Migrating to a New Email Service

Think about all the Internet-based services you use for web hosting, email, database development, ecommerce, video, customer surveys and all the other places where you need a user name and password.

Which one’s your top revenue driver?

If you answered email, you’re right.

But, your email has to get through to be effective.

My last email to my list didn’t make it to at least one person: me.

That’s why I’m investigating new email delivery services.

The top contenders at the moment are AWeber and Intellicontact.

Intellicontact’s friendly graphic icons take the edge off the technology. "We simplify email", Intellicontact’s tagline, seems to be a promise that holds true in the user interface. Overall, the site is simple to navigate even with a robust round up of reporting tools. Ryan Allis, Intellicontact’s CEO, is featured in a eMarketing Talk Show interview about multi-channel email marketing. Reading his bio, here’s a guy who knows how to grow a company.

But their logo shows up in the outgoing emails. And I found out about them after I set up a series of lists on AWeber.

AWeber’s attraction is their 93% deliverability rate due to double opt-ins. (You sign up and then confirm your subscription). Many of the top Interent marketers recommend and use Aweber. Here’s what makes this company a stand out for me: people. Yes, real people answer the phones. They call you to make sure you understand the product. And, I even got – get this – a real letter from them welcoming me to their program when I signed up a few months ago. But the user-interface was clunky and hard to understand. Some of that’s cleared up now and I’m comfortable enough to lead my list on a migration to a new email provider – one that delivers everyone’s mail, including mine.

Which will I choose? Considering I have 4 email providers now, I may use both of them. One caution for you and for me: every time you move your list you lose subscribers – and profits. I’ll sleep on this one for a few more days and let you know.