eMail Management

You may have heard it before, "The money is in the list." Well, it's true. Having an opt-in list of customers and subscribers is the best way to make money online. And proper e-mail management can increase the profitability of your business by more than 4 times what it was. Don't believe me? Ask anyone who's ever used e-mail in their promotions properly.

I'm not talking about spamming or any other dishonest practice. Those are useless and will only get you banned and hurt your business (don't ever buy a list of email addresses, by the way). I'm talking about staying in touch with your customer base and subscribers on a regular basis, keeping them informed about your latest promotions, and establishing good relationships with them. Trust is important on the internet, and customers who you keep in touch with will be more likely to purchase something from you than from your competitors. But it can be difficult to manage your e-mail list. But there are some great ways to make it easier. Here are my top recommendations:

1. 1ShoppingCart
1ShoppingCart does pretty much everything that the email providers below do, but it adds one more thing. It's also a shopping cart program. So if you plan on selling anything from your website, and also using email and autoresponders, then you might want to try 1ShoppingCart instead. It's also my #1 recommendation on my shopping cart software page.

The only drawbacks are the same as Aweber and GetResponse below. They host everything on their server and have their own rules for you to follow, so you have don't have absolute control over everything in your email campaign. But their rules are reasonable, so it doesn't bother me. I've never had a problem, and I use their service a lot.

They also have excellent support and a great learning center and training videos. And they offer a very inexpensive 30-day trial, so you can test it out without any risk. If you need a shopping cart with a full range of features including everything to do with email, then I recommend looking into 1ShoppingCart.

2. AWeber
AWeber is one of the best email management toosl on the web. They run your email from their server, which means that there is less for you to concern yourself with because they have all of the information for your list backed up on their network along with all of your messages and anything else you need to add to your account. That means that you don't have to worry about any crashes ruining your email campaigns. They're extremely reliable, over 99% email deliverability.

The only drawback, if this matters to you, is that you have less control than you would over any program you ran from your own computer, such as Mailloop listed below. You're subject to Aweber's rules, but their rules are sound and will help to make sure your emails get delivered because they know the spam laws better than we do.

Also, They have excellent unlimited customer support to go along with a ton of great training guides and videos. They provide templates for your newsletters and follow-up messages as well as easy instructions for creating opt-in web forms, which will cut your workload down considerably. And they'll let you try it out 30 days risk free. You can cancel if you don't like it and get a full refund. They'll even let you take a free test drive, so it's at least worth looking into. But I think you'll love it.

3. GetResponse
GetResponse is a web-based email marketing software that works in much the same way as Aweber listed above, on their own server. It can run your email campaigns, offers, newsletters, follow-ups and autoresponder messages. They provide you with unlimited email marketing campaigns, autoresponders, follow-ups, lists and broadcasts, 150+ professionally designed HTML templates, a full tracking system, and very good support and training.

Any drawbacks are the same as Aweber above. You run on their server and are subject to their rules, so you have less control, but their rules are solid and make sense, so I don't really consider it to be that big of a deal.

They offer a free trial, so you can give it a shot without any risk.

4. iContact
iContact works in much the same way as Aweber and GetResponse in that it's a web based email management system, with the same basic features. One difference is that they claim a higher deliverability rate than other providers, but at the same time they're more expensive.

Actually, they're less expensive if you have a very small list, but as your client list grows, the monthly charge grows as well. If you have a large list, then iContact will be much more expensive. Of course, if you have a large list, then you should be making a lot of money.

They also provide software for creating surveys to send to your list, which is a great way to get ideas for your business from your subscribers. Their interface is easy to use and their features all work very well.

They also have a free trial, so take a test run and see what you think. I think you'll like their service.

5. Mailloop
Mailloop is definitely the best downloadable e-mail management software out there. It allows you more control over your lists and emails than other email tools that are hosted on someone else's server, but it also requires a little more programming experience to use the more advanced features. The basic email features are very easy to use thanks to a new interface and some improved functionality.

In addition to having the basic features of custom autoresponders and instant email broadcasts, some of the other features include the ability to save an unlimited amount of information about each new subscriber and edit it yourself, manage and reduce your bounce backs, use a confirmed opt-in system that can be turned on and off, manage an unlimited number of lists at no extra cost, send yourself test messages at multiple test accounts, automatically distribute all of your ebooks and registration codes, and process your subscribes and unsubscribes in real-time.

The only negatives are that you will need a little more programming experience, as I mentioned, and you will have to host it on your computer, which leaves you a little more vulnerable to crashes and downtime. Plus, you be sending the email from anyone who's studied the spam laws, unless you have, so you may not have every email deiviered. But if these things aren't a problem for you, and if you want to have more control over every aspect of your email campaigns, then I recommend Mailloop.

6. Desktop Marketer
Desktop Marketer is a new type of software that is the first to bring "direct-to-desktop" marketing technology to the small-business market.

E-mail marketing is becoming more and more difficult in light of new spam laws, increased filtering, and hoardes of vicious spammers making it tough to get legitimate e-mail into the inboxes of the customers and subscribers who want it. Which means it's time to look for new ways to reach online audiences to build relationships and, ultimately, increase sales.

With Desktop Marketer, you can bypass e-mail altogether and deliver messages straight to the desktops of your customers' and subscribers' computers so you have a constant, private communication channel that isn't filled with other people's messages and isn't interrupted by third-party filters or blockers. This way your messages get read every time.

The best part is that this technology is so new that only the wealthy Fortune 500 companies have used it until now. So people using Desktop Marketer to send promotions to their customers and subscribers now have an advantage over their competitors, at least for now.

7. The Insider Secrets to Email Marketing
The Insider Secrets to Email Marketing isn't an email management software, but rather a course that can teach you how to properly use email to increase your sales and your profits.

If you're not properly educated about how to collect, manage, and store e-mail addresses, If you don't know how to avoid being accused of spamming and how to deal with the anti-spam organizations should you be accidentally "blacklisted" as a result of a few forgetful subscribers, or if you don't know how to format your e-mail so that it will be displayed professionally in the majority of e-mail clients, then you'll want to read this advanced guide that will show you everything, from growing a responsive opt-in list as quickly as possible, to generating the highest possible revenue from every e-mail you send.

Even if you are educated and you do know what works, what doesn't, and how to avoid the dangers and pitfalls, you can dramatically increase the income of your online or offline business with this guide.