We have all heard that “the money is in the list,” but managing your list can be a nightmare sometimes. I have tried a handful of different email providers, and at some point, I always seem to outgrow their services or worse – realize that a feature is missing!

So I am left hunting down a tool that I can hack together to keep my system up and running or debating on moving to another email service provider, neither are a great option.

There is nothing like feeling like you are an online success than knowing you have outgrown a popular tool. But what do you when you finally hit that obstacle? How do you know that you have outgrown a tool? Sometimes, like a toxic relationship, the warning signs are easily overlooked.

My First Love

This is where I was. I started with MailChimp. This was the tool to use at the time. Every “big” name recommended them, and it was the best for quite some time. But like everything in the digital world, things do change.

For a while, I was even using the paid version – this was before automation was free – and it worked for me.

But my list was super tiny and I wasn’t making enough to justify my expenses, especially since things were getting out of hand. It was a mess. I get it – I created it – but it never should have been that easy to botch things. So, I ventured down a path looking for an alternative.

Let me be totally transparent; if you only need one list, only offer one opt-in incentive (like a coupon code), and don’t need to really segment your list, then MailChimp could be perfect for you.

The “Too Good to Be True”

Enter MailerLite. This is a great alternative to MailChimp. It is free to use for your first 1000 subscribers. If you are just starting out, this is a great place to start.

While my list was slowly growing, I kept hearing about the MailChimp alternative, MailerLite. So after much hesitation and research, I realized that it was a better alternative than the Chimp.

MailerLite was better at segmenting my list and keeping automations organized. But the more involved with MailerLite I became, the more I discovered that I needed features they didn’t offer. These features would help me to seriously connect with my subscribers and not have them lost in the abyss of my list.

So after a short relationship, a couple of months. I was left with the desire to call it quits.

The Mess That Was Left

And this lands me to where I am today. Dealing with a hot mess. I have tons of opt-ins on my site and the only thing I have done right along the way was implement Easy Content Upgrades. This keeps the content upgrades all on my site and only takes a few clicks to change to a new email service provider. But of course, it isn’t that simple. I created a mess over here.

I still have tons of opt-ins that I have created using another third party tool, MailMunch. Similar to Easy Content Upgrades, this will be pretty easy to update. But I still have all of the things on the backend – all of the sequences, all of the tags, and all of the subscribers to sort. This is how I knew it was time to find a new partner for my business.

The Love of a Lifetime

Enter my new love, ConvertKit. I will be totally honest, paying for a service that I was using for free does sting a bit. I know that the features I need are here. I know that I will be able to connect with my subscribers in a better way. I know that they no longer will get multiple emails a day from me because they just signed up and I happened to have a weekly email scheduled. All of these things will lead to higher open rates, higher click rates, and lower unsubscribe rates.

If you’re running an information-based business, you will quickly learn how much you need some of ConvertKit’s features in your life, and many of these are not offered by the other leading email service providers.The ability to tag your list and send them exclusive sequences that stop when they finally purchase your product will be life changing. Seriously, no one that has bought your course should keep getting your pitch email. With ConvertKit, you can move them to a different sequence and send them the next level product.

In the mood of transparency, I know that I have my work cut out for me. I have put this off for longer than needed because I know exactly how much of a pain in the ass it is to learn a new program, move a whole list over, and essentially start from scratch.

Lessons Learned

This experience is not without its learning curve, and in hindsight, there are a few things I would have done differently.

I would have kept my list simple until I was ready to invest in a proper tool to manage it. I know that we all start at zero and that means zero income, so it can be hard to drop $30 a month and only have 3 people on your email list.

I would have just listened to those that were already successful and bit the bullet instead of spending money on various plugins and tools to try and make a cheaper system work.

I would have made growing my list more of a priority and less of an afterthought to everything else. I know how important it is to build a community, but I really didn’t put much into it. I wanted people to just join my list because they wanted to; I didn’t offer much of an incentive to stick around after they were there. This is something that I didn’t learn until after reading Dotcom Secrets by Russell Brunson.

The warning signs may be easy to overlook and you may be determined to keep making your system work for you because you either don’t have the budget to upscale to something else or the thought of learning a new program is just overwhelming. I get it; I was there. And I am suffering dearly for that thought now. I have learned a lot over the years about running a few businesses online and it’s my mission now to save you some of the headaches I have endured.