Why is setting up an autoresponder so time consuming?

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Yes, that is how I feel today my kind friends at WA. If you have been following my journey to create an email list from my two websites you will know that it has turned into a many week saga.

So far, having decided with your help to go with Aweber on my MMO website I have finally finished creating my flow chart of emails. DONE! But I needed to find another autoresponder for my non MMO music website. This seemed an easy plan. Unfortunately, after a week of writing emails to create a flowchart on Sendinblue they told me today that they couldn't verify my website (thought I did that at the beginning as requested?) and thanks for trying us, goodbye.

I will not repeat what I thought ( I was with my mum at the time) but came home and opened

my computer to copy and paste my created emails into word documents to save for my next attempt. I'm now waiting on verification of my account from MailerLite before starting again.

NOT happy!

Big Sigh! My time has been eaten up with trying to understand each autoresponder dashboard, trying to get answers to basic creation questions and actually creating the emails and E-books ready for the flow chart automation.

One thing I have noticed is most of the autoresponder companies seem to think everyone understands what is needed to create the timed emails from their system. This is a whole new world of learning and often not logical in design. Now I know why most people put off creating an autoresponder, I think.

I would love to hear your stories on this most important tool for our businesses. Am I just a slow learner?πŸ€”

I would really appreciate your feedback on this.

  1. What has been your experience with setting up an autoresponder?
  2. How long did it take you to write the emails and understand the system?
  3. Who did you join and when?
  4. How is it working out for you?

I'm looking forward to chatting with all of you on this subject. Stay well and happy my friends.

Hopefully soon I will be able to put this behind me and get back to writing content.

Update: I finally managed to get MailerLite up and working on my music website Yeah. If you are just starting your email collector journey I created some training that will get you started.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/how-to-create-an-em...

Hugs,

LILY

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Recent Comments

72

Hi, Lily,

You're not alone. I've been putting this off for months. I created an ebook to give as lead magnet and did some research about autoresponders. I opted for a free plugin in the meantime and am planning to switch to something else when I get more subscribers.

I set up the sequence, but as you said, it's not always self-explanatory. Personally, I'm no techie, so it gets frustrating at times. I prefer writing or doing something else than messing with this.

I hope to set everything up before the end of the year.

Enrique

Hi Enrique, I'm with you on this but I did create my email campaign in word documents first so I had a copy and could polish it. Then I just cut and paste into the autoresponder template. It cuts down on the frustration. I've written 4 emails. A Welcome with the E-Book link, then one with a new tip, next another tip and link to a post and finally and tip and CTA . I've been reading the training provided by Aweber and it is very good.

Hope it all works out.
Lily 😊🎢

Not really looking forward to this lol. It has to be done, though. I need to set some time apart and concentrate on it until I understand it. I feel overwhelmed by the amount of work I have: writing, promoting on social media, engaging with my audience, etc.

Totally agree with you. It is overwhelming but it's all setup now and I'm writing the tutorials over the next 2 days. So you could work from one tutorial to the next when you are ready to tackle your autoresponder. I will write them with you in mind.
Hope the help to take some of the stress and time out of it.
Lily 😁🎢

Glad to see you've figured this out. I'll make sure to read your tutorials.

Thanks! :)

You are so welcome Enrique. I hope they really help.
Lily 😁🎢

Hi Lily:

I needed to read this to get some inspiration. I'm currently stuck at some point in my business (not autoresponder though), and reading your post confirms to me that there are challenges we all must overcome to succeed at this.

Now when it comes to autoresponder, I use GetResponse on both of my sites. So I'm like wondering why you're in search of another when you're already subscribed with Aweber. Don't they allow you to use them on more than one site as I'm doing with GetResponse?

I joined GR on recommendation from my Premium coach. He believed that they were more suitable for the newbie I was, than Aweber. And I do agree with him.

I find that they're simple and have a lot of ressources to learn how to achieve things, although writing the emails and getting everything set up still consume a lot of time, as with any other email service provider.

I was with GR first and feel Aweber is just as good but free to 500 subscriptions but I am on a budget and wanted to get it going without a time pressure at the moment. On free Aweber I can only have one website so I had to find another for my music website. MailerLite is turning out to be easy to setup but I will do a post in a month with an update.
This is too important not to work out now rather than later.
Wishing you all the best.
Lily 😊🎢

I see. Thanks for clarifying. And all the best to you as well, Lily.

Hi Lily,

I first joined Convertkit and it is nice and professional. At the time, it was $30 per month so it didn't take long for me to look for other options. I think they have a lower cost option now.

I moved in January to AWeber. It's fine. It's easy to create broadcasts and add images. It's $19 per month. I did not experience the problems you have had though. Maybe you should contact their support team.

I'm pretty tech savvy so it didn't take too long to figure it out. I still have to figure out the landing pages though. So it's still a work in progress, but broadcasts, I got that pretty quickly. At least the broadcasts with updates about new articles. I haven't set up a funnel.

Paula

Hi Paula, it sounds like you worked it out quickly. I am using Aweber on my MMO website and it seems to be working but I don't know how to set up broadcasts yet, it would be great to notify people that I have a new post. Great idea.
I will keep pursuing this subject until it is clearer.
Warm regards
Lily 😁🎢

Join the club, Lily. The autoresponder arena can get rough. You ask...

1) What has been your experience with setting up an autoresponder?

Everyone is different. With me I can pickup things pretty swiftly. Maybe sometime, it take me a little longer to figure out the automation portion on some.

2) How long did it take you to write the emails and understand the system?

Again, depending on the autoresponder system, most are pretty simple. Simplicity in writing emails depends on the person and niche.

3) Who did you join and when?

I'm with covert kit now. Last two were Sendinblue (Never competed setup because i couldn't find automation portion. Before them I was with Sendinpulse. It took a while to figure out the email letter flow. I was all DONE, Then later, they tell me 'affiliate marketers' cannot use their site! Against their policy. WHAAAT??),

4) How is it working out for you?

This Covert kit was relatively easy to set up. Only problem, as a free member, I can't automate my letters unless I upgrade and become a paid member. I have to manually control my own letters.

Oh wow RJ, thanks for your feedback. I guess the frustrating part is finding out after that you can't do what you had planned. Frustrating about the non auto with Convertkit, I didn't know about that. Good to know. I couldn't find the auto with Sendinblue but they bumped me anyway so I've gone to MailerLite which is so easy.
Lily 😁🎢

I have tried Aweber and Mailerlite and I did not like them. I am now using GetResponse and I love it!
I have not set up email follow up sequences yet, I only send a welcome email and then I do RSS feed which is shared once a week. I have few subscribers, and setting up those email sequences is so time consuming and I also find it frustrating work ... so I am holding off for now, and I first want to build my email lists a little more, get more subscribers before I start working on those email sequences.

How do you know that somebody already on your small list wouldn't buy on the 7th or 10th auto message if you don't have any?

Sounds like you are heading in the right direction Christine, well done.
Lily 😁🎢

Hey Christine, how does the RSS feed work? Is this a podcast that you create?

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