It’s true that you are on a very tight budget and it’s also true that there are free autoresponders out there on the Internet to be had. You might opt for one of the free ones. In that case you will have an autoresponder that isn’t going to serve your needs and that will make you look cheap but you’ll save enough money for a couple of hamburgers. It hardly seems worth it. Taking short cuts and/or doing important things on the cheap are not viable options in a good business plan. You want to get an autoresponder that will serve your needs today, as well as, into the future after you have grown into a large and profitable business. I would recommend you go with aweber to help you make money online effectively.
Moving names and email addresses from one autoresponder to another can be done but it is a time consuming and tedious job that you can avoid by simply signing on to the right autoresponder service in the first place. Determining the right service means determining what is right for you and your business. You need a service that has a personalization feature and one that allows you as many autoresponders as you need. You will want a separate autoresponder for each product and for each campaign. *Note…the free autoresponder services usually only allow you one autoresponder, often do not have the personalization feature and always put an advertisement for their service in each and every email that you send. Each autoresponder service has a slightly different set of instructions for the installation of their programs on your website but all of them are pretty simple and the instructions for all of the ones I’ve seen are clear and easy to follow. Now the only question left is where to put those opt-in boxes on your pages.
Opt-In Boxes: The placement of opt-in boxes on your pages is a vital decision and one that is going to have a direct effect on exactly how many people do, in fact, opt-in to your list. What information you ask for is an equally important factor in your opt-in success. The information that the opt-in box asks for should be ONLY the first name and the email address of the customer or potential customer. This is important. People are very leery about giving out their personal information in this day and age of identity theft. If you ask for too much information, they will not opt-in no matter what assurances you give them about not sharing their information. They are not going to give your their first and last name, there home address and their phone number so just don’t ask. If you do, you won’t get their first name and their email address and this is really all of the information that you require at this point. Your opt-in box should always make a guarantee of privacy and a promise that information will not be shared with third parties. Do you see that scroll bar on the right side of this page? The one that allows you to roll a page down to see what is there but not yet visible on your screen?
We refer to everything that can be seen without scrolling down as being ‘above the fold’…we stole that phrase from the newspaper publishers. In newspaper lingo it means what can be seen at the top of the first page…the headline and what is under it down to the center fold. That is always the most valuable part of print real estate and Internet marketing real estate as well. Your opt-in box should always be above the fold…always! There are no exceptions. The most fortuitous position for your opt-in box is in the upper left hand corner of the page. This is where the human eye naturally goes first when presented with reading material. Centered either on the left or right side of the page is a satisfactory position as well. There should be an opt-in box on every page of your website… there is no exception here either… and every one of them should be positioned above the fold.
The Opt-In Incentive: I have frequently heard this referred to as ‘bait’. That is a term that just seems a bit crude. You are not fishing or tapping wild animals…these are your customers and potential customers that we’re talking about so we will call this an ‘opt-in incentive’. People do not turn on their computers and go in search of places where they can give out their email addresses. No, they are very stingy with that information. For you to convince them to hand over their name and email address to you, you are going to need to give them a reason…a good reason.
There are a couple of things that just about every computer user has in common with all other users…they hate SPAM and the REALLY HATE ADVERTISING! That’s the bad news. The good news is that there is one more common trait among computer users…they LOVE information and the REALLY LOVE FREE INFORMATION. If you have your own E-book that relates to the topic of your website and pertains to the products that you sell, then use it as your opt-in incentive.
If you don’t have your own Ebook, you can buy one. We allowed $20 in your budget for the purchase of on opt-in incentive. Look at PLR (Private Label Rights) sites to find E-books that will satisfy your requirements. You can buy the rights to an E-book, legally claim authorship of the work and use it as your opt-in incentive. Remember this; the more valuable your opt -in incentive is, the more people will give up their names and email addresses to get it. E-books are not, of course, the only possible opt-in incentive out there. You might offer a free utility or another piece of software that your potential customers would find of value.