You are probably thinking like me: It must be cheap!
But what seems to be cheap now, could very well end up with costning much more. Read on, to learn from my mistakes so that you will not make the same.
When I started sending out automatic responses, I found a free autoresponder script on the net. I’m used to working with PHP, so it was no problem putting it up. But I soon found out that there was a lot of things, this autoresponder wasn’t able to do, so I looked for a new one.
Didn’t Listen To The Experts
I made the most stupid of all mistakes, right from the start. I knew better than all the experts. They told me to get one of two certain autoresponders (I’ll tell you about them later). I didn’t want to. First, I thought they were too expensive, and second, I wanted to have it all on my own server, so I could be in full control of things.
Little was I to know that I ended up having absolutely no control at all!
So I Get A Another Script
This time I found a script that costed $80. I asked the programmer a question, and ended up getting the script for free. It worked all right for months, then all of a sudden it started to send out 20 copies of the same email to some people. Others received one copy, ten copies or some other number.
Time for a change: This time I bought a script. Same price, $80. I must say that the programmer was a nice guy and helped solving a lot of problems with it, but he couldn’t help that I had to send every lesson out once more to my subscribers. When I imported them, I couldn’t just tell the autoresponder that this person should start with lesson 14, and this with lesson 35. So – the subscribers who just has received a LOT of copies of my lessons, now once again had to receive them, one by one, until they reached their lesson.
Of course, even more persons unsubscribed, and only the most patient ones stayed back.
New Problems
Months after – problems again. I had too many lessons in my autoresponder series. Or perhaps too many subscribers? Anyway, I couldn’t broadcast messages, and the messages in queue didn’t come out, when they should.
This time I’ve had it! This time I would listen to the experts. They were after all more clever than I was, which explains why THEY were the experts.
Two Alternatives
According to the experts, there are two autoresponders worth using:
You can actually try GetRespons for free, and it’s a little bit cheaper than aWeber.
Anyway, I thought GetRespons was too difficult to set up, so I choose aWeber. I’m glad I did. The autoresponders are so easy to set up, and you can get lots of statistics and informations. The emails go out, you can check if your subscribers click on your links etc.
aWeber also offers videos so you can easily learn how to set up everything. I haven’t used many of them, because I found that everything was so simple that I didn’t have to. Nice to know that they are there, should I need them, though.
Choose Wisely
My advice to you is: Choose wisely! You can spend a lot of money and time on some worthless autoresponders. Believe me! I’ve tried it myself.
Go to aWeber or GetRespons, when you need an autoresponder. Don’t mess with scripts on your own server. You will end up regretting it, like I did.