There are many email marketing services on the market. Constant Contact, Vertical Response, iContact, Campaigner, and now ,GetResponse.com. I have not tried out GetResponse, but from what I can tell, it is feature rich, easy to use and quite powerful.
I stress that it’s always best to try 2 or 3 email campaigns and test the support before deciding if an email campaign service is for you. You really never know how well an email marketing service performs, as far as the usability and support, until it’s been tested over time.
Most all email marketing campaigns have similar features: They enable you to
• Send email newsletters to customers.
• Survey customers
• Generate reports on who opened your email newsletter and other features
Email newsletters are an important communication tool for your customers – even with the growing advent of social media.
On the other hand, I have seen a HUGE increase in the number of people (all of you) reading Smallbiztechnology.com on Facebook, Twitter and RSS feeds through RSS readers.
One of the neat features of GeResponse.com is that it enables you to do an A/B split test so you can test which email campaigns work best.
For example, maybe you have an email newsletter that goes to customers who are interested in buying pianos from you. What subject line works best? “Free Pianos”, “Cheap Pianos”, “Low Cost Pianos” or etc.
With an A/B Test you split your list into various smaller subsets and send each list a different subject line. The list which gets the best response can help guide you into which subject line is best.
Campaigner has an A/B test feature, for its larger accounts. From what I can tell the other email marketing services do not provide this at all.
Ramon Ray is the edirtor and tech eangelist for Smallbiztechnology.com
