Does Vertical Response Really Work?

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Vertical Response says it’s email marketing and a whole lot more. Most of us are familiar with being the recipient of email marketing, but what about working at it from the other side? It must be effective, because so many people do it, but if it’s done poorly you’ll only alienate yourself from your customers, and even get people mad at you. So does Vertical Response steer you clear of becoming a spammer, and do they make it easier to keep track of your marketing campaigns?

Overview
Many Internet Marketers have a phrase that says “The money is in the list.” What they are referring to is their email list they’ve generated, either through their website newsletter sign up form, or from making sales and collecting customer email addresses. The reason they say it’s so valuable is because people have opted in to receiving their messages, which can include sales pitches and advertisements. It’s like having a list of people that have said it’s OK to solicit to them.

The Claim
They say that they have tools and templates that are easy for you to use, and they’ve added social media features that help you create a well-rounded campaign. They also claim to have professional looking surveys that you can send to your customers or prospective customers so that you can get feedback on how you’re doing, and learn how to make improvements to your business.

They also state that you can add their opt-in forms right to your website so that you can collect people’s email addresses without even making a purchase.

When it comes to email, which is how this company started, they claim to have over 700 professionally designed templates, as well as social media sharing, so you can deliver your message in a professional manner, but also be able to track everything in real time, and not get your pants pulled down on the price.

The Hype
The hype is that Vertical Response has been getting a lot of attention lately, and they have been stealing business away from big name players like GetResponse and Constant Contact.

The Cost
After your free 100 emails are sent, you’ll have to decide how you want to pay and if you want to continue. The

pricing is pretty flexible, and it’s hard to nail down exactly how much it costs unless you use their calculator. If your list size is 1000 people, and you want to send them a monthly message, it will cost you $15 per month. If you send a weekly email, that price would be $60 per month. For all of their plans they feature an ROI report so you know at a glance whether the service is working to your benefit or not.

The Commitment
This is a management suite of tools and templates, but you are still responsible for being the brains and the creativity that comes up with the right messages to send to your list. You also have to stay committed to seeing your campaign through from start to finish, and not get discouraged. Good campaigns take time to develop, and they build on themselves.

Evaluation
You can’t get much easier when it comes to signing up and getting your first email marketing campaign off the ground. The only slow down in the process is verifying your email address. Once that formality is out of the way

We already had a campaign in mind before we started, and their free trial offer of 100 emails gave us just enough feedback to see if it was viable enough to scale it up and send it out to the rest of our list.

They even handle event marketing, which can be a great way to attract new business. The best part of that is that free events are free, which is rather nice of them. They have pretty decent rates on events that you charge people for, and they can be a great way to get people signed up for events before they happen.

Final Vertical Response Review

A lot of the email marketing companies out there are overpriced, and don’t really allow start-ups to get going with a sizable campaign on a shoestring budget. Vertical Response is priced right so that you can start off small, and then increase your spending and your reach as your message builds momentum, and your revenue increases. We definitely enjoyed trying it out, and we feel that the 100 email trial is just right for sorting out whether or not to stay on with it.

Vertical

Response gets a Thumbs Up from us, but be sure to hone your message before getting started with them. They’ll help to deliver it per your vision, but you have to be the one to supply the vision and direction of where you want to go.

Our Recommendation
It’s free to try out Vertical Response, and after that it’s pretty cheap to stay on. The software should be making you more money for your business, and after taking the trial you should have a good idea of whether or not it is making you money or costing you money. That’s why it’s good to have your ducks in a row and know specifically what you want to use it for before starting your trial. If you only have a vague notion, or just know that email marketing is something you should be doing, but don’t know how to start, get organized first and then start your trial. Otherwise you could waste the 100 emails of your trial figuring it out and not have any measurable results from them.

What do you think? Does Vertical Response work or not?

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View Comments

Richard says:

April 2, 2012 at 2:04 pm

Thanks for the write up - good to sea at least some email marketing companies doing it right.
I'm looking to get a couple of email campaigns up and running for my website and have come across Vertiacl Marketing. I was tempted initially by their 100 emails free offer, but didn't go for it.
I think you've just changed my mind :)