Whether you are a current eCommerce store owner or an aspiring online salesperson looking to get started, you should be aware of the value that email marketing can bring to your business.
The process of choosing the email marketing software for your business, however, you might have a headache. There are a lot of options available and this has made the market quite saturated.
Email marketing is intrinsically linked to your sales, marketing, and CRM (customer relationship management) operations. Make the right choice and the process of identifying when and what type of emails you should send to your cold, hot, and qualified prospects becomes an ongoing process that can have a huge impact on your electronic business.
All software options vary with their unique set of strengths and weaknesses, so careful and methodical research is required to make sure you find the best fit for you.
However, we’ve made it easy for you by producing an overview of the pros and cons of one of the biggest players in the industry.
Constant Contact Review Overview
Constant Contact are one of the oldest email providers in the world. The company was established in 1995, just 4 years after Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web as we know it.
As they were around during the infancy of the internet this helped instill them as a major player and they boast 650,000 customers in 180 different countries. All businesses using their service send a total of 200 million e- mails per day.
Constant Contact Revision: Price
When you look at the pricing page, you may be misled into thinking that there are only two pricing plans, one at 20 per month and the other at 45.
However, if you dig a little deeper into these two prices, they are only available if you have up to 500 in your account.
For example, if you upgrade to 500-2500 contacts on the Email Plus package, the price will drop to $ 70 per month.
Both plans offer unlimited emails, which is a big plus. The only difference is that the Email Plus package gives users of 10, as opposed to 1, more file storage capacity in 2GB rather than 1GB.
Prepayment of prices
Constant Contact offers an advance payment service so that you can save on your monthly costs. Pay 6 months in advance and you will receive 10% off. Pay for 12 months and you will receive 15% off.
Free Trial Plan – There is a 30 day free trial available to you prior to signing up and you can cancel at any time without being charged.
You can download as many contacts as you want during the free trial. How much you have at the end of your free trial will determine which contract you have purchased.
Visit here to sign up for your Constant Contact free trial .
Constant Contact Review: Features
The features listed below that include the (Plus) hook are only available on the Email Plus package which starts at $ 45 as opposed to the $ 20 per month package.
Contact management – very convenient, you can download your contacts from Excel or Outlook or a CRM service such as Salesforce. You have the possibility to personalize your contact with tags such as “Instagram Fan”, “Hot lead” or “Lost customer”
List Building Tools – Growing Your List is essential Constant Contact use an easily integrated signup form that you can place on your website. You can also use their Facebook app to start collecting contact information from your fans.
Track and Report – View your shipments, opens, clicks and more with easy-to-understand reports. You can also compare different campaigns, display click cards, and compare performance between computers and mobiles.
Customizable Templates – choose from over 100 email templates all of which are mobile friendly. If you are a small business, you can also take advantage of their range of free images, rather than purchasing an expensive subscription with a photo provider.
Image Library – In addition to accessing free images, you can also purchase images through Bigstock at a discounted rate. You can also integrate with your social media platforms to allow you to easily download from Facebook and Instagram
Marketing Calendar – an online, printable marketing calendar is available to make sure you don’t miss any important holidays
Email Scheduling – plan your emails for the future, plus Constant Contact will give you feedback based on your most successful send times, as well as the best industry standard
Mobile app – take your emails with you on the go. You can view reports and schedule emails directly from the app
Email Plus functions:
Email Automation (Plus) – allows you to automatically schedule emails for your customers. Ideal for scheduling emails to send to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries
Event Marketing (Plus) – schedule and manage attendees for upcoming pop-ups, events or fundraisers, as well as sending out event invitations
Online Donation (Plus) – Are you organizing a charity event? You can track customer donations in the same place you would track open and click rates
Surveys & Polls (more) – choose from 7 survey question types, from sliding scales to multiple choice. You can also attach your surveys to your Facebook page or website.
Coupons (Plus) – drive sales with mobile friendly coupons. Get real-time statistics on who used your coupons and who shared them. You can also see who is interested but hasn’t used it to help you convert them to a sale.
Subject Line A / B Test (Plus) – test two subject lines with a percentage of your customers to see which one got the best open rate. You can then send the winning subject line to the rest of your list
Other notable features
Bounce management – if an email is bounced, it is put on hold for 15 days before attempting to resend it. Constant Contact also offers a “recommended for removal” section which can help you clear up your list as you go along.
Languages - you have the option to switch to one of 1 different languages. These languages are mostly European
Constant Contact Revision: customer support
Live support for chat and calls is offered on both packages. In addition to this there are also:
Knowledge Base – step-by-step guides, how-to articles and tutorials
Seminars and training – webinars and tutorials available online as well as local events (mainly in the US)
Community – a forum is available for interacting with Constant Contact users as well as the opportunity to express your comments for new ideas
Applications and integrations
Constant Contact offers 270 applications and integrations that range from the very obvious to the very niche.
It also integrates seamlessly with Google Analytics, allowing you to track the success of your campaigns once on your website.
Constant Contact also integrates with many CRM systems such as Salesforce. Therefore, you can access your CRM to view your reports and schedule follow-up campaigns.
Benefits
Deliverability – Constant Contact have one of the best deliverability rates in their field. They are exceptional in delivering to all major email companies such as Outlook, Gmail, and Yahoo
Choice of email – there is a wide range of emails such as classic, newsletters, autoresponders, events, surveys and coupons
Ease of use – it’s pretty streamlined and there aren’t a lot of options to choose from, so it’s very easy to get familiar with
Price – compared to their competition they are very competitive on price
Templates – the amount of email templates and images at your disposal makes it very quick and easy to set up a campaign from scratch
Disadvantages
Automation – the automation options are very basic. You have the obvious options like birthday / anniversary reminders, but it ends there. If you are looking for an all-in-one marketing automation software that doubles as a CRM system, this is not for you
Email Design – While there is a plethora of email templates and images available to you, their design can be a bit restrictive. This means that there is not a lot of flexibility in modifying your email campaigns or signup forms.
Is Constant Contact right for me?
Yes
If you are a small business that does not have the expertise to design HTML email templates and just want a solution out of the box, this is the solution for you.
The first contact pack of 500 at most at $ 20 is very competitive and is a great place to start. The ease of use of the system and the fantastic options available to you to grow your mailing list are a great place to start.
No
You need something more sophisticated. Constant Contact This may not be for large companies that are at the stage where they are advanced in their marketing automation.
If you are very conscious of your branding, you may be disappointed with the templates available because they are not very customizable.
Constant Contact: Conclusion
Constant Contact is fully aware that this is a solution for small businesses and they are playing on this strength beautifully.
These strengths include ease of use, pricing, exceptional integrations, and a fantastic deliverability rate to ensure your emails are visible and read.
Facebook’s website and signup forms can get you started building your list as soon as you start your subscription.
There are other vendors that offer more sophistication with marketing automation, however Constant Contact knows what they are and they do it very well.
Read full constant contact review.