• spend less energy to make a series of repetitive and boring actions;
• take less time to make complex and hardly repeatable actions;
• experience less stress to remember the redundant actions to be taken every day;
• sell more by creating targetized promotions to the right customers;
• have more time available for the actions or tasks that are of higher value added;
• quality life, more time for family, hobbies, etc.

It looks like an effective strategy, right?

The problem is that most of the services available online are really expensive and often too hard to implement in your business.

Aside that, many bloggers and internet marketers are already using several different tools and platforms, like WordPress, Google Analytics, hosting services, affiliate networks, email marketing and social media software (Hootsuite, for example).

At the end, adding another paid service to the list is something that many would avoid.

But what if you had the option to integrate marketing automation to a platform you are already using?

GetResponse is a well known service provider, offering email marketing (included autoresponders, A/B testing, email creator and responsive email design with landing page and webinar service).

Today the company is introducing the marketing automation at really competitive prices (in relation to other competitors out there), becoming an all in one online marketing platform.

Here’s a short video that quickly introduces you to GetResponse’s new marketing automation platform:

GetResponse Marketing Automation

As showed in the video, there are many features included.

Let’s see the most important ones included in GetResponse’s new marketing automation.

The basic rules of marketing automation is inviting the users to complete an action.

So, GetResponse created an intuitive if-then-logic:

Basically, if certain condition exists, you can filter, define or limit to take a specific action.

Conditions

Here are the conditions you can set:

• Scoring (used to define the part of subscribers you want to communicate based on their score value)
• Subscribe (you can filter your search to those subscribers of a certain campaign or optin method)
• Message open (target those who opened a specific email)
• Message link clicked (set this condition to find users who clicked on a certain link)
• Tag value (for those users you have tagged in the past)
• Purchased (target those subscribers who engage with you immediately by completing a purchase)
• Cart abandoned (track abandoned carts and invite to complete the purchase)
• Visited URL (check if a user visited a certain URL and track their actions)

Actions

Once you have set the conditions to select certain subscribers, you can specify determined actions.

Here are your options:

• Send email (it sends a certain email to the users you targeted)
• Scoring (this adds or subtracts a specific numer of points to the scoring of determined subscribers)
• Tag (use this to tag certain users with a specific tag value)
• Move (it lets you move your contacts from one campaign to another, depending on engagement and interests)
• Copy (use this to copy your users from any desired campaign)
• Custom field (assign or remove custom fields to your subscriber profiles).

Filters

If you need to target your subscribers even further, you can use filters to select groups of users.

Here what you can do:

• Range (use this to limit the segment to a certain range. For instance the first 10 subscribers who open your message)
• Amount (set this filter to target a specific number of subscribers. For example, send a coupon to just 20 users)
• Delay (use this option to set the amount of time to wait before taking the action. Example: for condition-open, wait 3 days before sending a certain message)

GetResponse: Easy To Use Platform

As any other feature of GetResponse, marketing automation is set to be easy to use, but advanced at the same time.

Use the drag-and-drop workflow builder to create complex campaigns.

Design the complete user experience with your strategy and simple but powerful workflows.

You can create many different scenarios and check in real time what is happening with your subscribers.

Use all the options available to track and target users to make them complete the purchase.

Turn Subscribers into Customers

This should be the last goal of your marketing automation: turn subscribers into customers.

Use GetResponse’s tools to set actions, based on different conditions.

Implement, for example, tagging and scoring for more targetization.

Create a conversation with your subscribers, which should be enjoyable and educational.

Track results and get the most out of your mailing list.

Is It Good For You?

If you are a small business, then GetResponse’s new marketing automation is for you.

Whether you need to reward your customer loyalty, create a promo campaign, run an online course or welcome new customers, this service is the perfect solution.

The platform is intuitive and easy to use.

The marketing automation comes included with all the plans, also with the basic one at $15/mo:

Final Words

No matter how big if your business or what industry you are currently in, you need to use marketing tools in order to compete.

With GetResponse, you will be able to automate your marketing, track your audience and user performance, so to optimize your results.

Learn more about GetResponse marketing automation and how you can improve your business.

And you?

Are you running a mailing list?

Are you using marketing automation?

If so, please share your experience and views in the comments below, thanks!

