Next in my review of free autoresponders was Royal Responder. For the longest time, I thought they were based out of the UK because of the name, but they’re from Colorado. Here’s a link to their free version. If that link doesn’t work, look for Free Acct in the menu of their home page.

Unavailable Features

They have some restrictions in their free version. You’re limited by:

• No broadcast messages
• Can only manually add 10 subscribers per week
• Only one campaign
• Five message limit
• Cannot set a confirmation URL to point to a page on your site (but points to homepage)
• Cannot include an attachment
• Cannot export

Unique Available Features

The free version of Royal Responder was unique in these ways:

Pros

• After subscribing, user is redirected to your home page
• Webpage form does not say Royal Responder on it
• Support and internet marketing tips
• Some ads, but not too bad
• No forced double opt-in!
• Can customize which fields are on form

Cons

• Webpage form looks unprofessional
• Free account expires if no one subscribes in 45 days
• Can send HTML or text emails, but not both
• No attachments
• Name in email
• Uses admin email as reply-to

Below are more details.

Pro: After subscribing, user is redirected to your home page
In the paid version, you can specify a page. In the free version, it redirects to your home page after the user subscribes.

I like this. The visitor is not taken to a confusing page that shows lots of flashy banner ads for your autoresponder.

Pro: Support and internet marketing tips
I didn’t feel they had as good tips as GetResponse. They have a blog but not a forum. But they have some information, which is helpful.

Pro: Some ads, but not too bad
Below is a screen shot of my email. You’ll see there is only one line at the top promoting their company. There are two more ads at the bottom where they can easily be ignored. Pro: No forced double opt-in!
To me, this is the biggest selling point of the free version. It’s the only one I’ve found that does not force a double opt-in.

Pro: Can customize which fields are on form
Othe than email, which is mandatory, all other information you ask your visitor on your webform can be customized.

Con: Webpage form looks unprofessional
Compared to the other two I reviewed, the form box looks a little odd (but I’m sure you could tweak the html yourself). They give you a border around it. Also, compare what they show you on their interface your webform will look like:

with what it looks like on your page:


Con: Free account expires if no one subscribes in 45 days
This is the one point that would make me not use them. If nobody subscribes to your list in 45 days, your freebie account becomes inactive. So you have no way of accessing your existing subscribers.

Con: Can send HTML or text emails, but not both
Most autoresponders let you set up two versions of your email; one for sending to people who can accept html formating, and one for text-only. Royal lets you select either/or. (True in paid version as well).

Con: No attachments
I’m going to break my rule about only reporting issues in their free version. All of the free versions I’ve tested do not allow attachments. However Royal Responder doesn’t allow attachments in their paid version either. (When testing out an autoresponder using a free version, you should keep one eye on the paid version features as well in case you decide to upgrade, which is why I’m mentioning it here.)

I emailed customer support to make sure I wasn’t just overlooking it. Their response: “Since some email providers block emails with attachments, we don’t allow attachments. Instead provide a link to a download page in your email.”

While this may be true, I want to decide for myself whether this is the best course of action based on my subscribers. I’ve had people email me that they aren’t technical enough to do a download. I’ve also noticed that a lot of email providers see an email as spam if it has a link and very little text.

Con: Name in email
The email sent to the visitor automatically has your name and address at the bottom instead of your company name and address.

Con: Uses admin email as reply-to
Whatever I put for my email is what Royal uses as the reply-to email (unlike GetResponse which lets me set a reply-to email for my campaign).

Summary
So far, this free autoresponder is the least obtrusive to the visitor of the ones I tested. The fact that you’re using Royal Responder is invisible to the user except for a small line at the top of the email and an ad at the bottom. But the possibility of losing your list after 45 days makes me want to keep looking. I also don’t like that you can’t include an attachment, even in the paid version.

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One thing I’ve learned from Perry Marshall & Co. is that it is more important to build a quality customer database and establish a long relationship with them than to sell them a single product. So I’ve decided to try my hand at capturing opt-in emails via an autoresponder. My goal is to offer my visitor something of value to collected addresses and then send time-delayed emails after that.

But, I’m still pretty poor. I can’t afford to pay a monthly fee, which gives me two options.

1. Use open source software that sits on my own computer.
   
   This means you’re sending out emails from your own domain. I remember reading an interview with Rosalie Dunbar once. She said when she first started out, she made this mistake. The problem is that if people think you’re spamming them, even if they opted in, your own domain is in jeopardy of being blacklisted. Not good.
2. Use a free account from an autoresponder service.
   
   I’m leaning in this direction. They’re really good at sending your messages so that they aren’t viewed as spam.

Here are three that I’ve looked at and reviewed. Please keep in mind that I’m just reviewing the free versions below. Reviews of their paid versions would be totally different since they have much more functionality and no ads.

GetResponse

Summary: Lots of internet marketing support, but also lots of ads for your visitor to see.

Read the details of my GetResponse review, free version.

