Email marketing has the *only* advantage over social media in that it’s an asset you own.

That’s not to say you can do “whatever you want” with it, but compared to the likes of a Twitter feed (which could ban you), a YouTube channel (which could demonetize you), or a Facebook page (which could censor you), an email list is *still* by far the most effective and forceful way for a business to stay in touch with their community.

Of course, strategy and functionality aside, the way an email marketing system fits into the modern business landscape is to provide an additional “step” into the world of a “funnel”, allowing users to engage much more deeply and effectively with companies. people who value This is more or less where we are seeing the rise/resurgence of the various email platforms (especially the paid ones).

In today’s landscape, there are various email marketing offerings used by most online marketers. These include:

• Mailchimp (free)
• AWeber (starting at $20/month)
• GetResponse (starting at $20/month)
• ConvertKit (starting at $20/month)

To be honest, the market for “business software” is huge, with many different vendors serving different needs. For example, MailChimp is primarily used by bloggers who want to increase their reach by using a “free” email system. Once they start making more money from their blog, they tend to move on to the more premium offerings.

Two of these premium offerings: Aweber and ConvertKit are now considered the “best” mid-tier email marketing solutions. Both are premium only (no free tier) and provide users with various levels of functionality to help them send emails to their subscribers in both a “single” (broadcast) and an “automated” (autoresponder) capacity.

Understanding the difference between the two is the most important step in creating a marketing stack that really works to drive results…

ConvertKit

Founded in 2015 by Nathan Barry, it is aimed at bloggers/”creators” who want to improve their offer with users through email.

The service focuses on providing an underlying mechanism through which the curator can share their content through a series of “automation” features: automated responses that work to give subscribers the ability to receive specific content at specific times.

This system, coupled with ConvertKit’s focus on giving users the ability to post “courses” for their audience, has led to a large number of bloggers and creators signing up for the service.

It has now become one of the largest “email marketing” companies by revenue (its numbers are publicly available on BareMetrics), with strong growth.

We discovered that a large number of Twitter influencers have adopted the system.

Aweber

AWeber was founded in 1998 and has enjoyed great success, particularly as it was the first to introduce a true “auto-responder” system to the email marketing scene.

While its popularity has waned somewhat with the “new” generation of marketers, it’s still easily one of the top 5 email marketing systems.

The main benefit of using Aweber lies in its simplicity: it allows you to send email several days after someone has signed up to your various email lists. This allows you to continue to provide up-to-date content for the duration of your subscription.

Aweber’s main drawback lies in his inability to integrate well into the “social” age. There’s not much intractable about it, and so it means you’re pretty much stuck trying to make a 90’s tool work in the 2010’s. If you just want to put a “subscribe” box on your website, it works fine… but if you need something more specific, you’d better use ConvertKit.

conclusion

Ultimately, the choice is between which service you are most attracted to.

Aweber is for more regulated “Internet Marketers” who may have an actual consulting practice, or are in some way involved with a more “industrial” type of business (manufacturing or whatever).

Convertkit is designed to be more progressive, “modern” and focused on “creators”. This gives a distinctly different set of “DNA” than Aweber and has therefore attracted a lot of “new generation” sellers who tend to be much more “social”.

For this reason, the best thing to do is to see how you are going to use the various applications. Aweber is primarily for people who need a simple service that works regardless of where it’s published… ConvertKit is more for those who focus on giving blog viewers a reason to “sign up” for additional content.

If you’re an artist, author, or other “creative” type, ConvertKit will be better. If you are a marketer, a seller, a “brick and mortar” business, AWeber will be much more effective. Again, they both work the same way (they send emails to users), but the way they do it is different.