Seven Steps to Create a Restaurant Website (page 2)
4.- Select a Reliable Restaurant Email Marketing and Auto-Responder Company.
There are many companies out there that can take care of your email marketing and autoresponder needs. So let's start by defining what an autoresponder is. This is Wikipedia's Definition:
"An auto-responder is a computer program that automatically answers e-mail sent to it. They can be very simple or quite complex."
The main purpose of using an auto-responder is to keep in contact with your List. Your list consists of people who have eaten at your restaurant (or plan to do it) and have giving you their names and emails so that you can contact them.
So it is very important that your auto-responder meets these requirements:
"An auto-responder is a computer program that automatically answers e-mail sent to it. They can be very simple or quite complex."
The main purpose of using an auto-responder is to keep in contact with your List. Your list consists of people who have eaten at your restaurant (or plan to do it) and have giving you their names and emails so that you can contact them.
So it is very important that your auto-responder meets these requirements:
Gets the e-mails that you send to your List (spam filters are an issue and might prevent some of your messages to reach their destination).
Manages the List (you need to be able to filter who is on your list and create different categories such as general clients, wine-tasting clients, newsletter receivers, etc.).
It's easy to use.
Has a variable cost so that you pay more as the list size increases.
Has good tracking mechanisms so that you can measure your email campaings and how many people opened your emails.
The foundation to any successful network marketing business is always linked to a properly working auto-responder. There are many autoresponder programs in the Web. Perhaps two of the most popular are (you can click on their names to find more information about them):
Both of these companies are reliable, easy to use, and have all the features that you need.
Trial |
One month to try the system out and if you don't like it they refund your money. Aweber states: "If you are not satisfied with the results you see, contact us for a full, hassle-free refund." |
$1 for the first month. Recurrent after |
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Cost (monthly) |
$19 (500 subscribers) $39 (2,500 subscribers) $49 (5,000 subscribers) $69 (10,000 subscribers) |
$14 (500 subscribers) $29 (2,500 subscribers) $47 (5,000 subscribers) $74 (10,000 subscribers) |
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Popularity Alexa ranking |
256 |
3197 |
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Ease of Use |
Allows both HTML and TXT messages. Automatic conversion. Aweber shows you the standard width so you can sentence wrap lines for smaller screens which most people have. |
Allows both HTML and TXT messages. Automatic conversion. Converting a HTML to a TXT in iContact sometimes requires additional editing as words get merged. Very annoying. |
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Tracking |
Aweber seems to have more information about each subscriber than iContact |
iContacts method of tracking breaks it down per message sent. You can see the sent, opens, bounces & spams. |
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Autoresponders |
Aweber let you setup how many days you want to send the email AFTER the message before. The drag and drop order and how many days the next email should be released after the previous one in Aweber is much easier to handle than iContact. |
In iContact, you specify how many days after a subscriber joins to send the message. This is inconvenient if you have lots of automatic responders since you need to calculate the days for each. |
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Spam |
AWeber's system seems much easier to pin point what is making your message a "spammy" message. You can take a look and see which of your e-mails is considered spam. This is very important. Aweber makes sure you can see if one of your messages is on the border of being marked. |
iContact also has this feature but doesn't seem as integrated into the editing process of a message. |
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Signature |
The Text e-mail will automatically attaches the signature data you specify in your list options. The HTML WILL NOT. You must manually put "{!signature} " after your message. It is odd that it is not automatically placed like in the Text version. |
iContact automatically attaches your signature in both, HTML and Text. |
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So which one? In terms of which to chose, it really depends on your personal needs.
Both are great programs and if your list is small the only difference would be price. For small lists, iContact is a little cheaper but the differences vanished once you reach the 5,000 subscribers.
Personally, I don't like iContacts HTML email copy to TEXT, and having to correct the mistakes of that conversion all the time, so I use AWeber. One thing that some restaurateurs don't like about AWeber is that it forces your existing list to confirm their email subscription again once you import your customers into AWeber. This can annoy some of your existing customers. On the other hand, you can just tell them that this is a way to avoid spam. Most people understand and are willing to just click on the link to be added to your list.
I would suggest that you check both systems by yourself and see which one meets better your needs. Just click on their names to go to their websites and read all the information.
Both are great programs and if your list is small the only difference would be price. For small lists, iContact is a little cheaper but the differences vanished once you reach the 5,000 subscribers.
Personally, I don't like iContacts HTML email copy to TEXT, and having to correct the mistakes of that conversion all the time, so I use AWeber. One thing that some restaurateurs don't like about AWeber is that it forces your existing list to confirm their email subscription again once you import your customers into AWeber. This can annoy some of your existing customers. On the other hand, you can just tell them that this is a way to avoid spam. Most people understand and are willing to just click on the link to be added to your list.
I would suggest that you check both systems by yourself and see which one meets better your needs. Just click on their names to go to their websites and read all the information.
In the next page I will explain to you, step by step, how to Add a signup page in your restaurant's website so that you can capture your prospects name, email, birthday and anniversary.