One of the biggest income earners these days would seem to be marketing a product, service, or affiliate products, using email marketing.
But how do you go about doing this if you haven't got a decent sized list of contacts? One easy (but usually expensive) solution is to rent or purchase a list, but there is not usually any guarantee that the list is either up to date, not been blasted out of any response or even vaguely interested in your offer.
Based on my experience over the last 10 years, let me explain how I manage to spot software that is really free, works well, and is not a load of rubbish...
There is only one real way to do internet and email marketing successfully, and that is to build up your own list of qualified contacts, and that means you are going to have to acquire software to handle and sort out your list, a facility for sending bulk emails, and a method of setting up your automatic list of follow up emails - an autoresponder.
Now, the way most people achieved this is by taking a few years building up their expertise, and usually by using software packages that had to be rented - month after month after month.
What this meant that, unless you were particularly lucky, you would straight away be out of pocket, and unless you struck it big time, you may never recoup that investment.
My costs for email marketing, database handling, autoresponders and the like, must have initially cost me hundreds of dollars every year.
A lot of people, me included, spent an inordinate amount of money on seminars by so-called 'Gurus', travelled the world to world internet summits, or paid thousands of dollars on 'Guaranteed' affiliate marketing packages, product development kits, or massive email marketing products.
Its funny, but when you get into this market, and you ask around amongst your peers, that you find that the really successful internet marketers, are the ones that sold you those seminar seats, or 'professional marketing tools'.
So, how does this prove how good a free software package really is, and whether you would be just wasting your time if you went for the wrong ones? Well, there are a lot of socalled free packages out there that are there, that turns out to be:-

1. Just a trial copy, or a cut-down version, just to get you hooked, and then, along comes the bill for the real thing.
   
2. Just a cheap method for the author to help build his list, not yours.
   
3. No, the best way to check out a free software package is this:-
4. Check out the features with a known good quality chargeable package,
5. Sign up to it - making sure there is no mention of a credit card number.
   
6. See if you can identify who wrote the package - it could be a well-known internet marketing 'Guru' - a genuine one like Gary Ambrose for instance.
   
7. Spend a few days looking at the software and trying out its features.
   
8. After a few days, you will probably start to get a series of emails from the author.
   These will probably be no-obligation offers, but each offer will give you the chance to even start creating a list for you, and even starting to generate some income for you quite rapidly.
   
9. You will probably find that these offers will come on a regular basis, building your expertise and your income.
   

This is what free software should be all about - where the Guru' actually starts to mentor you - without you really realising - and without having to pay exorbitant sums for coaching courses, or buying this and that package.
In other words, the Guru is acting just like the name suggests...