Typically an auto responder script will be included with the service provide by an email marketing company.

Savvy marketers will analyze their email marketing campaigns and select the best performing email marketing pieces to be arranged into a sequence.

Auto responder sequences educate prospects and gradually convert them to customers. They do this by automatically delivering an email marketing peice every couple days for a pre-defined time period.

Lets say you have a car dealership and you know that typically an prospect will make a purchasing decision withing 20 days. You might create an auto responder series to deliver a sequence of email marketing messages designed to explain the benifits and features of your brand. If the average purchasing decision is made in 20 days you might want to send one email on the first day, the second on the 4th day, the third on the 9th day and the fourth on the 16th day.

By pre-programming and spreading your automated email marketing campaign over the average purchasing cycle you will stay in-front of your prospect with out seeming annoying or being considered a spammer.

Auto Responder Scripts

The following email service providers offer good auto responder scripts along with their email marketing services.

Service Provider	Offer	Rating
	Constant Contact 60 Day free trial Lots of great looking templates Great for beginners Pay by list size (good for frequent senders)	4.9 out of 5 stars
	StreamSend 30 Day free trial, no credit card to try Plans from $20/month Good for both beginner and experts Pay for messages sent (good for large lists)	4.2 out of 5 stars
	iContact 15 Day free trial, no credit card to try Plans from $10/month Excellent stats and integration Pay by list size (good for frequent senders)	3.7 out of 5 stars
	Vertical Response 30 Day free trial, no credit card to try Plans from $10/month Easiest system to use, also does surveys Pay for emails sent (good for large lists)	3.2 out of 5 stars

*Since most companies offer a free trial, you should sign up and test drive each interface.
You will quickly figure out which email service provider is best for your company.

Email blasts are a great way to communicate with hundreds or thousands (even hundreds of thousands) of people all at once.

When choosing an email blast service for your church you are probably going to want to sign up for a lot of free trials to see which service is the easiest to use and offers the best or most diverse set of templates.

Email Blast Free Trials

Service Provider	Offer	Rating
	Constant Contact 60 Day free trial Lots of great looking templates Great for beginners Pay by list size (good for frequent senders)	4.9 out of 5 stars
	StreamSend 30 Day free trial, no credit card to try Plans from $20/month Good for both beginner and experts Pay for messages sent (good for large lists)	4.2 out of 5 stars
	iContact 15 Day free trial, no credit card to try Plans from $10/month Excellent stats and integration Pay by list size (good for frequent senders)	3.7 out of 5 stars
	Vertical Response 30 Day free trial, no credit card to try Plans from $10/month Easiest system to use, also does surveys Pay for emails sent (good for large lists)	3.2 out of 5 stars

*Since most companies offer a free trial, you should sign up and test drive each interface.
You will quickly figure out which email service provider is best for your company.
Some companies are certainly easier to use than others so signup with a couple and try each. Most email blast companies will allow you to signup with out a credit card and send a couple hundred messages.

Pricing varies by email service. Some charge based on the number of people on your list and some charge based on the number of emails you send per month. Frequent senders usually get a better deal when purchasing service based on the size of the recipient list.

Some of the features that are likely to come standard with your Email Blast VPS Server are a dedicated IP, root access to the server and the ability to customize it to run a variety of different email blast programs.  Some providers even include mailing list tools so that you don’t have to go out and purchase them on your own.

Top Email Blast VPS Server Web Hosts

	Ultra Hosting provides mailing list friendly VPS servers. Their service is very reliable and they have good tech support which are two key factors to consider when choosing an email blast vps server provider. They also offer a 100% up time guarantee, and cpanel, which will allow you to easily manage your account if you want to run multiple domains. Overall Rating:4.9 out of 5 stars
	Another good VPS Server provider for Email Blasts: EasyCGI may be a better choice for larger mailing lists and high volume accounts due to their larger plan sizes. Their service has a 30 day money back guarantee, so you can try them out at no risk. Lower rating only because they are a bit more expensive. Overall Rating:3.8 out of 5 stars
	NetHosting is probably the best out of all three email blast vps hosts to start out with. Their plan is the cheapest and its a reliable, easy to use platform. It may not have all the bells and whistles as UltraHosting, but there is somethign to be said for ease of use. Overall Rating:4.2 out of 5 stars

Hosting your own email blast server is not easy though, a lot of work goes into server maintenance – especially ensuring that your emails will be delivered.  The most common problem when companies try to host their own email blast server is that most of their campaigns end up getting caught in spam traps or delivered to recipients junk mail box.

For the do-it-yourself types we recommend ServerPronto for email blast hosting.
They offer a full featured dedicated servers from just $37.95.

Once you purchase your server, we recommend you use 12ALL for your email blast software. 12ALL runs on any php/mysql server and offers great templates, list management and email blast features. This software will enable you to create, send and track great looking email campaigns.

Setting up your own email blast hosting is not very complicated, but it will require a moderate level of programming and database expertise – or a good server admin or webmaster.

If you are new to email marketing, it might be better to use an Email Service Provider so that you can focus on sending and tracking your email marketing campaigns with out having to worry about the technical side of email marketing. Since email marketing is so inexpensive, you might save money in the cost of your time by paying $20-50 per month to use an email service provider.

Email Blast Free Trial Links

Use the links below to get a free trial (no credit card required):

• StreamSend – our favorite email service provider. Their service includes many great features for as low as $10 per month. Lots of good looking templates included.
• Constant Contact – easy to use email marketing service for newsletters. Also does surveys. Try it FREE for 60-Days.
• VerticalResponse – can do both email and postcard marketing – perfect for Realtors and professional service companies. No auto-responder capability is their only negative.
• InfusionSoft – extremely advanced email and automated marketing platform that also functions as a CRM system to manage your prospects
• Trumpia’s All-In-One Messaging – Mobile Text Marketing, Voice Broadcasting, Email Marketing & Social Networking. A good All-in-One solution.
• iContact – very easy to use, great templates, affordable, good for beginners and experts. Excellent auto-responder software included.