The latest in my series of online marketing podcasts is an interview with Tom Kulzer, the CEO of AWeber Communications, which is a email autoresponder service that I subscribe to along with thousands of other small businesses and Internet marketers. The company is nearing it’s 17th birthday and Tom, as the founder, has been there since day one.
Tom recounted the story of how he started the business as a 21 year old, what forms of marketing he used in the early days that has carried through to the present and we also discussed some issues regarding SPAM, RSS and the future of email.
Enjoy the 30th episode of my podcast!
Summary Notes
- Introduction to AWeber
- How Tom launched his software business as a 21 year old almost 8 years ago
- How AWeber markets the business and gets new clients
- Tom’s thoughts on SPAM, RSS and the email autoresponder industry
[ Download MP3 | iTunes | Soundcloud | Raw RSS ]
Yaro, I’m considering using AWeber, so I’d love to hear this. But who’s got the time to listen? (Same goes for audio books and talk radio, for that matter.)
Want to add value to your podcasts? Why not provide written summaries of your (and your guest’s) main points? That would add a lot of value, and wouldn’t take very long. In fact, that idea inspired my latest blog post. 😉
Just my $.02 worth. Keep on keeping on, Yaro!
Tom
Yaro,
I listened to the whole thing, it is really a very cost effective solution for small businesses who don’t have the resources to build their own solutions.
Hi Tom,
Some people are not audio listeners, I realize that and I’d like to write out a summary of what we discuss in each podcast but frankly I don’t have the time or energy unless the topics are still very fresh in my head when I post the mp3. It takes about 3-4 hours all up just to record, edit and produce a podcast when all is said and done.
However this podcast is not necessarily going to convince you to choose AWeber since we were not discussing the virtues of Tom’s product, I wanted to find out more about Tom, how he started his business and what he thinks about the future of his industry. You might get a good feel for his credibility by listening, but if I wrote about it in text it’s not going to do much for you.
I’ll be writing out a review of AWeber myself in a near-future post so hopefully that will be helpful for your situation.
Your point is valid though and I’ll try and include more summary info in text for future podcasts.
I found the podcast interesting, it is definitely more than just a promo of Aweber.
I downloaded it to my Ipod and listed to it at the gym.
Keep them coming!
I agree a written summary would be great.
Hey Rob,
Yaro doesn’t use a CRM, we basically record everything in spreadsheets, email accounts and a helpdesk software, with aweber on the side. It’s all very modular and we do everything manually. I can see the benefit of combining all these into the one system, though.
Goodluck convincing them to do so.
Rob
Hi Yaro,
I was looking for Tom on google so I could contact him directly if possible, stubbled on your site. I’ve just burnt up 2 hours of my morning reading a listening to some very interesting stuff – congratulations, great site.
We use aweber and recommend it to many of our customers. We also use salesforce.com Customer Relationship Management )CRM software to keep a track of prospects, customers, suppliers, alliances etc. Salesforce can take enquiries directly from the web into the CRM system – which can create a process which is reported on if action is not taken by the person allocated the task.
I am trying to convince aweber to become a salesforce partner and integrate their database with salesforce so we don’t have to have two databases and tghe obvious problems with manually trying to manage them. This would sove a problem for me and my clients but would also give aweber an opportunity to sell their product to thousands of saelsforce.com’s customers.
How do you go about CRM? Do you encounter the same issue.
Cheers
Rob
I could see us using some form of salesforce application at some point in the future.
Although I probably see moving to infusion as the more likely outcome.
Yaro,
I can’t get enough of this stuff, I listen to it often. I love to listen to others who are doing and have done your site has a nice long list of free audio. Can’t say enough about how this helps with my motivation and learning process. Keep it coming.
Great Stuff,
Jared
Hi Yaro,
I know this post is really old, but I am an employee of Salesforce.com and would like to reach Tom Kulzer. Would you be willing to connect us by email?
Best regards,
Lorna
Hi Lorna,
Thanks for the comment! You can reach Yaro at http://replytoyaro.com
Kind regards,
Stephanie (EJ editor).
It’d be great to get an update on this podcast – i’m wondering what other lessons have been learned right now especially given the explosion of email marketing for many businesses in Australia.
It’d be interesting also to know if there’s growth in certain niches or countries with email marketing.
can i get the interview notes pls?