I am looking for some advice regarding list building on the web. It’s one thing i’ve never really focused and so i’m a little in the dark.
There are some of services that offer list building tools you can integrate in to your website, they’re all a little on the expensive side so I want to make sure I’ve made the right choice.
Here are the series i’ve come across:
SumoMe - Free but very basic and forced branding, to get the full package without branding it’s quite a commitment financially. Though these guys really do seem like they know what they’re doing…
OptinMonster - Paid only, the basic package doesn’t offer enough to pull me in, they have lots of different methods of list building yet only offer one of them is available on the basic package… The annual sub gets you a significant discount, while it’s still a lot to commit to ‘the unknown’ it pretty much eliminates the monthly as it’s over 40% more expensive (annually).
IceGram - Originally a WP plugin for free if you use WP, which I don’t… They do offer a fully loaded non-WP package if you go for their biggest price point which is still cheaper than the rest, it also seems to do a lot… This would appear to be the obvious choice but their site does not offer much information outside of the WP plugin so I really don’t know what I am buying in to (as in dashboard, stats, etc…) it seems to be the least professional of the bunch.
DIY - Build my own, quite easy to do, but maybe a little harder to get right.
Have any of you guys used either of these platforms? any recommendations? Have I missed any? Any advice?
I’ve got a few clients sites running SumoMe (pro version) and it seems to do well for them, plus they have lots of control.
Why not build your own initially, and see how it goes, that way you can keep the cost down. Then if it doesn’t work too well consider using SumoMe free version to see if that picks up?
Thanks for the input, that may be the best option… If I decide to go for one it’s looking to be OptinMonster as they have the best features to price ratio.
IceGram is the cheapest but is primarily a WP plugin, they don’t go into any detail about the offering outside of WP and there is no access to their client area without paying so I’d essentially be paying for something I haven’t even seen. It has lots of positive reviews but it’s all for WP.
SumoMe, I just think the price is a little too high, they have jacked up all their prices, admittedly the service looks great but it’s a big commitment for a small business without any guarantee ROI.
But I will say this much.
Anything that would cost me money before trying it, without a free trial period or a trimmed down “community edition” is an automatic no starter. I don’t care what the authors or testimonials say.
For example, I have a JetBrains CE IDE. It’s somewhat limited but if I ever got to using it more often I like it so much I would pay for a premium edition.
The time I spend for my own pursuits is my decision and very often I will “roll my own”
For example zip apps. I have a couple of very small PHP files on localhost that do all I need so why would I pay for an app?
I agree to some extent, a lot of these list building apps are locked down, no trial or demo… part of the reason I am reluctant to make the move. Most apps/services I try bill you after X amount of days. It makes you wonder, are they so good that they don’t need to justify their product with free trials or so bad that they try to lock you in as soon as possible.
I’m about to drive a lot of traffic to my site so I need something to try and retain some visitors that don’t bite on the offer.