just want to put something up quick and dirty, GetResponse gets the job done.

 

#4 – QR Codes

If you’re creating an email that’s meant to be printed out, you can create and embed a QR code all from within GetResponse.

QR codes are the next generation of barcodes. Unlike barcodes which can only store small bits of data (such as product ID numbers,) QR codes can hold much more data.

That’s why on a printed piece of paper QR codes can be so useful. For example, if you were sending out an email to everyone who RSVPed for an event, you could ask participants to print out the email that was sent to them. On that email is a QR code with their email address encoded.

All you’d need to do is scan the QR code, rather than ask them for their name and email. It makes the check-in process much easier. That’s just one example of how you could use QR codes and email in the real world.

 

#5 – Annual Discounts

GetResponse’s pricing is generally pretty standard. They offer a 1,000 subscriber plan for $15 a month, a 2,000 subscriber plan for $20 a month and a 10,000 subscriber plan for $65 a month.

One thing that’s unique about GetResponse’s pricing plan is the annual payment option. You can save almost 20% on your subscription fees by paying for a year upfront.

Since autoresponders are long term investments, for many businesses paying upfront makes a lot of sense.

 

#6 – Segmented Split Tests

Other autoresponder services offer split testing on their website, as well as segmentation. But few other services allow you to do both.

With GetResponse, you can select just one segment of your list to target. The split test emails will only be sent to that segment.

 

For example, say you’re running a local event. Using segmentation, you can send an email to just the people in your local area. Using split testing, you can then split test that copy to see which one performs better.

 

#7 – Undelivered List

Sometimes emails just don’t get delivered. It might be because of spam filters, it might be because of server IP blacklists or it could have just gotten dropped somewhere.

If your email gets undelivered, most other services have no way of letting you know. With GetResponse however, they keep track of all the email addresses that go undelivered.

 

You can browse this list and get in touch with anyone who should be receiving your emails directly. You can also look for commonalities. For example, if you notice a lot of @comcast.net domains in the undelivered list, you’ll know that it’s the @comcast.net domain that’s blocking your emails.

 

#8 – Many Formbox Options

GetResponse provides you with a lot of high quality email submission box designs. Most other autoresponders will just give you the basic form code, but not handle any of the design for you. To add graphics, you have to do a bit of code manoeuvring to get the form to show up in your graphics.

GetResponse handles all of this for you right out of the box. Just select the design you want to use and you’re good to go.

#9 – Pre-Filled Facebook Registration

If your users are logged into Facebook, GetResponse can use that cookie to pre-populate email address fields.

In other words, people will see email sign in boxes with their email already typed in for them.

#10 – Custom Fields

GetResponse allows you to collect data other than the standard data types. You can collect addresses, phone numbers and a whole host of other things.

You can also use custom fields for your own internal tracking. For example, you can “tag” each of your different traffic sources with PHP. Then use PHP to insert the traffic source into the custom field. Then you can go back whenever you get a purchase and trace it to the traffic source.

There are many, many different ways you can use custom fields. It’s basically an open invitation to use GetResponse as a database, rather than just an autoresponder.

 

As you can tell, GetResponse has quite a few things going for it. It has a few unique features that nobody else is offering and has quite a long history of delivering high quality service to their customers.

Constant Contact is an autoresponder service based in Massachusetts with over 500,000 paying customers. They have plans starting at as low as $15 a month. Their products span a wide range of internet marketing avenues, including events, social media, surveys and deals. Their most prevalent product is, of course, their email marketing tool.

Constant Contact is known primarily for sending out great looking HTML emails. If you’re a design fan or want to make sure that all your emails look fantastic, the Constant Contact is a great choice.

It’s important to note that Constant Contact actually cannot send out plain text email. If you prefer sending plain text rather than HTML emails, Constant Contact might not be for you.

Here are some of Constant Contact’s many advanced features.

