Are you ready?
Don’t worry if you’re not a techie. Using an autoresponder is just like using a word processor. Just grab your favorite drink and a snack and just take your time with this section and enjoy it.
I know you, you’ve got this.
Like I always say. Keep things simple. When you’re learning something new take small steps while working toward your goal.
Autoresponder, an Introduction
An autoresponder is the most important tool for any business, so don’t take this lightly.
An autoresponder is a tool that will send out emails on your behalf to your list. Think of an autoresponder like Gmail on steroids. With a personal email account, you typically will send out to one person at a time, or up to 20. With an autoresponder, you can send out an email to literally hundreds and thousands of people at a time.
The Importance of an Autoresponder
Having an autoresponder will contribute greatly to the growth of your business. You need to get leads for your business so you can market to them by sending out emails. There are many ways that you can do this. You can have a blog, website, YouTube channel, Facebook page, or a landing page. The idea here is you need to way to collect email addresses.
With an autoresponder, you typically have a few options and how you can send your emails out.
You could send a broadcast to your list and have that email go out immediately. This is exactly how personal email works. You can also schedule an email to go out for a certain time. You could schedule an email to go out an hour from now or even days from now.
You can also send out a series of emails that go out on a timely basis. You would create these emails ahead of time. The autoresponder would send them out on a daily basis. You can even configure the autoresponder to wait a day between emails before sending. This strategy is good if you have a training course or an indoctrination series.
Let’s Create Your AWeber Account
I will show you how to create an account with AWeber. I also want to mention that I do point out a few things you should write down to use later.
Which Plan should I choose?
To help you select a plan I’ll give you my thought process. If you are brand new to email marketing. That means if you have less than 500 in your email list I would choose the $19 per month plan. When you go over 500 subscribers AWeber will bump you to the next payment plan which is $29 a month. If you don’t think your number of subscribers are going to change then the quarterly or annual plan will be a better choice because these offer a discount off the monthly price.
Create a private email address.
Something else I would like to tell you. When setting the From address in the autoresponder don’t use a public email address. These tend to get look at as spam mail by the different email clients. A public email would be Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook. You need to create a private email address.
In this video, I will show you how to do this in Namecheap.
Click on the button to start your AWeber Free trial.
A list contains your email subscribers. It’s really that simple when it comes down to talking about a list. The list contains all the information about each one of your subscribers. A subscriber is simply someone that has opted-in to your list and left their email address.
I’m sure that you have signed up too many lists on the internet in your days of surfing. This could be a simple form on someone’s website or blog. You may have clicked on a link in an article that took you to someone’s capture page.
For you as an online marketer using a capture page is going to be one of the main ways that you were going to give subscribers on your list.
Creating a subscriber list.
Once you log into your AWeber account. Go to the very top of the page and select the Manage Lists button.
Click on the green Create a List button near the top of the page. The information on this page you probably will never have to change. Your Company Name and Company Website should be the same if you only have one. This also shows your physical mailing address and gives you the option to use a different one. Then for the sender name in the sender email, this should be your company or your name. A better choice is to make it more personal would be to use your name.
Read the section below Using a private email address for the sender email. This is very important.
Then when you have this all filled out click on the blue Next Step button at the bottom of the page.
Naming the List
On this page, you’re going to be asked to name your list. Name the list so that it means something for you and your subscribers. They will see this name if they decide to unsubscribe me from your email list. Yes, this happens. You have to get used to it.
List Description
The description field is also very important. This is what your subscribers will also see on the email. When they go to unsubscribe. I hate to bring this up again. I usually write something like
I send daily emails to help inspire you. Ok, I also want to tell you what’s on my mind. Something catchy like that usually works.
Then once you are done. Click on the blue next button at the bottom of the page.
This page is for the double opt-in or confirmation message. When you send your email to a subscriber for the first time they will be presented with a confirmation email first. Once they confirm your email address then your email will be sent. I’m sure you saw this plenty of times. The confirmation message that will be sent is shown on this page. You can also change the subject line from this page as well.
Confirmation message settings.
These two buttons will control confirmation messages for your AWeber signup forms and during the time that you might be importing a subscriber list. This is normally a CSV list.
Send confirmation messages for AWeber sign up forms
When this button is green/on a confirmation email will be sent When using one of the AWeber signup forms that you have created for your list. To disable double opt-in or confirmation message click on the button then it will be red/off.
Send confirmation message for subscriber Imports
If this button is green/on. A confirmation message will be set for every subscriber that you import from a CSV file. Since the list already includes your subscribers I would turn this button off. You don’t want them to reconfirm signing into your new list. When the button is red/off no confirmation message will be sent.
Confirmation success page
You can add a URL here if you want to tell your to subscribers that the confirmation was a success. I leave this section default to no success page. Once you are done click on the green Safe Settings button at the bottom of the page.
That’s it. Your list has been created.
Watch the video below. I explain how to set additional list options.
I want to go over just a few basic things in AWeber to help you get started writing your first email. This is going to be so easy, not kidding. Before we start why don’t you grab your favorite drink, relax and let’s do this.
Okay, let’s get started.
Go to your AWeber account and log and let us start writing those emails.
Go to the top of the page in the Current List. Select the subscriber list that you are going to use. The list that is selected here will be used for the emails that you are going to start writing.
Click on the Messages menu, and select Drafts. Whenever I create my emails I always use the Drafts section. After I’m finished the email can be copied to broadcast, campaigns, or Legacy Followup Series very easily.
Click on the Create a Message button. From the list below the button, select Drag & Drop Email Builder. This will open up the email editor.
From this page, this is where you will create all of the emails. On the left, You have the different elements that you can drag-and-drop on to your email.
Along the top easy toolbar that you will use to select your font type, size. you can also make the font bold italic. if you want to add bulleted or numbered list you can do that from the toolbar as well. and you can do is add hyperlinks into your emails.
You can preview your email before sending it out by clicking on the Preview & Test button in the upper right corner. To go back to the email editor. Select the Back button in the upper-right.
To save the email. Click on the Save button in the bottom right corner. AWeber will periodically save your email for you as you are working on it. To save and exit. Click on the Save & Exit button in the bottom right-hand corner next to the Save button.
I know that’s very quick. Take a little time and just play around you can’t break anything. Just take things slow. Have a little fun while you are learning.
Watch the video below. I go into a lot more detail that will help you out.
We are going to look at the three options that you have when creating an email in AWeber. These are the three options we’re going to talk about when you click on the Create a Message button.
Drag & Drop Email Builder
This is the one that 90% of us will use. Just drag and drop the elements on to your email page that you need. You can add anything from images, hyperlinks, social shares and you can even display your products from your e-commerce website.
The last thing I’d like to mention is that you can create your email from a template. These templates are the ones that you have created or the built-in ones from AWeber.
Plain Text Message
Using this option is literally like sending a text message from your phone. You cannot add any images or hyperlinks this is just straight text. The other thing I like to mention, You can’t take advantage of any templates from here.
HTML Editor
If you are a hardcore techie love building those web pages. Well, this might be the option for you. This is great if you know HTML and very comfortable with it. You can really gussy up your emails using this option.
Since I’m the type of person that likes keeping things simple. I always go for the Drag & Drop Email Builder.
Let me know which option you use. Leave a comment down below this page.
Click here if you want to learn about each of the different email elements. These are found on the left side of the email editor.
If your AWeber setup is complete and would like to discuss it with me. Fill out the form below. You can also send me a private message on Facebook.
If you have any questions or concerns, you can also contact me.
I would appreciate it if you would leave a comment at the bottom of this page and let me know what you think.
