81–89 of 89 posts
I started out using mailchimp when I had less than 2000 subscribers. It worked great! But now that my mail list is growing, I find it increasingly expensive. Any recommendations on alternative providers?
Redcappi.com, though I do have connections with them. Worth a try, free to start.
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As usual, a very useful and thought-out reply. Thanks for taking the time. As soon as I get over the typical impostor syndrome and realize I have a lot to share in a newsletter, I'll follow your advice :) 'Tis true, "do stuff, tell people" is still the best advice. One thing I'm still struggling with is how to explain and justify the (otherwise normal but perceived as) high cost of web development to a crowd that's a…
I'm no patio11, but I did follow (I think) a similar trajectory. I used my consulting gig to build a nest-egg that I invested in my own startup, which will hit $1.2MM in revenue this year. I wanted to augment his comments with a couple of things that I know worked for me. > I know networking goes a long way toward such contacts, but it can't be just that. For me, it was literally "just that". However, understand that…
You are selling a way for them to invoice their clients without Susie printing out 4 different Excel workbooks and walking them over to Accounting. You are selling a way for them to find customers that's more reliable than placing an ad in the yellow pages. You are selling a way for them to find which customers to upsell without Jeff the intern going into the basement and sorting through 5000 file folders.
And so on. Solve business problems, preferably ones that are pain points, and that have dollar signs attached. These are the key.
I think I would much rather roll out my own solution using Mailgun/Amazon's API with a basic RoR/Golang prototype than use these shady monkeys. It's their business and they have every right to price it the way they see it fit, but when there's something deceptive going on, as an end user I think I have every reason to point it out. For example, when you start with a free plan and you decide to upgrade to a paid plan,…
Mailchimp has a lot of handy stuff: * You can just dump email addresses in it, and it'll keep eliminating ones that it's already seen that have unsubscribed/bounced/whatever. * Analytics/tracking/stats. * They work hard to make sure the emails get delivered/are not seen as spam. * The system is fairly user friendly. So... I've built similar systems in the past myself, but there's some value in doing it really well th…
This can be _gold_.
I use Campaign Monitor much more than Mailchimp - and whenever I can, I always try to be on-hand when a client sends out at least one of their early/important mailouts, and I direct them to Campaign Monitors real-time map view of opens. You can see their eyes light up (and sometimes their heads explode) as they get a continuously updated view of people's names popping up in a map showing they've just opened the email - and even better when they're clicking on the links. If I possibly can, I try to be on-site so I csn open up one browser window with that Campaign Monitor view, and another with Google Analytics realtime report.
For me - that's usually one of the biggest "Oh, now I get it!" moments I can hand-feed to clients…
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If you're capable of banging out basic RoR/Golang prototypes which can be used by non-technical email marketers, this skill alone can get you $20k+ engagements to build them with a bit of company-specific secret sauce in them. The sauce doesn't have to be that complicated at all -- for example, "I wish there was a way to send people an email on day N of their trial if their account had less than X objects in it... an…
I've been following your advice and newsletters, and I get great value from them. However, one thing that I still haven't figured out is this: how would I find say, that small insurance company in Kansas who has $100k to spend on a solution I could offer to their problem? Where would I begin to look? Cold-contacting seems unscalable. I know networking goes a long way toward such contacts, but it can't be just that. I…
Essentially, you identify the types of clients you work best with, create a process for finding them online, finding the right contact people at the company, finding their contact information, then reach out to them via email. It's scalable because you can hire someone on oDesk to follow the process you create. All you have to do then is set up a call with the incoming leads. Happy to answer any questions you have.
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I've been following your advice and newsletters, and I get great value from them. However, one thing that I still haven't figured out is this: how would I find say, that small insurance company in Kansas who has $100k to spend on a solution I could offer to their problem? Where would I begin to look? Cold-contacting seems unscalable. I know networking goes a long way toward such contacts, but it can't be just that. I…
Go to the local Chamber of Commerce, or other watering holes for businesses, and say you're going to teach a free lecture on business use of email at the VFW hall, with reception to follow. The hall rents out for ~$20. Buy donuts and Starbucks coffee for the reception. Talk for an hour on how to solve business problems with email. After the hour is over, you're going to be mobbed with people who want to pick your bra…
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their pricing plan is also bonkers: $10 for 500 contacts $42 for 10,000 contacts there's a lot of space between 500 and 10,000 !!
Actually, you can customize your plan (on the right). Seems pretty reasonable and flexible to me.
I started out using mailchimp when I had less than 2000 subscribers. It worked great! But now that my mail list is growing, I find it increasingly expensive. Any recommendations on alternative providers?
I run www.markdownmail.io it's very simple with very limited features, emails are composed in markdown and templated with mustache. Everything is sent using your ses account which allows us to keep prices very low.
Any questions drop me a line
antony@markdownmail.io p.s. you get a 30 day free trial.