For the few of you who do not know what it is, think about a dedicated web page, where the user lands after clicking a link, a banner or an advertisement present on social networks or search engines.

You create a landing page to achieve certain goals, like inviting the user to:

• fill out a contact form
• subscribe to a newsletter
• start a buying process

In this post we’re going to evaluate the best landing page builder tools, reviewing Unbounce versus GetResponse.

Why Landing Pages Are So Important?

Before going into the evaluation details of the above-mentioned tools, you should understand the importance of creating a landing page that converts.

Too many companies or small business owners are sending the traffic that comes from advertising, mailing list, or social media, to their website. This is a missed opportunity: if you know that a flood of traffic is coming to your site, you can increase the likelihood of conversion using a targeted landing page!

For example, imagine you have a Google AdWords campaign for one of your best keywords. Every time someone is clicking on your ad, would you send him to your site homepage? When he arrives, what should he do? Most important, you should ask yourself, what do you want him to do? Once you understand this important action, you can make it possible by sending the user to a targeted landing page, where you are going to induce him completing that specific action you want.

Now you understand the importance of creating a good landing page.

Unbounce Landing Page Builder Tool

Unbounce is a versatile tool to create landing pages, to make A/B testing or to validate product ideas and can be used by both big companies or startups and small businesses.

The editor tool allows you to quickly create a landing page by choosing from the many templates (83 available), or making one from scratch (solution slightly more challenging).

A screenshot of the Unbounce editor:

As you can see, there is a simple to understand drag & drop builder, to easily create your landing page, without having a wide IT knowledge.

First, it is essential to understand the variables that you want to test:

1. test your call to action
2. test images
3. test different templates
4. test the value proposition
5. test elements such as prices and offers

With a practical example, we take a landing page where there are prices and a call to action.

The answer we’re looking for is if the call to action, as you can see from the image below, should be at the top or bottom.

The two options in comparison:

We send a fixed amount of visits on the same URL while Unbounce will rotate the landing page (for example 300 clicks on the “control page” and 300 on the “treatment page”) and will track the conversions.

Finally, after a reasonable amount of time and collection of relevant statistical data, we can take a look at the results.

The landing with the highest conversion rate (4th column) is the winner. In this case, the one called “First Header Variant”:

The Unbounce plans start from $49/month for new business and entrepreneurs, up to $199/mo for agencies and marketing teams:

GetResponse Landing Page Builder Tool

GetResponse is a very popular email marketing tool. With more than 350,000 happy customers in 182 countries, it offers services such as email creator, autoresponder, landing page builder and even webinars.

Let’s focus on building the perfect lead machine, using the landing page builder of GetResponse.

The first step is choosing the template among more than 100 professional landing page templates available, with related “Thank You” pages to help you improve conversions.

Now you need to customize your page, using the simple drag’n’drop WYSIWYG editor, with thousand of ways to edit every element of your landing page. This means you don’t need any HTML coding knowledge. Just move, resize, crop and scale each item such as text boxes, images, backgrounds, input fields or buttons to create the perfect design.

A feature offered that I particularly like is the 1000+ free photos available, which is indeed a plus. If you have some experience in the online marketing field, you know that a good image is worth a thousand words and how is hard to find (for free) quality pictures. The GetResponse built-in toolkit includes filters, stickers, brushes and much more, to create catchy images that attract your audience attention.

When you’re done, you can get the code to add to your website or even get a free hosting on subdomains GetResponse offers. An awesome feature is the instant publishing on your Facebook fan page!

The design of the landing page you create with GetResponse is 100% responsive, which means is mobile-friendly (the users visiting from smartphones, tablets or desktop will have the landing page automatically adjusted for the device used).

Once you’re happy with the landing page design, it’s time to run some A/B testing. Create different versions to then track and improve your page.

Also, you get CRM, analytics and reporting functions. GetResponse allows 100% integration with your Google Analytics account and social networks like YouTube and Facebook (included the PayPal payment system).

The plans are competitive, starting from $15/mo for marketing beginners up to $999/mo for big companies.

Unbounce Vs GetResponse: Which Is The Best Landing Page Builder Tool?

Unbounce may be a good solution, but I recommend GetResponse for these reasons:

• there are more templates available (all mobile responsive)
• I found the editing interface easier to understand, at glance
• I loved the integration with Google Analytics and PayPal
• the instant publishing on the Facebook fan page is awesome
• aside building landing pages, you can use your GetResponse account to get much more, such as email marketing and webinar solutions.