Royal Responder

Summary: The most invisible to your visitor, but no attachments in paid version and account expires if 45 days with no subscriber.

Read the details of my Royal Responder review, free version.

Email Aces

Summary: Although this is the only free version that I’ve found which allows attachments, there is very little online help, the interface is tedious and a little buggy. Read the details of my Email Aces review, free version.

Conclusion

In my quest to find a decent free autoresponder, I’ve come to an interesting conclusion. I don’t think free autoresponders are the way to go.

Your autoresponder is your initial contact with potential customers. These are people that you are hoping will give you money. You want them to see you as a professional, trustworthy company. The ads in free autoresponders can immediately peg you as a spammer to a visitor.

Another reason to not use a free account: they’re all designed to make it hard for you to leave. None of them allow the export of your records. This means that if you start to build a good list and then you decide it’s time to start paying for a full-functioned autoresponder, you’re locked in to the software you’ve chosen or you have a very painstaking task of cutting/pasting the information for each person. And if you choose a full autoresponder that requires a double opt-in, you’ll be asking that same lead to confirm that you can send them something again, which they’ve already done once.

So, my tactic is now to review full-functioned autoresponders.

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First on my review of the free version of autoresponders was GetResponse. (The most popular autoresponder is AWeber, but they do not offer a free version. GetResponse is the nearest competitor.) In order to find the page for their free version, go to the GetResponse home page and look for the small type link that says, “Sign up for free.”

I signed up and tried it out by creating one immediate reply message and putting the form fields on a test webpage.

Here’s what I found.

Unavailable Features

As with most of the other ones I tested, some features are unavailable in the free version. You’re limited by:

• No broadcast messages
• Only one campaign
• Cannot set a confirmation URL to point to a page on your site
• Cannot include an attachment
• Cannot export
• Forced double opt-in

This is pretty standard in the free versions of all autoresponders, so I’m not going to worry about it. These are there in the paid version.

Unique Available Features

What set the free version of GetResponse apart were these things:

Pros

• Ability to set your own domain
• Webpage form is unobtrusive
• Lots of support and internet marketing tips

Cons

• Opt-in message is confusing
• Permission reminder is at top and is big
• Heavy into Ads
• Can’t see message info about subscriber

Below are more details.

Pro: Ability to set your own domain for GetResponse to use
This means you can have a designated domain of whatever.com and the visitor will never see a webpage that has an address of getresponse.com. I’ve never seen this feature before in an autoresponder and I think it’s pretty cool.

Pro: Webpage form is unobtrusive
I was happy to see very simple form fields with a small link to GetResponse at the bottom:

Pro: Lots of internet marketing tips
The day after I signed up, I received and email with advice on how to utilize the time-release emails for marketing purposes, which I found very helpful. And they have a forum and blog with lots of tips and articles.

Con: Opt-in message is confusing
When the visitor opts in, he gets an email that starts with this, “We have received your request for a subscription to a mailing list maintained by GetResponse email marketing service.”

I think the visitor should see my company name as the first thing, not GetResponse. That’s just going to be confusing.

Also, you get the ability to choose what type of list the person signed up for which it shows the visitor in the opt-in email, such as mailing list, newsletter, etc. But I would like the ability to type in my own definition, such as “squirrel-proofing tips.” None of their choices make sense for what I want to use it for. (Note: I know AWeber has this because I set it up for a client once. You can define your own “type” of mailing and once they approve it, they put it into your opt-in message.)

Con: Permission reminder is at top and is big
You have the option of turning on a permission reminder which reminds the visitor that he signed up for your email. Normally these things are at the bottom of the email, but this one is at the top. And it’s large, 6 lines.

Con: Heavy into Ads
I’m used to free versions of things having ads, but GetResponse takes this to a new level.

First the ad that shows in the email sent to a visitor has 7 lines at the top. This means that, if you also have a permission reminder set, there are 15 lines (including blanks) before the visitor sees your message. If the visitor is using a preview pane in his email program, he won’t even see your message unless he scrolls.

And the worst thing about the ad is it has no relevance whatsoever to your website. These seem to be mostly internet marketing ads, which would be confusing and irrelevant to someone who requested tips for keeping squirrels out of their bird feeders.

Here’s a screen shot of the email I received:

Another place ads show up is when the user first fills out the form and gets a thank you page. Again, these ads have no relevance to your website.



Can’t see message info about subscriber
When I looked up my test subscriber, I couldn’t see where in the message process the record was, so I didn’t know how many emails in the series were received. I also could not see any information on subscribers who had not confirmed. (This may be a safety issue for the subscriber and may be common, but I know AWeber has the ability to see unconfirmed records.)

Summary
Because of the amount of ads, I would not choose GetResponse as my free autoresponder. However, I must admit that I am leaning towards using their paid version. They have all the features of AWeber, but are slightly less expensive. I’ll post a review of the GetResponse paid version if I test it. .

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