What Is The Best Self Service Email Marketing Solution To Use?

For the past year my company has used constant contacts (www.constantcontact.com) to email out our monthly newsletter to our customers and friends. We feel the service that we get is overpriced since we only have a small list of about 700 emails.
We have looked into using Vertical Response (www.verticalresponse.com) and its very tempting to sign up, but we know there are many others to choose from, as well as software that allows us to send it through our own servers. What do you guys use? What do you recommend?

 

I gotta say www.aweber.com is one of the best. With www.emailaces.com coming in at a close second.

 

Thanks John Guanzon! I'm going to check out www.aweber.com right now! Why do you think they're the best? Do you get flagged for people marking you as spam?

 

They are simply the best service all around. They stay in constant contact with the ISP's to assure your mail is delivered, they provide the best and most advanced tools, and their support is second to none.

Because they are a third party service you don't risk being flagged for spam or blacklisted, and they have a system in place that will check if your mail is cause for being marked for spam before you send.

 

Wow! www.aweber.com looks amazing! I'm signing up for a free test spin to see how my html newsletter looks when its sent out. Thanks again for the tip!

 

Not a problem.

 

I signed up for an account with aweber.com and began to import my list of contacts. Turns out all of my contacts must receive and confirmation email and then click on the subscribe link in order for me to add them. I think I'm going to have to ditch this company and try another one. Is there any other company out there that allows me to send to contacts without sending them a confirmation email first?

 

That is the legal way that it must be done, it's part of the double opt in policies of the can-spam laws. You will be hard pressed to find a quality service that offers you that ability. You can go the route of hosting it on your server with a PHP script, but that puts you in the risk of getting your domain blacklisted.

 

I've found aweber second to none for getting emails to their target destination. I think 2nd place would have to be getresponse, they are almost as good.

 

Are there any secrets to using aweber? Its a little confusing and primitive, or maybe its just me. How long did it take for you to setup your account? Any tips for writing an opt in message that will lure your customers to click on the link to opt back in?

 

I go over all that in my free-ecourse www.listbuilding-101.com

 

I started out using constant contact and it became way too expensive. I use aweber now and love it.

 

You can try Internet Marketing Solutions software. Their email software pretty much covers all email marketing needs, and it is offered at a fair price.

 

I have some experience with servicies. Almost all of them have strange policy.
Some will ban you when they get 0.2% of complaints.
Some don't allow you to upload your list without asking your clients to rejoin it.... etc

here is a list of almost all email marketing services:
http://email-marketing-service-review.toptenreviews.com/

I develop my own email marketing software . http://www.convincingmail.com Try demo here: http://demo.convincingmail.com

 

Thanks for the info locdev! The page with all the reviews is a good link with great info! Why don't they include aweber on that list?

I tried to checkout the software that you offer but the user manual is not working for me to see how it works. http://www.convincingmail.com/ConvincingMail-manual.pdf
Screen shots of the software always sells me.

 

yep the manual is not yet ready. The guy who is writing it is very slooow.
anyway if you are interested I can guide you thru the features and help to install it on your servers.

note that it is asp.net based so you need a Windows based server

btw. can you also share what the key features you use/need from the software? e.g.: Personalization, bounced handling, reports???

 

Why pay monthly when you can buy your own mass-email software,and even charge others to use it? I have used both OEMPro and Interspire. I recommend Send Studio.

 

100% agreed!

 

Ok Locdev & Drew007007, I have been trying to decide between both OemPro and Send Studio and would love to know why you both choose Send Studio as the preferred option. If you have the pros and cons I would love to have the feedback. They both seem neck and neck to me from what I have been reading, but I have not used either program.

Thanks for the help!

UltimateBuilder