Aweber – A Marketing Lesson And Smart Pricing

There is not much rumor on the net about this, because AWeber managed to introduce that price increase rather silently.

• Existing customers may remain in the old price plan at their will. AWeber focused on communicating the introduction of two new features and how cool they are.
  
  
  1. New super fancy tracking and analytics tools and
  2. an overall Web site redesign.
  
  Customers will have the choice between upgrading their accounts to include the new features at the new price or sticking with their old plan.
  
  The existence of that choice might be responsible for the silence on the net.
  
  
• New prospects might not know about the old prices and therefore don't have a reason to complain.
  
  By the way: Even after the price increase AWeber's rates remain competitive. Especially, when you take the quality of service into consideration.
  
  New customers can start with the 500 subscriber plan at 19.00 $ a month. It already comes with all features and no hidden cost. And new customers get a 30 day risk free trial, which means they'll get their money back, if they are not satisfied.

Even a closer look at pricing

A bad taste of this new tiered pricing might come from the fact that 500 seem kind of low, and that 501 subscribers cost as much as 2,500 subscribers. But that's a general feature of that kind of price plan.



A simple example might put your mind at ease. Assume you have a targeted list of 2,501 subscribers that incur a cost of 49.00 $.

What could you do to make some profits?

Would you do anything differently only because your cost has risen to 49.00 $ a month? If you are freaking out now, chances are good that you didn't do anything profitable with your email subscribers anyway. How much revenue are you planning to generate? What is your dream number?

30.00 $ or 40.00 $ a month?

If you see the Internet as a business opportunity and tool, you will have those “dream numbers” in the thousands anyway. So what ?

There are many different flavors of email promotions. It depends on your positioning and your relationship to your email subscribers and your market how you will be able to monetize your list. I give you some examples with the 2,501 subscriber base from above.

2,501 subscribers; 29.00 $ product; 57 buy; 1,653.00 $ revenue

2,501 subscribers; 7.00 $ product; 125 buy;
875.00 $ revenue

2,501 subscribers; 47.00 $ product; 46 buy;
2,162.00 $ revenue

2,501 subscribers; 97.00 $ product; 33 buy;
3,201.00 $ revenue

2,501 subscribers; 497.00 $ product; 11 buy;
5,467.00 $ revenue

2,501 subscribers; 997.00 $ product; 3 buy;
2,991.00 $ revenue

2,501 subscribers; 4,997.00 $ product; 1 buys;
4,997.00 $ revenue

Those examples are picked arbitrarily. What matters is

• the quality and responsiveness of the list subscribers
• the relationship you have with them
• the appealing and value of your offer

If you are great in those aspects, your conversion rates will be much higher than in those examples above.

You can send those subscribers email, after email for no additional cost at Aweber. And Aweber give the tracking capabilities that help you to better manage your campaigns. Sounds like a no brainer. The new tracking features include:

• Click Tracking With Your Domain (no aweber.com links in your email again)
• New Reports: Track Campaign Activity Over Time, and
• Track and Target Subscribers Based On Activity

I hope you are inspired.

Follow proven email marketing strategies. People fail and complain, because they are not following those proven strategies in detail.

• Target a market that is proven to be responsive and a market that buys. Check: Are there many advertisers and products for that market?
  
  
• Turn your Web visitors into email subscribers or you will pay pay-per-click forever.
  
  This is an investment. You need to put in time or money to get people to your Web site at first place. Then, you'll need to give them something of value. … and you need to keep them happy over time.
  
  
• Sell them your own (preferably) products or services or affiliate products.
  
  Yes, it's true. Money is made by selling something. Many people seem to have trouble understanding this principle.

The marketing lesson learned is: Value first.

AWeber Communications has built its reputation as professional email marketing service provider, and now they moving by introducing the next level of email tracking features.

They are also moving on by finally charging an amount that is a bit closer to what their service is actually worth, and they started to better define their customers. Obviously Aweber wants to deal with business minded customers, who appreciate the value they are providing (Something every business should do, define and select your customers, don't try to appeal to everyone).

You can check out all the features and new prices directly at AWeber Email Marketing Tools (affiliate link)

AWeber remains the service of my choice, and I feel perfectly okay with promoting it that way.

You can start out with professional email marketing tools for just 19.00 $ a month, take full advantage of cutting edge email tracking technology, enjoy the outstanding deliverability of AWeber, and still have a 30 day money back guarantee. They call it “risk free trial”

Check out the new features and pricing AWeber Email Marketing Tools (affiliate link).

Yours
John W. Furst

P.S.: As I am organizing the Carnival of Email Marketing Tips, you certainly can expect more related blog posts from me.