Are You Backing Up Your Auto Responder Contact Lists?

hjgauthier · #1 (**permalink**) 11-03-2007, 04:14 PM

Today I heard something I never heard before. A business teacher suggested that you should always back up your contact list(s) that are in your auto responder in case something happens with your auto responder and they get lost. I never thought of that. This brings to mind four questions I would like to receive your feedback on.

1) Have any of you ever experienced loss of clients or prospect information from an auto responder?

2) If yes, did you have them backed up or did they just get lost in the wind?

3) If you do back them up what tools do you use to back them up?

4) Whether this has happened to you or not, what do you think of this advice?

Hope to here from you soon on this.

Thanks,

Hubert

webdev · #2 (**permalink**) 11-03-2007, 04:53 PM

valid point hjgauthier. I never though of that. I just started collecting emails with an auto responder. I just put my trust in my autoresponder company since i pay them $19.99 a month. I expect good quality service if i paying this much.

I'm sure if you're with a reputable auto responder company, they must be backing up all their and their customers data, in case anything goes wrong and in IT things do sometimes go unexpectedly wrong.

lisa · #3 (**permalink**) 11-03-2007, 06:12 PM

Definitely something to think about. I also use Aweber's autoresponder and I sort of just trust they will back the data up as well but I guess you can never be too careful. They make it pretty easy to export your emails to an Excel file and it wouldn't hurt for me to do this from time to time. It is easy to get too comfortable and complacent sometimes. Good tip.

RPort · #4 (**permalink**) 11-03-2007, 06:24 PM

Always back up!!!
Ian Herculson, the guy that runs Gurumarketer lost his list of thousands because he was depending on his service. And considering your list is one of your most valuable assets, I wouldn't take a chance on losing it!

Russell

hjgauthier · #5 (**permalink**) 11-05-2007, 01:38 AM

Thanks to all of you for your comments. When I heard this I was a bit shocked that I had never heard this mentioned before and what it could have cost me.
As I thought about it I have other copies of most of my lists. I didn't copy them for protection purposes, but rather for follow up reasons, so I am safer. Now I think I may go make sure I got them all copied. Might even get a hard copy off computer, just in case.

Hubert

Ace728 · #6 (**permalink**) 11-20-2007, 06:33 AM

There is and old saying in IT that "its not backed up unless you have 3 copies".
I usually keep my files on my main hard drive, my second hard drive and a USB drive or my .mac site. (.mac is like an online digital USB drives....great feature)

hjgauthier · #7 (**permalink**) 11-27-2007, 01:12 AM

Do you ever use discs as an additional form of backup?
Hubert

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