iContact Review
Detailed Reviews
iContact is now a subsidiary of Swedish software company Cision. A PR
company Vocus earlier acquired the iContact and later Vocus merged with
its competitor Cision.
Ever since its inception in 2003,
iContact has helped uncountable SMB’s and startups share their brand
story, ideas, products and services through social and email marketing.
They strive to build online marketing features that are needed by small
businesses to succeed.
Form Design
There is very
little you can complain about if you consider this aspect of the
software. iContact offers a multitude of options to choose from. The
appearance styling page features a perpetual list of categories to
choose from depending on your niche. It shouldn't be an issue finding a
pre-styled theme that perfectly suits your industry.
User Interface
The
interface of the tool is one of the most notable disadvantages. Plenty
has been spoken by customers who tend to be lost as to where to begin
upon launching the utility for the first time. While practice makes
perfect, a more easy-to-use out-of-box solution couldn't hurt.
Email Templates
There
are hundreds of inbox tested and fully customizable email templates
available for their users. We are however not sure if all of them are
mobile responsive like other providers offers already. Their design team
also offers custom and matching email templates for a fixed fee.
Comprehensive Tools and Resources
iContact
designate a dedicated marketing advisor to their subscribers running
larger scale email campaigns to evaluate their action plans. The
application offers comprehensive analytics features and split a/b
testing capability that lets users drive the most results-oriented and
cost effective marketing campaigns.
Social Media Marketing Tools
The
platform offers integration with leading social media site networks
with the campaign setup process to immediately share the content on
platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. This not only gets the
message seen by everyone on the fan page, but also enables users to
like, share, re-tweet the messages amongst their friends. The iContact
social media tracking tool keeps track of your campaign's progress and
gives detailed insight into user interactions and post engagement in the
various platforms.
Third-party Application & Custom Integration
The
application offers third party integration extensions with tools like
Salesforce, Viewbix, Ultracart, ZenCart, 123ContactForm and many more.
It also has integration options for various universally accepted
customer management portals, eCommerce solutions and Google analytics
services. In case the application that you want to integrate is not
available in the list, the iContact API can be used to build your own
program integrations without any programming knowledge whatsoever.
Strategic Advisor for Premier Members
Signing
up for iContact as a Premier member has many other facilities, but the
dedicated strategy advisor steals the limelight of them all. It is the
advisor's responsibility to tweak an email marketing campaign under the
strive perusal of a user to drive the maximum benefits of their time and
resources. This is beneficial for businesses who cannot dedicate
manpower and time on research to drive the maximum benefits out of their
investments. The strategic advisors also act as personal trainers and
assistants to make users more educated about the whole email and social
marketing system.
Learning Resources
The user
guides, how-to videos, tutorials, webinar courser and in-depth study
materials provided with iContact are helpful for beginners and pros
alike. There is no end to the knowledge of marketing and no matter how
proficient someone is, there is always something to learn and inculcate
in these resources. The integrated search facility makes it easier to
find what you are looking for in a matter of seconds.
Analytics
While
there is certainly plenty of statistics to play around with, iContact's
offerings are fairly limited compared to some of the competitors like
GetResponse or MailChimp. If you utilize third party SalesForce
integration, however, you will see what kind of statistics the ordinary
tool lacks in comparison.
Final Verdict
The
interface is a bit complicated to use and however not many things may
need to be learnt before starting out. There is an option to test the
messages before hitting the send button and in case there is confusion,
the customer support is only a call away, except the fact that they are
not available on weekends. All in all, iContact comes with a great many
features and facilities that are not offered by other email marketing
solutions.