Plus, pricing starts at $15 per month, which is indeed more competitive than Unbounce cheaper plan, which is $49/mo.

If you are convinced to give GetResponse a try, sign up for the one-month free trial here.

What do you think?

Have you ever used Unbounce or GetResponse?

Which is the best one, in your opinion?

Please share your views in the comments below, thanks!

By collecting the email address of your readers, you’re potentially increasing your sales and, most of all, your base of fans.

Choosing the right tools will affect the success of your email marketing campaign.

Let’s see in this post a comparison between two of the most popular ESP on the internet: GetResponse (abbreviated with “GR”) Vs ConstantContact (abbreviated with “CC”).

Mobile Responsive Technology

GetResponse has, among its features, a mobile responsive technology.

We live in a time where gadgets like smartphones and tablets are integral part of our lives.

According to this study by eMarketer, there will be 2 billion of users coming from mobile by 2015.

Other than setting up your site to be mobile-friendly, if you are running a newsletter, then you need to use a responsive design, so to enhance the experience of those subscribers who read your newsletter from a mobile gadget.

GetResponse makes all your emails look beautiful on every device.

You don’t need to be able to code. Just choose among +500 email templates, which are all responsive.

Plus, once you finished your newsletter with email creator, you can get a mobile preview, to check how it looks on different devices.

Just consider that 82% of people use mobile phones to check their emails!

Landing Page Creator

GetResponse has a landing page creator, and the ability to create multiple landing pages for businesses.

When you are thinking about a good landing page, the first aspect to consider is conversion.

What if you have at your disposal a tool to let you create landing pages that convert in three easy steps?

Select a template among more than 100 professional ones, with awesome “Thank you” pages to reach your goals.

Customize yout page, using a simple drag and drop editor, with many ways to edit your content.

Then publish the landing pages on your blog or website, or even on free hosting offered from GetResponse.

Remember to always run A/B testing!

Easily Import Contacts

GetResponse allows you to import contacts directly into particular campaigns and insert them into an autoresponder sequence.

This way the process is more streamlined.

Site Loading Speed

ConstantContact website is slow to load (and often gives a blank page).

GetResponse’s website feels and operates better, whereas CC can feel sometimes like an extension of a WordPress site which is functional but not engaging.

Sign up Process

The sign up form for the free trial is much easier at CC, than GR. There is no phone code or captcha.

See the image of ConstantContact.com homepage:

Trackable Coupons

Constant Contact offers ‘trackable coupons’ as an add-on which can show users exactly how much return they are getting on investment.

This is really good to track results.

Contact Storage

Storage of contacts in CC is very sleek and efficient.

All are stored almost like a cell phone address book, which means it could be easy to use on mobile device also.

Free Trial

Constant Contact has a 60 day free trial which can allow new users to get more involved with campaigns.

With GR, 30 days can be quite short if a business owner is distracted for a week or so at once, it can be hard to get stuck back in.

Money-Back Guarantee

ConstantContact also offers a 100% money-back guarantee which can put some minds at ease.

Overall Considerations

GR wins out easily against ConstantContact in not much more than ease of use and layout of the main website.

CC’s website is stiff!

Moreover, GetResponse’s pricing is much more competitive. For the prices GR charge for a month of full service, a user can only access the autoresponder segment of Constant Contact, and is not given the ability to send surveys, design webforms, or connect to social media.

To access social media plugins and cross promotions, a CC user can expect to pay upwards of $60 per month for 500 subscribers.

Conclusion

I’m sure you are checking emails on your mobile phone or sitting on your sofa, with your tablet via WiFi (I do this).

Emails are an effective weapon to gather more customers or to simply increase your audience.

Also, you can consider your subscribers as your most loyal fans!

Email marketing is something every online business should add to its strategy.

It’s easy to notice that GetResponse outruns Constant Contact in many features, such as email responsive technology or creation features.

With all taken into account, GetResponse lets you create much more targeted and customized campaigns with the possibility to track your results and improve constantly.

What about you?

Are you running a newsletter?

What email marketing provider are you using?

Please let me have your thoughts in the comments below, thanks!