I just got off the phone with my friend, AnaMaria Herrera of Practice Building Institute. We talk “biz” every week or two, and today she told me how she’ll be moving her contact list from Aweber to 1 Shopping Cart. She knows that she’ll potentially lose quite a bit of her list if they don’t opt-in again. What she said to me was, “I wish someone had told me when I started to choose 1SC, even though I wasn’t ready for all it’s functionality”.
I feel for AnaMaria. I tell everyone who asks (and probably many who don’t) – to not start with Aweber or Constant Contact (or other) in order to save money in the short term. Everyone eventually moves to 1SC – do it now so you don’t lose some of your followers later when you make the move. Some listen – some don’t. But I can’t count the number of times we’ve imported lists for clients into 1SC from their former, smaller broadcast/autoresponder services. [We have a great system for doing this - ask me about it if interested - but we don't expect to ever see a 100% confirm rate - it just won't happen.]
Don’t get me wrong – Aweber and Constant Contact have their places, and if you never, ever plan to sell a product, or have affiliates – then these are great systems. But if you’re starting out building your list and choosing which program to use – go with 1SC now so you’re not sorry later. Though most entrepreneurs and small business owners do manage wonderfully for years with 1SC – for the larger, more profitable businesses – Infusionsoft may be the place to start. However, a move from 1SC to Infusionsoft is more seamless than a move from Aweber to 1SC!
Either way – remember the saying – make decisions based on the business you expect to have, not the business you have now. Good luck!
~Donna
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Donna,
I just moved my business to Aweber to grow my list. Now you have me nervous! What is the advantage of 1sc over Aweber?
Thanks~
Cindy Prosor
Hi Cindy,
It’s just the ease of having all contacts in one place. If you’re selling products through a shopping cart (1SC) but sending your ezine out through Aweber – you’re not keeping in touch with the folks who are buying but may not necessarily be on your ezine list – unless you send two separate ezines – one through Aweber and one through 1SC. Or unless you manually enter them into Aweber whenever someone buys something through your shopping cart.
Aweber is great if you don’t sell products or want to have an affiliate program, but if you do, then you’re stuck using two systems and having contacts in two different places.
Hope that helps!
Donna
Donna,
Sounds like you might not know about our integration features. Getting folks who buy items on your site from 1SC to AWeber is trivial with our integration. You can read more about it on our knowledge base or give our expert solutions team a call and they’ll walk you thru it.
http://www.aweber.com/faq/questions/237/How+Do+I+Integrate+1ShoppingCart+With+AWeber%3F
We’re here to help. Keeping all your lists inside 1SC severely limits the statistics and information you can gather from your subscribers as well as segmenting, split testing, etc when you send to improve your response rates.
Hi Tom,
Thanks for your comment. Good info to know!
Great points about split testing, etc, yet, for those who never do it, still cumbersome to have the two services (and costly).
Donna
Yes, Donna we had this discussion didn’t we? :) It is the dilemna when one starts out they don’t know what they don’t know.
I wish I knew you when I was starting out years ago!
Donna – I liked 1 Shopping Cart until they started the new support policies – it burns me up that I can’t call them when I need a question answered without paying extra money for premium support.
Is it worth looking for another shopping cart or is 1 Shopping Cart really the only game in town?
Karen – I know – that was disappointing, wasn’t it?
I’ve had clients use E-Junkie and WAHMCart with some success. Both offering similar functionality. May be worth checking out?
In the meantime, feel free to contact me if you have any 1SC questions that I might be able to answer for you. I’ve been using 1SC for myself and for clients for years – I consider myself a bit of an expert. :-)
By the way, was disappointed we didn’t have the chance to meet at Shine. I hope you enjoyed!
Warmly,
Donna