AWeber email lists and autoresponders: bonus gifts
There are lots of services which will allow you to put a box on your site to collect people’s email addresses so you can send them free reports, free ebooks, and regular newsletters.
Some people use Constant Contact; others use MailChimp or 1shoppingcart.
But the best I’ve come across is AWeber.
Why use AWeber?
1. Deliverability: a far higher percentage of the emails sent out by AWeber actually reach your audience than would happen with other services.
2. AWeber also encourages you strongly to use what is called ‘double opt-in’. This means that, when people enter their name and email address on your site, they don’t get added to a list right away: they have to go to their inbox and open a message there with the subject “Confirm your subscription“. This stops people signing up at your site by putting in nonsense email addresses or, even worse, the details of a friend/colleague who could then report you for spamming them!
3. When people enter their name and email address and click the Submit button, they can be taken to a page which shows a short video with voiceover to tell them what to do next. Here’s what’s extra clever: if the AWeber software detects that the person is using a Mac, a short video shows a clip of the Mail app for the Mac, so they’ll know exactly what to do. Lovely! It looks like this…
4. Great reports: you can get an email every time someone signs up to your site: it’s wonderfully encouraging to get these appearing in my inbox throughout the day! Also, when you send out emails to your list, you can see what percentage of them were opened. And, of course, it’s very easy to see how many people have signed up to your list in total, how many have unsubscribed, and so on.
5. You can do what is called ‘split testing’. This means that, for example, you can send half your list one email, and half your list thesame email with a different subject, and see which subject line produces the highest open rate. Neat.
You can click on this AWeber link to find out more: they have some videos you can watch.
If you sign up, you will be charged $1 for the first month of usage. You then enter a few bits of information, and you’ll see a single line of code (javascript) which you copy then paste into the appropriate page on your website. If you cancel within the next 30 days you’ll only have lost a dollar.
If you continue to use AWeber then I make a commission – which is nice! 🙂
‘Thank you’ gifts
As a ‘thank you’, if you do sign up with AWeber, and you email me to let me know, I’ve got 2 gifts for you…
- I’ll email you my free AWeber tips report as I found some aspects of setting it up confusing. (For example, after people sign up, AWeber can take them to a page which says “Hello John, Welcome aboard!” (if their name is John, of course). But the AWeber site neglects to tell you one thing about this which caused the first 20 or so people who signed up to a new site of mine to be directed to a non-existent page when I went live! So this report could save you some valuable time and money. It includes a useful checklist so you’ve got everything set up properly.
- You can also email me with questions if you get stuck: AWeber’s staff are great, but they’re in the States, and only work 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday, and some of Saturday. I’m on the other side of the world, in a very different timezone, so if you’re ever stuck outside their office hours, you can drop me a line for some helpful advice.
Warmest,
Chris