Posts Tagged ‘email marketing’

GetResponse review

Sunday, May 28th, 2017 | Business & Marketing, Tech

I use MailChimp for a lot of my projects. However, while it is awesome for most things, it does lack in automation. There are workflows, but they are pretty straight forward and linear affairs with no tagging: the only action is to send another email. There is no flow chart style interface, either.

So, I have been exploring other options. The first one I picked up is GetResponse. It is very reasonably priced in comparison to its competition with the basic package starting at $15 per month. Their site says, $10, but it’s actually £10 plus VAT, which is £12, which translates to $15.56 at time of writing.

Interface and workflow

I found the interface a little confusing. I was trying to edit my campaigns, for example. This is not in the menu. You have to click a little cog next to the campaigns drop-down. This shouldn’t be a big thing, but it took me ages to find it, and it was infuriating.

I also found the workflow a little confusing. You have to create a draft message. But then when you try and drag it into a workflow, it pops up a little box saying it has to copy it to the automation folder. Then I have two copies of the message. What is going on here?

And if you want to use Google Analytics integration, you can’t do that through automation. You have to use the newsletter editing screen and copy the message over to automation.

When you click exit on editing a message, you go back to the homepage, rather than the messages page. Again, not a huge thing, but it feels like the workflow for someone using it in the real world could use more attention (MailChimp isn’t brilliant at this, either).

The automation builder itself is really nice. You can drag and drop elements onto the page, such as messages or decisions, and configure the output easily. There are lots of options including tracking opens, clicks and specific link clicks, and re-arrange and add elements to your heart’s content.

Message editor

The editor itself is okay. It lets me edit the HTML directly, which I like. However, you have to generate a plain text version manually. There is a “Copy HTML” button, but this does not bring in the paragraphs, which you then have to fix manually. It doesn’t handle links very well either, in my opinion.

I could never get the inbox preview to work, but the test emails arrived soon enough.

User management and API

The user system and API are where I really struggled with GetResponse, though. You are unable to add tags to a user when you create them. This is frustrating when someone joins by making a purchase because you want to tag them with that purchase straight away.

You might think “oh, well I’ll have to create the user, then query for that user ID, then tag them, making three requests to the API. It’s not ideal, but it will work.” Except it won’t work. Because users are not added to your list in real-time. They are done via a queue. So if you query for a user immediately after creating them, they won’t be there.

They have a PHP library for the API, but it needs some work. It typecasts everything as an object. Even the arrays. So you end up with things like:

stdObject->0

PHP doesn’t allow this, so you have to JSON encode the object, and then JSON decode it to get back to:

stdObject->{"0"}

Even if you could add tags, there is no screen to allow you to manage them.

Support & live chat

They do offer 24/7 live chat. This was a mixed bag. The first time I spoke to them they confirmed there was no tag management screen and that they did not support the API, so would not be able to answer my question about that.

The second time I spoke to them was when their message editor was playing up. I was trying to edit the HTML, and every time it broke. It turns out that unless you select “HTML editor” when you first create the message, you are stuck. I had started with a template, and there is no way to switch. So I had to create a new message and copy it in. It was difficult to get the message across to the support agent, but eventually, we found ourselves on the same page and sorted out the issue.

Other problems

Copying things over is more difficult than it seems. GetResponse uses the session to track what message you are editing. This means that if you open one message, and then a second, it things you are editing the second message on both screens.

Let me explain this with a scenario:

  • I have message A, and I want to copy over the content from message B
  • I open message A
  • I open message B and copy and paste the content to message A
  • I click “save” on message A to save the new content
  • GetResponse thinks I am editing message B and overwrites the content of message B, ignoring message A

I lost a lot of content before I realised this. Luckily, I had backups on my computer.

And in case you’re thinking an easy way to avoid this would be to duplicate message B and then edit it, think again: there is no duplicate functionality.

Getting people into an automation workflow can be tough. You can filter what happens based on custom fields. However, this doesn’t work on the initial subscription: it only works when you go in and edit the custom field of the user. Which is not very automated.

Other features

GetResponse also offers landing pages, webinars and some other stuff. I watched a webinar about their webinars, but I haven’t tried any of these systems because I just want the mailing list functionality. It might be great.

Summary

I love GetResponse’s automation builder. The drag and drop interface makes it easy to create an email sequence that follows what people do and delivers them relevant messages. It is powerful and shows you how many people are at each point.

But that is where my love ends. Coming from MailChimp, where everything is beautiful and works well, GetResponse has a lot of issues. There are so many problems that working with it becomes infuriating, undoing much of the power that the automation functionality should be adding in.

Ultimately, you can launch a simple automation workflow that is more advanced than MailChimp. However, there are so many bugs, dead-ends and limits to what would otherwise be a great tool, that you don’t get much advantage.

How much does all the marketing tools cost you?

Thursday, May 18th, 2017 | Business & Marketing

Marketing is an expensive business. There are so many invaluable tools out there that you need. Of course, they do in fact all have a value. And a price. How much would it cost to get all of them? Find out below.

But to spoil the ending: the answer is a lot. Even if you are writing your own copy, doing your own graphic design, doing all of the content, emailing, admin yourself, the cost of all the tools alone is significant. And this doesn’t include stuff like web hosting, CDNs and other “technical” things.

I have listed the marketing tools that people talk about a lot. There are many others, of course, and some of these are specific: you may not do webinars, for example. But many marketers do, so I’ve included it.

Market research

Service Cost
Semrush $79 per month
Alexa $50 per month
Ahrefs $99 per month
Moz $99 per month
Buzzsumo $99 per month

Content production

Service Cost
Piktochart $29 per month
Wistia $99 per month
WebinarJam $397 per year

Free alternatives: YouTube Live gives you everything you need to do a webinar, including recording it.

Content posting

Service Cost
Meet Edgar $79 per month
Buffer $9 per month
EverWebinar $497 per year

Free alternatives: Buffer has a free plan. Recurpost does the same thing as Meet Edgar.

Facebook marketing

Service Cost
Many Chat $15 per month
AdExpresso $49 per month

Free alternatives: Many Chat has a free plan with branding. You can just manage your ads yourself using the Facebook Power Editor.

Email marketing

Service Cost
Infusionsoft $199 per month
MailChimp $10 per month
Aweber $19 per month
ConvertKit $29 per month
GetResponse $15 per month
Drip $49 per month

Free alternatives: MailChimp has a free plan.

Landing pages

Service Cost
Lead Pages $37 per month
ClickFunnels $97 per month
Unbounce $49 per month

Opt-in tools

Service Cost
Hello Bar $4.95 per month
OptinMonster $19 per month

Free alternatives: Hello Bar as a free plan.

Session recording

Service Cost
Crazy Egg $108 per year

Free alternatives: Inspectlet and FullStory both have free plans.

Summary

Some marketers have a lot of these tools: maybe one from each category. Others seem to have ALL of them. And the prices I have listed here are just the cheapest paid plans. Semrush, for example, starts at $79 per month. But if you want to track all o your websites, you will be looking at around $500 per month.

Therefore, I think it’s safe to say that people are spending thousands of dollars per month on marketing tools. And for the big marketers, they are spending tens of thousands.

If you are bringing home the bacon, it is money well spent. If you are just starting out, try the free alternatives I have listed.