 

#1 – Create Email Campaigns from Your iPhone

If you’re on the go and want to create an email marketing campaign quickly, Constant Contact’s QuickView makes it easy to do so.

You can send emails, edit emails and schedule emails to go out all from your phone. You can also check all your most important stats, such as open rates and clicks all from your phone as well.

#2 – Social Campaigns

Running a social campaign doesn’t have to be a huge hassle. Instead, it can be an easy yet exhilarating journey – Provided you have the right tools.

Constant Contact helps you build social marketing campaigns and get it published. It helps you spread your message, get most subscribers and communicate with your followers in a trackable way.

 

#3 – Email Template Creation

Is there a specific look you’re going for?

If you know exactly how you want your email to look and don’t see anything in the templates area that appeals to you, you can have iContact do the actual template design for you from scratch.

The price? For email marketing, it’s $599. That includes two rough drafts of different design styles and one final draft.

If you’re not a designer, this avenue allows you to get a professional email template design from someone who’s intimately familiar with the system. After all, they do work for iContact.

#4 – Importing Your Contacts

Constant Contact lets you import your contact from a number of different sources.

First off, you can import your contacts from Gmail. Very few other autoresponder services allow you to do this. Make sure you don’t just dump your contacts in, but cull the list so you only add people who really want to be on your mailing list.

You can also add contacts from an external file. This allows you to port over entire databases. For example, if you wanted to move from another autoresponder service to Constant Contact, all you’d need to do is upload a list of all their email addresses.

 

#5 – Multiple Support Avenues

Need customer support? You can get in touch with Constant Contact a number of different ways.

Many customers prefer not to call up customer support. Instead, they want to just get a quick answer to their question. Constant Contact’s live chat option is great for that.

If you’re not in too much of a rush, just send customer service an email. Alternatively, you can just give them a call whenever you need.

 

#6 – WYSIWYG Template Editor

One of Constant Contact’s primary drawing points is its attention to its templates. Not only does Constant Contact have a myriad of different designs for you to choose from, but you can also take existing templates and alter them in a built-in WYSIWYG editor.

You can edit the font, the size, the color and the placement of any text in the template. You can move around other elements, add or delete pictures and make the template look exactly the way you want it to.

#7 – Create an Email from Scratch

If you’re a web designer or coder and have a good sense of design, you can create your own templates and emails from scratch.

Constant Contact allows you to use your own HTML code in your emails. That means you’ll have full control of every minute detail of the emails you want to use.

You can use header graphics, sidebars and unique fonts. You can also integrate tracking pixels and tracking links in your HTML as well.

 

#8 – Event Management

If you run events, Constant Contact’s event management features is a great way to integrate your event with your email marketing.

Using Constant Contact, you can send out event invitations, customize invitations to specific groups of people, track your response, collect registrations and do everything you need to do to make sure your event is a success.

 

#9 – The App Store (“Marketplace”)

Constant Contact has an app store. Constant Contact makes it easy for developers to create software solutions for Constant Contact specifically. As a result, there are a lot of apps you can purchase for Constant Contact to extend your email’s capabilities.

For instance, if you run events and want to collect registrations offline on an iPad and have them go directly to Constant Contact, you can. You no longer have to input names into your lists manually afterwards.

There are tons and tons of apps you can choose from to make your life easier. Browse the app store and see what other cool functionality you can add.

 

#10 – API (for Developers)

If you’re a developer or have an in house developer, you can get an API key from Constant Contact and develop your own apps.

If you have very unique needs, this is a fantastic way to get Constant Contact to do exactly what you need it to do. By programming your own applications, you’ll be able to execute all kinds of advanced marketing tactics that the normal version of Constant Contact doesn’t offer.

In short, with the right coding expertise, Constant Contact is more or less fully customizable.

There are primarily two kinds of people for whom Constant Contact would be a great choice. First, designers and people who want to send exquisite looking emails often choose Constant Contact. Their templates and WYSIWYG editors are second to none. Also, programmers and tech savvy people who want an extendable set of features also often choose Constant Contact.

