RocketResponder -- DO NOT JOIN
I have left the material below to show what RocketResponder once was. The website may still be up but the service is not functional as far as I can tell. I used them for years and NO LONGER RECOMMEND THEM, if it's even still in business. (The support site is now in a foreign language owned by someone else; links in the service no longer work; lists get spammed by bots; etc.)
DO NOT JOIN. Instead, check out SendSteed as a FREE list builder / autoresponder. SendSteed is also one of the few you can use for MLM or affiliate marketing. Most will shut you down for this. Just don't send out pyramid schemes, etc. or they -- like anyone -- will shut you down.
Once you have a website to promote your business (see Weebly as one option), the next most important tool in my opinion is a good email marketing system with autoresponders included. This is what captures people's e-mail addresses and allows you to e-mail them when you want to. If you've written e-mails ahead of time, it can also e-mail them for you on autopilot (this is the part called an "autoresponder"). And a good one can even promote your latest blogs to your list automatically.
I have used many systems, including Constant Contact, MailChimp, iContact, AWeber, and TrafficWave. The first four of these are quality services, but MailChimp and AWeber are the ones that integrate with all the latest marketing software. MailChimp, however, makes it difficult to have a good lead capture form and MailChimp does NOT allow you to use their lists for any kind of work from home, MLM, or affiliate marketing opportunities. Others may have these restrictions as well, so be forewarned -- you don't want to lose your lists.
So out of the ones above, I only recommend AWeber. That starts at $19/month for up to 500 subscribers.
TrafficWave feels very OLD. Its "wonky" interface makes it no fun to use and unnecessarily confusing, and it seems like it hasn't had a feature upgrade forever. Plus, from what I can tell, it doesn't integrate with other software.
RocketResponder, however, is a piece of cake to use, and for $20/month, you can have UNLIMITED lists, subscribers, and lead pages, which means you can even use it without a website. It is also FUN to use. It's visually pleasing and easy to send either text or HTML messages (beautiful and simple drag and drop). This images shows the HTML builder in action:
DO NOT JOIN. Instead, check out SendSteed as a FREE list builder / autoresponder. SendSteed is also one of the few you can use for MLM or affiliate marketing. Most will shut you down for this. Just don't send out pyramid schemes, etc. or they -- like anyone -- will shut you down.
Once you have a website to promote your business (see Weebly as one option), the next most important tool in my opinion is a good email marketing system with autoresponders included. This is what captures people's e-mail addresses and allows you to e-mail them when you want to. If you've written e-mails ahead of time, it can also e-mail them for you on autopilot (this is the part called an "autoresponder"). And a good one can even promote your latest blogs to your list automatically.
I have used many systems, including Constant Contact, MailChimp, iContact, AWeber, and TrafficWave. The first four of these are quality services, but MailChimp and AWeber are the ones that integrate with all the latest marketing software. MailChimp, however, makes it difficult to have a good lead capture form and MailChimp does NOT allow you to use their lists for any kind of work from home, MLM, or affiliate marketing opportunities. Others may have these restrictions as well, so be forewarned -- you don't want to lose your lists.
So out of the ones above, I only recommend AWeber. That starts at $19/month for up to 500 subscribers.
TrafficWave feels very OLD. Its "wonky" interface makes it no fun to use and unnecessarily confusing, and it seems like it hasn't had a feature upgrade forever. Plus, from what I can tell, it doesn't integrate with other software.
RocketResponder, however, is a piece of cake to use, and for $20/month, you can have UNLIMITED lists, subscribers, and lead pages, which means you can even use it without a website. It is also FUN to use. It's visually pleasing and easy to send either text or HTML messages (beautiful and simple drag and drop). This images shows the HTML builder in action:
When you send an e-mail through RocketResponder, you can choose to send it immediately or at a certain time. You can also choose to automatically send it a second time to those who don't open it the first time, helping to increase your total open rate!
Lead capture forms are also created (easily) in RocketResponder. The sample below took just a minute to create, and you can change colors, size, text, choose to ask for names or not, etc. Sign up below to see it in action and you'll get my 2-week course on growing your network marketing business:
I've removed this, as RocketResponder is no longer functional after many years in business.
As I mentioned, they also give you full-blown lead pages ... as many as you want to build. They will host them for you. This is a great way to collect email addresses with or without a website. This is just a few of what they have pre-built, but you can also start from scratch:
If you're a Facebook advertiser, you can also use Facebook's "lead ads" to capture people's best email addresses (what they use for Facebook) with no chance of misspelling the address. These are imported directly into your RocketResponder account so it can send them a confirmation email. Offer something through a Facebook ad and this is a powerful way to build your list!
When someone subscribes to your e-mail series in any way, they're sent a confirmation e-mail that you can customize. You can choose what web page they're sent to when confirming, especially useful if you want to offer them something for joining. (And RocketResponder will do its best to prevent them from being able to "hack" and see your confirmation page if you want. This keeps them from getting something like a free download without actually joining your list.) If someone fails to confirm their e-mail address, you'll be able to see that and resend the confirmation message at the push of a button:
Also, if you're involved in network marketing and want to be able to share autoresponder messages with a team, RocketResponder has that feature built in with "Import" and "Share" buttons at the top of every series you write.
Finally, one of the reasons I absolutely LOVE RocketResponder is that you can automatically reach any list when you update your blog. This is awesome because it means that, if you blog, there's no need to send separate e-mails to your lists. You'll be staying in touch with your latest news already. This obviously doesn't keep you from ALSO e-mailing them, but it's one more way to stay in touch and make YOUR life simple.
As for integrations, RocketResponder doesn't integrate with a lot of the latest marketing software I see coming out. So if you're trying to do some fancy things, use AWeber. But RocketResponder DOES integrate with some software; and with a lot more software through a service called Zapier (which is free). This opens up a lot of opportunities for you. (Want to build a spreadsheet of all your subscribers? Connect your mailing list with Google Docs and have it done automatically. Yeah, that's just the tip of that iceberg.)
At $20/month for unlimited lists, subscribers, and lead pages you'll have a hard time ever finding the kind of autoresponder value offered by the Rocket!
AGAIN, DO NOT try to sign up for RocketResponder. The website may still exist but the service is no longer functional.