Email Marketing Opt In

Optin email marketing is basically the honest, legitimate way of email marketing wherein people sign up for your list willingly and manually. You may be offering something on your website to encourage them to sign up, they might do it without any pushing from you at all or you might hound them into it with pop ups across the screen every two minutes. Either way, the point is they manually opt into your email marketing list.

The only thing an email marketing opt in does is provide a link and a text box, so they can enter in their address and send it through the system. Your email service provider captures that information and adds the new user to your email marketing list. A basic optin email marketing service may redirect the person to a thank you page, show them a thank you or confirmation on screen or even in some cases send them a double opt-in or confirmation email.

Email Autoresponders

Autoresponders take things a step further than that. When somebody signs up for your email marketing list and you are using a full autoresponder service, your email service provider will immediately send out their first message at the time of your choosing.

Going forward from there, you can setup an entire string of emails to be sent in intervals so you can stay in contact with your new list members and quickly convert them into customers. This is a great service to have when you are providing an instructional series or eBook via email, when you provide a series of reviews or when you have planned messages that old list members already received but new ones have not.

An autoresponder does not necessarily have to be tied into your email marketing opt in either. You can set up this kind of service to kick in after somebody contacts you, or you can segment your existing list and begin attacking them with different, automatically sent campaigns.

So really, autoresponders can be put to use with a great optin email marketing strategy, but the two aren’t completely the same. Autoresponders represent a far larger picture of functionality and communication, which if used properly can do wonders for converting a prospect or email marketing lead into a paying customer. An email marketing opt in is designed purely to get people onto your list, and may or may not include any automatic responses.

The great news is that the majority of the best email marketing software providers offer free trials and demos that can help you see firsthand their strengths and their potential. This goes a long way towards helping people understand what they’re getting into.

Companies such as MailChimp, Bronto and Listrak are just a few of the popular choices and all offer flexible and powerful programs. It doesn’t come close to stopping there though, here’s a list with about 100 different email service providers. In the future, I’ll plan on reviewing many of these different providers as well as comparing their services. In the mean time, here are two of my personal favorites.

iContact Web Based Email Marketing Software

iContact is probably the most feature rich, affordably priced email service provider around. They have plans starting at just $9.95 a month, and considering what you get for that price tag, the value is extraordinary. iContact has over 300 templates that you can choose between and the service includes survey tools and blogging and RSS capabilities as well.

You’ll be able to archive your newsletters on the web, and make use of their autoresponder tools to build your company’ list. They have a strong reputation and great deliverability rates, and offer complete list management and tracking services.

Sign up for an iContact free trial here

Constant Contact Web Based Email Marketing Software

Constant Contact has plans starting at $15 per month, scaling up depending on the size of your list. You have a powerful survey tool at your disposal, although you will have to pay an additional monthly fee to use it after a free trial. One of the best things about the Constant Contact web based email marketing software is how easy the interface is to use and get accustomed it.

You’ll have hundreds of templates to choose between, broken down into easy to find categories. You’ll also have a comprehensive tracking system and full list management and segmentation abilities.

Sign up for a Constant Contact free trial here

This was by no means meant to be a comprehensive or complete guide on the best email service providers. It was meant to whet your appetite a bit and get you ready to dive in and try one of these companies out for yourself. The only way to really make a decision that you’re happy with is to learn by doing. Plus, with a free trial, it’s hard to go wrong.

If you’re new to the world of email communications and online marketing, consider one of these web based email marketing software companies to get you and your company started in the right direction.

Top 7 reasons why you need email marketing companies

1. Deliverability: Reputable email marketing programs are going to have relationships with ISPs that ensure that the messages they send get delivered. Manually sending out emails leaves the door open to get unfairly blacklisted or blocked, or seeing long delays before your messages reach their intended audience.

2. Tracking: Email marketing companies provide detailed tracking services that allow you to follow the results of your campaigns. Without tracking the success of your emails, you’ll never know if what you’re doing is paying off and you’ll never understand how to improve.

3. Templates: An email marketing template will enable you to send out a professionally designed and visually appealing email. The best email services have hundreds of potential themes and options to choose between, in addition to allowing for customization of existing templates.

4. Autoresponders: Autoresponders allow you to signup new prospects and leads from your website. This lets you grow a permission based email marketing list of qualified prospects and interested parties.

5. List Management: Email marketing companies are going to handle all of the hard work of list management. This means allowing for and processing unsubscribe requests, segmenting your list into different groups based on a variety of factors and so on.

