• Building an email list is essentially about creating a database of subscribers or followers. These people are potential consumers or customers. They have been qualified and would want to hear from you. They may not necessarily be endorsers or fans of everything you sell or offer but they are subscribers. They would receive your regular newsletters and follow everything that your brand does or intends to do. This following is not dissimilar to social media followers but the added advantage is the comprehensive informational exchanges you can have. Email is more detailed than social media posts and it is also more private. Both attributes make email marketing effectively and an email list more quintessential than you think.

• An email list gives you a ready and waiting audience. You don’t need to go out looking for a database or wait for the impending traffic. All your other marketing strategies will remain at play. The distinct advantage is that you can send out notifications or email updates and get the leads to respond. The ready audience will give a fillip to your traffic. They would share the email and also spread the word verbally. You would have direct responses in some cases that you can follow up on. Many people on your email list will take to social media to further spread the word which will assist your existing social media campaigns.

• An email list is a dedicated base of potential customers. Social media following is a voluntary subscription which can waver at any given point in time. You can combine the two to have a more formidable social media presence and to expand your email list. Your social media followers who don’t find a place on your email list will exponentially expand your database or your massive email database will help your social media following and hence enhance your influence.

MailChimp VS AWeber VS GetResponse

Even in this day and age, building a powerful email list is absolutely vital. These lists are usually built up over a certain period of time. A good email list will be a robust, up-to-date collection of your most loyal customers and clients. These are the people who are either loyal to your brand, or are at least interested in what you have to offer. As you can imagine, this list is going to be invaluable.

Furthermore, it isn’t difficult to envision that building such a list can be a little challenging. That’s where email providers prove to be helpful. The three heavyweights in this arena are MailChimp, AWeber, and GetResponse. Which one is going to give you the results you require?

Comparing MailChimp, AWeber, And GetResponse

While MailChimp, AWeber, and GetResponse have a number of similarities, each one ultimately offers a different user experience. This makes a universal recommendation impossible. Instead, let’s break down the main considerations of an email provider:

• Deliverability: This refers to whether or not your messages will make it to the desired inboxes. AWeber has a good reputation in this regard, but MailChimp and GetResponse have established better reputations through the years for this demand.

• Sign-Up Forms: A visually-pleasing, engaging signup form is essential for bringing in new subscribers/followers to your email list. MailChimp makes it easy to create elaborate, customized forms, so they tend to be the user favorite in this arena.

• Price: Obviously, you don’t want to spend an arm and a leg. At the same time, it stands to reason that you want to achieve the best value possible. All of these providers offer tiered subscription services, as well as the ability to pick and choose the services that you are actually going to use. MailChimp has a more options for potential subscribers, but to be honest, all three companies are about the same in this category.

• Autoresponders: A good autoresponder can prove to be extremely useful, particularly if you want to create your own pre-set email campaign. That being said, this is another category in which the differences between our three providers is close to nil.

• Integration: MailChimp has a great reputation for making it easy for their clients to integrate their emails with different tools.

• Customer Service: All of these companies have good customer service, although AWeber has maintained a great customer service rep for a really long time at this point.