I LOVE me some MailChimp!!! Mostly because it’s easy to use and cheap! One can send 2,000 subscribers & up to 12,000 emails per month and it’s free. (My favorite 4 letter word!) They have great ready made html templates or you can make your own.

I love to make templates for my clients that look just like their websites. Carry the brand from the website through to the email blast and newsletter.

@amyhallbiz My favorite is Aweber.  However, I use iContact for a list that is generated at a retail level and I have to import the contacts. 

I think they all have their pro’s and con’s and I have a couple MailChimp lists as well. 

Oops, forgot the “and why” part. 

I like Aweber because it integrates well with a lot of things and since it was the first auto-responder service I used, I am used to it’s interface.  They have great support and delivery rate is high. 

iContact is alright, I wish they’d do something about integrating into WordPress as their code looks like hell and so it’s a non-option for me to use on sites, however overall they do ok and have some decent functionality (although I get ticked at them every once in a while). 

@amyhallbiz

I have been using Constant Contact for nearly 10 years now, and although they have a few faults, I find their customer service beyond reproach, and you can actually get a human on the phone if you need one!

I’ve also started playing around w/AWeber recently, because CC didn’t have a good RSS > Email product, and AWeber does. Although it’s funny…the way I’ve started using AWeber’s RSS > Email tool, I could have done the same thing in CC.

What I do is instead of just have my blog posts turn into an email newsletter, I’m beginning to play around w/sending a personalized note that includes a link to the post.

I saw a lot of IM’s who I respect doing that, so I asked my friend Amy Porterfield why she does it and she told me that it drives people back to the site where they are more likely to comment and share her post.

Duh!

Wish I had realized that earlier.

@rich-brooks The major thing I dislike about constant contact is that no matter how much you pay your email’s will always have the Constant Contact brand on them.

@mike-stelzner

From a direct snail-mail perspective, with stats like those it is hard to understand why any business would ever invest in direct mail delivery of their message to either prospects or current clients these days, but some still do out of ignorance and fear of the unknown internet.

What a tremendous value and savings email autoresponse is versus the old way. Those local businesses who learn and jump on the email wagon will surely be profiting from the switch, while diehard direct mail users will contine to suffer or simply cease to exist as competitive businesses.

Thanks for sharing those prices. It really puts things in perspective.

@atlantarobin

Robin Mailchimp puts their logo on your emails if you’re using free account and allow you to remove it if you sign up for paid account.

I’m useing it all the time and it works great for me.