Constant Contact Vs. 1ShoppingCart: Part Deux

Interested in learning more about permission-based email marketing and ezine publishing? Good for you - an email newsletter makes sense for anyone who intends to build their brand and grow a thriving business online.

Now the real dilemma: Constant Contact, or 1ShoppingCart.com? You’ve heard good and bad things about both. Which one is right for your particular needs? Dina at Wordfeeder.com gives you the insider perspective on each system, complete with pros and cons.

1. 1ShoppingCart.com lets you manage multiple lists.
What that means: If you feel like having one ezine and a separate, special mailing list that’s independent of your ezine, you can do that.

Advantages:
Allows you to customize your mailings to fit the audience. An example - say you’re a copywriter, like I am. You could send service-related emails to clients and prospects, and save “copywriter how-to’s” for your separate segment of aspiring writers.

Offers your clients more freedom of choice. If they enjoy your monthly ezine but don’t want to be bothered reading about your winter Web marketing promotion, they can hop off the second list yet remain on the first.

Disadvantages:
Multiple list management can be confusing. The trouble starts when you try to “import” one list into another. If you set it up wrong logistically, you can easily end up with peeved ezine subscribers and opt-outs. If you lose a few, just let ‘em go quietly. They can always come back if they want to… and if not, there are plenty more fish (prospects) in the sea.

2. Constant Contact somehow stays “form spam” free.
If you use 1ShoppingCart.com, you’re probably used to the ritual of having to “clean house” and delete all the bogus signups that slip in through the “cracks” in your form code. This doesn’t happen with Constant Contact’s forms.

Advantages:
No “false positives” a.k.a. fake leads coming in. Nothing like checking your numbers eagerly to find that you’ve got 50 new subscribers, right? Except when 21 of those subscribers are just spam blog URLs.

Disadvantages:
Less control over your forms. Unlike 1Shoppingcart.com, Constant Contact does not let you “customize” form fields as a means of obtaining specific information from your visitors. In other words, you’re not able to generate your own form code to set up different forms in various spots on your Web site.

3. 1ShoppingCart.com lets you integrate product sales with your ezine mailings.
When you first begin publishing an ezine, you probably won’t be thinking about sidestream income (info product sales) to any great extent. It will be enough for you to attract subscribers and come up with content that pleases your readers each month. Rest assured, there will come a day when you want the whole enchilada - communication, plus easy e-commerce solutions. 1ShoppingCart.com delivers.

Advantages:
A somewhat easily managed system. If you’re patient and technically inclined, you’ll be able to set this up and run it on your own with relatively few hair-pullings. However, if you’re the least bit freaked out by database management tasks, take heed. This particular shopping cart system may require the assistance of a virtual professional in order to take full advantage of its features.

Disadvantages:
It costs more. It’s as simple as this: you may not be ready to make the investment. However, keep in mind that if you “think small,” you’ll stay small.

Technical issues abound. Setting up the shopping cart in conjunction with your PayPal or other payment gateway can be pretty harrowing for those new to the ezine game. Proceed with caution… have backup tech assistance at your disposal!

4. Constant Contact lets you create ezines without a Web designer.
For those who prefer to “keep it neat yet simple” there is the handy ezine publishing template offered by Constant Contact. Select your fonts, headline treatments and colors, upload images, then pop your content into various “slots” of your ezine creation tool. Preview and edit until you’re satisfied, then publish.

Advantages:
Perfect “get your feet wet” tool for the novice ezine publisher. If you don’t know HTML, no sweat… Constant Contact has your back with their CMS-managed software. A bit cumbersome yes, but it’s better than nothing.

Advanced editing tool included. This feature lets you move up to professionally-designed HTML templates once you’re ready for the big leagues. The system “grows with you” to an extent.

Disadvantages:
No way to “personalize” your mailings in the Advanced Editor.

As far as I can tell, if you use Constant Contact’s Advanced Editor to paste in HTML-coded ezine pages, then you can’t select the person’s first name to use in the greeting. I could be wrong about this, but if there’s a workaround to this problem it certainly isn’t obvious.

Final Verdict:
Based on the above information, 1ShoppingCart.com is clearly the more advanced of the two ezine management systems. Constant Contact costs less, but is far less sophisticated, and therefore offers much less profit-generating potential. However, for those who just want to give ezine publishing a test drive, Constant Contact is a great and cost-effective way to learn the ropes.

If you want to really turn your Web site into a profit generator by way of ezine mailings, autoresponders and automated order processing, go with 1ShoppingCart.com. But don’t do it until you’re ready to make the commitment and the investment. When you’re ready to get serious about your self-managed email marketing effort, 1ShoppingCart.com is the obvious choice.

Copyright 2007 Dina Giolitto, Wordfeeder.com Copywriting and Marketing. All rights reserved.

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[tags]ezine publishing, email marketing, Constant Contact, 1 Shopping Cart[/tags]