I’ll say that again, “Only three folders too manage all my email!” Life is simple again.

First off, I can’t take any credit for creating an uber email system or process. The awesome blogger/author(s) over at LifeHacker, Gina Trapani (blog post)  &  co-author of the LifeHacker book Adam Pash,  did all the heavy lifting and included an expanded version of this blog post called “Empty Your InBox With The Trusted Trio” in their book! For more detail definitely check out their book entlitled, “Lifehacker: The Guide To WOrking Smarter, Faster, and Better”. It contains an insane amount of valuable time saving tech techniques outside of your email inbox  just waiting to be discovered. They should be teaching this stuff to kids in school as far as I am concerned.

Here is the premise of achieving email inbox utopia and then I highly suggest you head over to LifeHacker to read their blog post then buy the  digital version on Kindle or hard copy of the book. It will be the best 10$ or $20, respectively,  you have ever invested:

• Every email you receive can be either dealt with immediately or assigned to a folder in less than a minute.
• You only need three email folders from this day forward; follow up, on hold & archive. (See the LifeHacker blog post and or book for more details)
• You need not be a slave to your email ever again.  (As the screenshots of my two email in boxes below prove email utopia or nirvana is indeed achievable!)

Here are the screenshots of my gMail and Outlook email clients:

Outlook:

Gmail:

Lastly, here is my affiliate link to the book I highly recommend you read to achieve email inbox utopia and many more digital enlightenment techniques.

2. Why am I both a customer and an  Aweber affiliate? I’m a customer because I have tried almost every email newsletter/ auto-responder service on the market & Aweber is hands down the best! As for being an affiliate. Well, it’s almost the same thing as getting $500 off your next car from your dealership if you refer a friend or family member who buys a vehicle. You get a price break on what you want and need, while sending business to someone you respect so your friend can get what they want and need! Win-Win!

One huge difference though!!!

Unlike a one time price break, the Aweber affiliate program keeps paying you month after month for as long as your referred customer keeps paying! (Hint: I’ve been a paying Aweber client for over 4 years!)

Here is the bottom line:

1. As a customer I pay 19$/month
2. As an affiliate I make more than $19/ month and growing!
3. Every customer referred to Aweber actually pays you 30% month

I think at this point you see where I’m going with this! At bare minimum why not become an Aweber affiliate and try to refer at least enough business to cover your costs? Even if it’s a simple link on your site, forwarding the link on Facebook or setting up your sister with the email list she needs for her hair salon, it is money earned & thus saved! So what if it takes a year or more to get enough customers…

It’s the biggest no brainer I’ve come across in a long time!

(My affiliate links below)

Free to become An Aweber Affiliate
1$ to become an Aweber Customer

Not paying for the best email list & autoresponder service online… PRICELESS!!!

I found this video on YouTube of  bunch of other people who love Aweber as much as I do. Apparently I’m not the only one who is biased

Get Started Today For Only $1! – AWeber Communications

Instead the question today is, are the e-mail wars vs. social networking still raging? Is e-mail as a business marketing tool still relevant?

Let’s try and answer these two questions:

The e-mail war indeed rages on! What I mean by this is that although social networking, micro blogging and instant messaging have taken the main stage the last several years, we ALL still rely on email as the main stay of a significant percentage of our time on the Internet and or mobile devices. Despite giving up a percentage of time to social networks, email is still the preferred communication tool on the Internet for the majority. The war rages on, with all of these additional social communication tools still requiring us to have a valid email address before we can use them! Heck, email even notifies us when we should be logging into our social networks. When Twitter or Facebook no longer depend on email addresses, then this will be the signal that the E-Mail Wars are coming to an end! This will happen one day, the world is just not quite ready for a Facebook or Twitter operating system just yet.

Is e-mail still relevant as a business marketing tool?

After conducting a seriously unofficial survey of many business owners I know, email is still by far the easiest way for them to reach out to all their customers the fastest! Unfortunately, for social networking, many, many SME business haven’t even graduated to email newsletters, such as Aweber or Constant Contact, let alone trying to create effective campaigns on social services such as Facebook or Twitter!

Word of caution to all of you tech company owners! Unless you are tech to tech B2B, then there is still a ton of educating needed on the ‘basics’ for a good number of SME clients and prospects (opportunity is alive and well in North America). Those companies that educate or automate… Will continue to win!

The email wars rage on and they are far from over.

If you are a small to medium sized business and want to read up on email marketing, I would suggest getting advice from the bloggers & professionals at companies that deal with email marketing on the front lines, day in and day out! Even more importantly, read the comments on these blogs as their customers often create light bulb moments you can take to the bank.

Checkout the blogs at:

Aweber/blog (email marketing tips)
Constant Constant Best Practices Blog

If you are a business or entrepreneur that has already figured out email marketing, and are ready to graduate to marketing on social networks. Then as far as I am concerned, there is only one person you need to study & learn from and that is Trust Agent:

ChrisBrogan.com

What do you think? Will a Facebook operating system replace your need for email one day?

If you are in Sales & Marketing then no doubt you are emailing your customers and prospects on an ongoing basis. If you aren’t using a service that specializes in email marketing, then you are losing out on increased sales, your valuable time and ultimately money. If you are still sending emails via BCC (Blind Carbon Copy), get with the times my friend as you are not only NOT personalizing your emails, you are potentially opening yourself or your company up for spam complaints and potential legal issues.

On to the task at hand comparing two of the world’s most premier online email marketing services, often referred to as auto responders. I have aimed to make this as impartial as possible, and ask that users of either services, or other competitive products, comment as to their thoughts and experiences.

Here is a side by side comparison of features & costs:

Last Updated Jan 4th, 2012

Note (May 2010): I am now exclusively recommending AWEBER & not Constant Contact. I had an unfortunate run in with a Constant Contact representative & as a result prefer to affiliate myself with a company that appreciates those who send them business.

If you aren’t currently an Aweber  user, I’ve negotiated for you a 1$ Test Drive of the service below… when you click on the banner below to get to the Aweber landing page, just click on their PRICING link and you’ll see the 1$ trial/test drive.

Cheers,

Lee