We have recently switched over to AWeber after using Constant Contact for several years – a decision we didn’t take lightly.

In the not so distant past, Constant Contact was the only real solution for sending bulk email. Unfortunately, they took this position for granted. They refused to improve their software and began providing progressively worse customer service. Along the way several competitors sprung up, offering the features Constant Contact was missing while providing far better customer service, all at about the same price. AWeber happens to be one of those companies.

The biggest complaint we had with Constant Contact was their customer service . On three separate occasions, they were unable to process our payment due to outdated billing information. Rather than notify us, they chose to immediately suspended our account. You would think we could have just logged in, updated our billing information, make our payment, and been on our way, right? Not quite. In addition to the payment, they also wanted to charge a $30 reactivation charge.

Another major factor in our decision was that AWeber provides two critical features that Constant Contact is missing; auto-responders and shopping cart integration.

Auto-responders give you the ability to automate portions of your email marketing. A great example of this is the when you sign up as a free member of SEO Book. Over the course of seven days, you will receive a series of seven emails. This just had to be set this up once and AWeber handles the rest.

Shopping cart integration allows your customers to subscribe to your newsletter when they purchase your products or services online. This can save you a lot of time and help you build your list more quickly.

At the end of the day, AWeber beats Constant Contact on features, price, customer service and ease of use. That’s why we switched.

You may have noticed that it’s getting more difficult to empty your inbox lately and that’s because in an effort to drum up business in these tough times, many companies are becoming more active with their email marketing campaigns.

On one hand, this is a sign of just how powerful and cost-effective email marketing is. On the other hand, the increase makes it makes it more difficult to get your message heard over your competitors. So how can you ensure that you get the most from your email marketing?

• You need to continually work at building your targeted opt-in list. The more qualified prospects you can reach, the better. Don’t be shy about asking people to sign up, and be sure to make it easy for them to do so.
• Send your newsletter frequently enough for people to remember you, but not so often that you annoy them. In most cases, once each week is about the maximum, and once a month is about the maximum.
• Offer different, or at least additional information in your newsletter rather than just a rehash of what you provide on your website. If people know that they will find useful, original information in your newsletters, they will be more likely to open and read them.
• Send your newsletter when it’s most likely to be read; Tuesday’s and Thursday’s are typically best for open rates, so they work well for branding. Weekends are typically best for click-through rates, so they work well for specific offers. The best time of day will vary by industry, so you’ll have to do some testing to see what works best for yours.

Does your marketing strategy consist of a little newspaper advertising here, some direct mail there and maybe email marketing from time to time? If so, it’s pretty similar to that of many other small businesses. That’s not a good thing because it’s inconsistent and your marketing channels are not working together.

Marketing is a collective activity in that when multiple channels are used together, the results are almost always far greater than the sum of the channels. Direct mail, radio and television can support internet marketing to bring you results that you could never achieve with the same budget used in any one of those mediums. This is because after the creative aspect of any marketing campaign, the effectiveness is due largely to repetition and consistency. When your prospect is on their way to work and they hear your ad, they may be only slightly convinced that your product or service is right for them. When they arrive at work they’ll probably do a little more research online, and if they come across your marketing message again, they will likely become a little more convinced. Later that night when they’re watching an episode of The Big Idea on their local cable channel and they see your television ad, chances are high that they’ll be very convinced that your product or service is the right choice for their needs. Now this doesn’t mean that the will buy from you just yet, but you will be standing on significantly higher ground than your competitors at this point.

To develop a marketing campaign where all of the channels work together you’ll need to determine what your desired outcome is to be. If you’re trying to educate your prospects about a complex product or service, all of your marketing channels should be used either to drive them to your web site where they can access the applicable information or to encourage them to schedule a meeting with one of your representatives. If your goal is to push sales in a particular retail location, all of your marketing channels should be focused on driving them directly to that location. In a nutshell, choose one goal and utilize all of the marketing channels available to you to foster achieving that goal.

A large portion of our communications are conducted via email these days, however, most of us are not making it as effective as it can be. You might be surprised how many people include weak subject lines, or don’t even include a subject line at all. You may save a little time by using a generic subject line or even omitting your subject line completely, but think about this ? other people are just as busy as you, so if your subject line isn’t compelling, they will likely glaze over your email and focus their energies on the ones that they can tell are important. On the other hand, avoid using the feature in Outlook that lets you tag your emails as important. Most people don’t pay much attention to that, and it only works with Outlook anyway.

Email marketing is a tool that can, and really should be utilized by businesses of all sizes, regardless of the industry. For new or small businesses with little resources, email marketing is a powerful way to consistently reach your prospects in an inexpensive manner. For established businesses and businesses with larger marketing budgets, email marketing is a great way to provide more traction to your other marketing channels. If you are already developing content on a regular basis for your print newsletters or blog, then much of the work for your email campaign is already done.

The first step in launching an email marketing campaign is to determine if you’ll handle it in-house our outsource it. If you’ll be handling it in-house, you’ll need to choose your platform for delivery. If you’re not the technical type, then you may want to look at one of the web based services such as Constant Contact or Bronto. Aside from being relatively simple to use, these types of services also offer varying levels of statistics analysis to help you fine tune your campaigns for a higher ROI. If you know your way around a server and are comfortable installing software on a web server then you may want to consider running your own email marketing software such as phplist. This is more complex to set up but gives you complete control over all aspects of it’s operation.

The next step is to build your mailing list. You’ll want to add a link on your web site enabling visitors to join, and then contact your current customers/clients and ask them if you can add them. In moving forward, be sure to ask all of your prospects if you can add them to your mailing list. It will take some time to build a large list but the focus should be quality over quantity.

Now you’ll need to create your first email newsletter. HTML newsletters produce far better results than text newsletters but you’ll need to carefully test yours to ensure that it displays properly. Roughly 75% of business users use Outlook, so start there, but you will also need to ensure that your newsletter displays properly in web based email including free accounts like Hotmail or Yahoo. Be sure to check that all links in your newsletter work properly and that all images load properly.

When it comes to sending your newsletter, keep in mind that Wednesday, Thursday and Friday generally generate higher open rates but email sent on the weekends generally generates higher click-through rates.