How to set up your mailing list, add subscribers, and add forms
On Monday, my webinar service cut out and I wasn’t able to show people how to set up their mailing lists using iContact and aWeber. But I struck back. Oh yes.
I didn’t want to wait three weeks and schedule a new webinar, so I recorded this video. Here’s what it covers:
• How to create a new list in both iContact and aWeber
• How to manually add subscribers
• How to add a form in both, and add it to your blog even if you’re not too tech savvy
Enjoy!
aWeber vs. iContact, and why you need a mailing list.
Pop quiz, hotshot: What’s the one thing that every single internet business has?
Answer: The bomb explodes if the bus goes under 60 miles per hour, but fortunately Keanu Reeves saves the day.
Actually, the answer is that they all have email lists. Hotshot.
Why? Because while people may forget to check websites regularly or may wander away from your stuff, they do check their email. You can wait for people to come to you to find out what you have to say, or you can email them a little nudge… or, putting it more accurately, you can serve good information up to them where they live and breathe. Posting something to your website is like putting a flier for your garage sale at the office water cooler and hoping people come by and pick one up. Email marketing is like calling everyone in the office and telling them about that sale personally.
Why do you need an email list? Because email marketing works.
Let me tell you a little story: I got on an email list a while ago when I visited some well-known guy’s website. I didn’t use the info he sent me, but I DO get his tons of worthless shitty spammy emails. The guy sends me stuff CONSTANTLY for crap that I honestly doubt he knows anything about. I think he just signs up to be an affiliate for the newest piece of shit and then blasts it out to his list, making phat cash as even a tiny fraction of his huge subscriber list buys it.
Yet, I’m still on the list because I’m far, far too lazy to click the link and opt out. And every once in a while, he’ll send me something with a catchy subject line and I’ll open it. And these emails? They’re catchy. I often come pretty close to clicking on the links.
So if email can be this powerful for internet dicks, just imagine what you could do with a good reputation and a bit of selective integrity.
I have two email lists, both of which are through iContact. I send my The Economy Isn’t Happening newsletter (which is hilarious, and studies show that if you’re not on that mailing list, dwarves may eat your face) and I send mailings for this site. The latter is not a newsletter; I just want to tell those folks about webinars and free reports and new products and stuff.
I do the first newsletter because I want people to keep reading me and keep coming back to my blog. And I send to y’all on the list for this site because you’re busy folks (except for one guy; you know who you are) and you might forget to check the site for updates.
If you don’t abuse your list and if you give them good info, you’ll have a nice, pre-screened pool of potential readers, customers, whatever.
So yeah, you really do need a list if you want to do business online. I recommend two email services, both of which I use every week. The first is iContact, as already mentioned. The second is aWeber, which is pretty much the industry standard for businesses bigger than my pissant empire. I use aWeber for client accounts, because their operations are more sophistimocated than mine.
My ten-cent breakdown of each is below. No, this summary isn’t perfect. No, it’s not hard and fast. No, I’m not going to listen if some smartasses yell at me for over-generalizing. But I try to keep things simple here, so I’m going to do my best to boil it down and make the choice easier:
• If you have relatively few opt-in forms and lists like me and pretty much “just want to mail shit to folks,” use iContact. It’s way easy, it’s way cheap ($9.99 a month for up to 500-person lists and not much more expensive for even huge lists), and they have a 15-day free trial. iContact also does not require your subscribers to double-opt in*. That’s another huge reason I like it. This is a great all-around mailing service. And yes, they also have autoresponders.**
• If you have a lot of lists, a lot of forms, are generally a complicated marketer, or if you want to integrate with a shopping cart, use aWeber. Really, aWeber has become the industry standard. They have a ton more features, a ton more customizability, and integrate easily with a shopping cart — meaning that if someone buys from you through something like KickStartCart (a 1shoppingcart private label), you can get that person on your mailing list. (Technically, some mailing capability exists in KickStartCart, but your more robust stuff is in aWeber.) The biggest downsides? It’s a little bit more expensive, and they do require your subscribers to double-opt-in… even if you’re importing a list from another mailing service that people have already double-opted-into. Try this little maneuver and you’ll lose half of your list. Enjoy that, by the way.
If you think you’ll eventually need aWeber, start there now. Moving is a major whore.
I’ll be covering a lot of this in my free webinar this Monday. Be sure to sign up if you’d like to attend!
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* Double opt-in means that you join a list by filling out a website form, but then must also click a link in an email to confirm that you actually want to be on the list. (If you import the list, double opt-in means that all of the people imported will get an email saying, “Hey, you want into this list again?” Wisdom says that double opt-in gives you a higher-quality list, because people have to REALLY want in.
However, personally, I like to think that your average person isn’t totally retarded. We’re all adults here. If you opt in once, I don’t think you need to opt in again. This is the equivalent of saying “Are you sure?” to your subscribers. It’s also the equivalent of that fancy Pepperidge Farm bread that still isn’t open after you open it. However, in defense of the double opt-in, it does at least cut down on spam — people signing up folks who aren’t themselves. But, hell. Small potatoes.
** Autoresponder = automated email. People use autoresponders most often to send a series of emails following an event, like a purchase. Maybe you want to send them a thank-you-for-your-purchase email right away (day 0), but then want to try to upsell those people on another product on days 7 and 30. An autoresponder would send those upsell emails to your people automatically.