6. Bulk email service: Bulk email service is going to let you send out hundreds or even thousands of emails instantly. You can scale up your program to allow for a maximum quantity of emails. There is no limit to how many people you can have in your list or how many emails you can send to them.

7. Time saving: Some of the above services could not be accomplished without email marketing programs, while some could be accomplished on your own if you had hours upon hours to do nothing else except handle your email marketing campaign every week. Using a reputable service will save you loads of time and frustration.

Recommended Email Marketing Companies

There are lots of choices to think about when you’re looking at email marketing companies. Here are two of my favorites that I highly recommend for nearly any purpose. These email services are highly effective and flexible, and are extremely cheap to use and get started with.

iContact Try it FREE for 15 Days
– 15 day free trial, over 300 templates, detailed statistics and tracking, surveys, industry leading deliverability

Constant Contact Try it FREE for 60 Days
– 60 day free trial, over 300 templates, surveys, comprehensive customer support

A list with nothing but unconverted prospects doesn’t do much good. If you wait too long to turn them into customers, you may miss your opportunity and the lead can be gone for good.

Here’s how you can turn an email marketing lead into a customer.

First of you course you have to find the lead and get him or her onto your list. The most effective way to do this is with an autoresponder signup featured prominently on your website. Offer visitors to your site a solid reason for joining – 20% off your next purchase, weekly tips, etc. – and you’ll quickly begin building the list up.

Next you want to confirm their interest and immediately begin working on them. You can do this by sending out a confirmation email after they signup. One approach is to send just a confirmation of the signup while another is the double opt-in, which requires a person to click on a link in the email to make the signup official. You may lose a few people in the pipeline here, but the final result is a much higher quality list.

Send out your first newsletter or other message quickly. If you get a new person on your list, and they don’t hear from you quickly they are going to either a) forget about you or b) stop caring about what you have to say. Strike while the iron is hot. If somebody signs up for your list that means they are showing an interest. Open up the continued line of communication with them as soon as possible.

You must have effective calls to action into order to convert an email marketing lead into a customer or client. You can provide your list a great overview of a new product, but if you don’t include a link to make a purchase, how is someone supposed to take action? If you don’t encourage swift action by offering a limited time price, discount or promotion, why should anyone feel compelled to do anything right now?

Whatever you want your list to do, opt for a call to action that follows the three Cs: clear, concise and compelling.

There are always going to be people who don’t respond to your messages right away. The key here is to keep chipping away at them. Stay at the forefront of their mind by sending them frequent messages providing useful and informative content. Continue offering discounts, promotions and deals. Finally, try using different approaches and designs and see what gets the best response so you can adjust your tactics accordingly.

It’s one thing to find a lead; it’s an entirely different thing to harvest that lead, turning it into a profitable customer. Follow this plan of action and even the most stubborn email marketing lead will eventually take the action that you’re seeking.

1. Automatic Unsubscribe Service – Not only is dealing with every unsubscribe request manually a time consuming chore, but you may end up missing a few requests and landing yourself in big trouble. There’s no sense in worrying about this when the majority of providers have automatic unsubscribe services built in to their list management capabilities.

2. Email List Management – In addition to the above, you should also have further list management options at your disposal. These include the ability to sort and segment your list based on a variety of different factors. You may, for example, want to quickly find all of the people who clicked through to your site from your last email, and send them a specific message. Or you may want to target people within 20 miles of your physical location with a special in-store discount. Whatever you may need to do, you’ll want to have these email list management capabilities at your disposal.

3. Tracking Services – Beginning a new email campaign isn’t going to get you very far if you don’t have any way to track how your emails are performing. You don’t to have this valuable information at hand and easily available so you can determine your various messages are being received, how they are being perceived and if people are ultimately taking the action you want them to be taking.

4. Autoresponder – An autoresponder is a crucial component to your email campaign software. It’s going to allow you to build your list so that you can find new prospects and eventually convert them into returning customers and clients. Any email program that does not offer this is seriously lacking. The only reason you wouldn’t need this is if you don’t have any kind of website or blog presence whatsoever.

5. Additional Features – There are a variety of different features and add-ons you may be interested in having along with basic emailing services. For example, most providers offer a variety of templates based around different themes and message types. Many email service providers also include surveying options, which opens up an entirely new world of possibilities. Consider what else you may be interested in and find a provider that offers it.

These aren’t the only things you need to consider, but finding an email campaign software provider that has these 5 elements will ensure you are investing in a quality service.