Here in my next post on cheap or free computer tricks for you and your success I have been evaluating a mailing list program called iContact. I evaluated all of the major mailing list programs and found that iContact does the job admirably. I feel that I must give iContact two thumbs up for the following reasons:
- At $9.95/mo it is the least expensive of all of the programs that I tested
- Opt in feature - one of the biggest problems with emailing your database is that you think you have permission to send them something. You send out an email blast and you get flagged as a spammer or you get an earful or email box full of nasty emails. Using an opt in list is the only true way to market or send newsletters out to your database. iContact makes it easy to cut and paste a form on to your web site to alleviate this. In fact if you want to make doubly sure you can set the double opt in feature so there is no doubt that they want to be on your email list.
- Self Managing features - all of the managing features are done automatically from bounces to removal.
- Live Chat assistance - when you have trouble you have the ability to chat with a live human..... how refreshing in this age of automated systems.
- Statistics - Track the clicks of your newsletters or emails. That way you know who is and who isn't reading your newsletters.
- Excellent Drip marketing Features - one of the keys of using email marketing today is to write a series of newsletters that are relevant and deliver personalized (aka mail merged) content to your database so you don't have to slave away each and every month providing a newsletter. Rather you can write a few newsletters ahead of time and then, relatively speaking, take your time writing others.
- Blast email functionality - now for things such as the holiday's you want to make sure they go out at a precise time. With iContact you can create a newsletter and send it out immediately and track the results of who actually read it, as noted above.
- Free trial - some of the iContact's competitors have this feature too but there's nothing like taking her around the block a few times to get the feel of the program.
For more information on iContact visit their web site here.
So add this to your arsenal of cheap marketing tools that can get you one step up on the competition.
Comments(2)