Founded in 2003 by Ryan Allis and Aaron Houghton, iContact was built from the ground up in an era where email marketing was still scarce. Today, iContact is worth over $169 million and has hundreds of thousands of customers all over the world. Their Facebook email signup alone gets more than 50,000 active users per month.

One thing that sets iContact apart from the rest of the market is their stance on manual submission. Aweber, the other email marketing giant, does not allow email marketers to add subscribers manually in large amounts. iContact allows this, provided your customers are expecting your emails.

In other words, if you run workshops, do business card drop-off raffles or get email addresses from offline sources, iContact will be a better choice for you than Aweber.

Here are some of the unique features of iContact.

#1 – Hosted Images

iContact allows you to host all the images you plan on sending in your emails, completely free of charge. Just upload them to iContact’s servers, then insert them into your emails as you’re sending them.

All the images uploaded have to be under 200 KB and the storage capacity is 5,000 KB, meaning you can have at least 25 images stored at any given time.

 

#2 – Add Contacts Manually

As mentioned before, one of iContact’s unique features is its willingness to let you add as many contacts as you want from offline sources.

Allowing people to add contacts themselves is a huge risk for autoresponders. It makes it very easy for spammers to use their system to send people email. Maintaining a high deliverability rate with an open policy like this requires a lot of work.

Other autoresponders, most notably Aweber, skip this process entirely by not allowing large lists to be uploaded. However, iContact allows you to do this – While still maintaining a strong deliverability rate.

#3 – Export Contacts

iContact also allows you to export all your contacts with the click of a button. If you want to move your contacts lists to a different autoresponder service, or want to port them over to a different CMS management system, it’s very easy to do so with iContact.

 

#4: Surveys

One of the really unique things about iContact is their surveys. Instead of having to use an outside service to handle your surveys, you can do it all inside of iContact.

You can use this feature to research what new features your customers want, to research what they’d be willing to pay, to see what they like or don’t like about your current business, etc.

Surveys can either be private or public. Public surveys are great with you want to make content out of the data, while private surveys are good just to help you make internal decisions.

#5: Social Signups

Have you seen those Facebook pages that have an email signup box on them? Adding email signup is a powerful way to turn your Facebook followers into loyal readers.

Facebook isn’t the best way to stay in constant touch with people. People may not check Facebook very often and Facebook won’t display your status update on their news feed every time you post.

On the other hand, email allows you to get your message in front of your audience every time.

Using this feature is much simpler than most people think it is. All you need to do is enable the Facebook feature, choose which page(s) you want to give iContact access to then generate the code.

Once the code is generated, just copy and paste it onto your Facebook page.

#6: List Segmentation

iContact allows you to separate your lists into different categories of people. This makes it easy for you to custom-target a variety of messages for just a specific subsection of your audience.

Instead of just blasting out emails, this will allow you to get higher response rates from the right people. You also won’t alienate the rest of your list by sending them emails that they don’t care about.

There are a number of different criteria you can use to segment your list. The most common type of segmentation is based on data that users entered when they first registered for your email list.

 

#7 – Advanced Search

Looking for a specific person or group of persons? iContact makes it easy to find them with their advanced search system.

Let’s say you run a speaking business. You remember that 6 months ago, someone named Susie who ran a hair salon came to your workshop. You want to follow up with her about something, but don’t remember her email address.

All you need to do is go into iContact and plug in the business name. The system will find her and give you all her contact information.

What makes this search function so powerful is that you can search based on any criteria.

#8 – RSS In-Feed

If you have a blog and want to regularly take posts from your blog and send them out to your email list, then an RSS in-feed is the perfect tool for you.

The RSS in-feed takes an RSS feed and transplants all of the content into your email followup. No more pesky copying and pasting and trying to figure out how to make sure formatting doesn’t come out wrong in email. iContact does it all for you.

