For few days I have been looking at the various newsletter services to decide which one to signup for. Most of them are too costly for any starting blogger. I collected the price charts of some services to compare them all at one place. That makes deciding which one is right for us. I am putting them here so it can help someone in search of something like this.

I know there are many other services too but I am listing only those from where I get regular emails as most of my favourite bloggers and marketers use them.

Aweber: Aweber is the most renowned of all the email newsletter services. Its known for its by far the best delivery rates. Its plans starts from 19$ per month. Here is the price chart for aweber:

iContact: iContact claims that they have most number of email templates but I dont think anyone with a solid business in mind care much about flashy designs. Simple and sober designs are most liked ones.

iContact have a serious drawback. On basic plans they allow to send a limited amount of emails. The number of email that we can send per month is calculated as six times the number of subscribers. For example if you have 600 subscribers then you can only send 6*600 ie 3600 emails per month. I dont think that  restriction is good for any business.

Here is the price chart for icontact:

Vertical Response: Vertical response has 2 types of payment plans. First one is monthly plan like all other newsletter services. Here is the chart for monthly plans:

Second type of plan from vertical response is “Pay as you go” plan. In pay as you go plan you only have to pay for the emails you have sent. Its on per email basis or per 1000 email calculation. If you have sent 0 email in a month then you dont have to pay anything. It may be good for few but not for most marketers. The craedits you have purchased must be consumed in 12 month period or it will expire. Here is the chart for cost per email in this plan:

Constant contact: If you look at the front page of constant contact you won’t feel like signing up for their service. The site look so old that it gives a feeling as no one works around there. And one thing more to look at. They have small line written below the price list that says ” Taxes extra”.  Here is the price chart:

Prosender: This service is little unknown. I came to know about it when I recieved emails from johncow.com without signing up for their newsletter and still recieving those emails even after I have unsubscribed. People at comment kahuna also uses this service. Their prices are exact copy of aweber so I dont think their is any benefit in signig up to this service if they are not giving you some special benefit like allowing you to spam as they have given to johncow.com ( read carefully, its not Johnchow.com).

Here is the price chart:

If I have to decide I would definitely go for aweber simply because they have made such a great reputation,  are tested by many and it gives more value for money.

Zac johnson from www.zacjohnson.com wrote about the the types of ad copies that are targeted either toward clicks or toward sale. Here ad copies are refered to the advertisement shown via google adword. He used the following example:

He mentioned the ad from projectpayday.com as the strategy to go after the clicks that includes getting the visitors signed up to receive newsletter or joining mailing list. Where as he sees the ad copy from sixfigureincomeforu.com as going after the instant sale.

This post made me think about what is better between the two. Later ad copy gives you opportunity to earn some instant income while the first one give you opportunity to have a constant contact with the visitor so you can make them buy your product later.

I actually like the first ad copy ( rather say the marketing strategy) more because it gives following advantages over the later one:

1. You get the permanent contact information from the visitor.

2. You have more than one chance of getting the vistor interested in your product. In my view that can lead to better possibility of sale as a study on online buyers have shown that it takes on an average  4 encounters with the product to make a buyer really interested in buying.

3. You can sale more than one product to the visitor as you have got his permission to send him newsletter. If the visitor is not interested in one product, you can always sale him another. More sale more income

4. You can make the visitors your permanent buyers as your repeated offering of interesting products can get them interested in your offerings. They will then look at not so interesting products with attention because they believe on you.

5. If the visitors dont show interest in your products then you always have a chance of getting their feed back.
So you can later offer them product of their choice.

Which ad copy you like more?