These are some of iContact’s unique features. All in all, if you’re looking for a high deliverability email autoresponder service that allows you to manually add email addresses, iContact is a great choice. They certainly have all the bells and whistles.

 

 

Mail Chimp is a relative newcomer to the autoresponder market that has quickly taken the market by storm, surpassing many established names.

One of Mail Chimp’s most unique features is its “Forever Free” price plan. On this plan, anyone with an email list of fewer than 2,000 people can sign up for free – Forever. (Note: There’s also a 12,000 email per month limit on the free account.)

It’s thanks to this free plan that Mail Chimp exploded in popularity. They quickly took market share from other autoresponder services. At one point, iContact had to change their pricing and offer a free package just to keep up with Mail Chimp. They later rescinded their free package.

Today Mail Chimp is the leading autoresponder service that offers a free basic level.

What other unique features does Mail Chimp bring to the table?

#1 – Segmentation

Mail Chimp makes it very easy to segment your list into different parts. Instead of having to mail messages to your entire list, you can choose to message only people who fall under certain criteria.

For example, if you’re hosting a local event, you can send an invitation out to only people who’re near your geographical area.

You can also segment your list based on activity level. For people who regularly open your emails, you might want to use a content-based approach to you emails to continue building a relationship. However, if you have people who haven’t opened your emails in a while, you might want to use a much more dramatic hook to try and catch their attention.

#2: Auto-Posting to Social Media

If you use social media in conjunction with email marketing, this feature can save you a lot of time.

Instead of having to log into your social media platforms and post a copy of your emails, Mail Chimp can do it all for you.

Just link you social media profiles to Mail Chimp and Mail Chimp will do all the hard work.

#3: Tracking and Google Analytics

By default, Mail Chimp has quite a few email tracking metrics in place. They’re able to track both open rates and clicks in house.

One unique feature that Mail Chimp brings to the table is Google Analytics tracking. You can track your clicks not only with Mail Chimp’s software, but within your own Google Analytics system.

#4: Save Edits to Templates

Mail Chimp has a wide variety of custom made templates for you to choose from.

Unlike other services that require you to use templates as-is however, Mail Chimp allows you to edit these templates however you want.

Once you’re done editing, you can then save the templates to your account. From then on, you can apply this template to your emails with a click of a button.

#5: Extra Security

If you’re worried about your list getting hijacked, you can add an extra layer of security. You can have Mail Chimp ask one of your security questions if you ever log in from a different location.

If you want to take things even a step further, you can opt for two-factor authentication. If you enable this feature, you’ll have to type in a PIN code that’s sent to your phone in order to log into your account.

In other words, even if someone manages to steal your password, they still won’t be able to log in to you account, because they won’t be able to get a PIN from you phone.

 

#6: Form Translation

If you’re working with international markets, getting the form right can be tricky. Fortunately, Mail Chimp makes this a piece of cake with their form translation feature.

How does it work?

Just create your form, then select the language you want your form to be in. All the text on the form will automatically be translated into your language of choice.

This can make breaking into new markets quite a bit easier. It can also help if you want to put up a bare-bones version of an alternate language page.

#7: Subscriber Chiclets

Want to brag about the number of subscribers you have? Want to create some social proof to increase your opt in rates?

With Mail Chimp’s chiclets, you can. It’s quite easy: All you need to do is pick one of the many existing designs. Then install the code on your website and the well-designed subscriber counter will be installed on your page.

If you run a small business that has less than 2,000 subscribers, why pay $20 a month to other companies? Use Mail Chimp instead and use it for free until you reach the 2,000 subscriber mark.

Choosing an autoresponder is not an easy task. There are 10 main things you need to look for:

Deliverability

Price

List Importing

Tracking and Analytics

Cloud Hosted or Self Hosted?

Mobile Capability

Spam Scoring

Unlimited Lists

Segmentation

WYSIWG Editor