Brief Overview of iContact

Summing up iContact

What is the iContact Email Marketing System

iContact Email Marketing System provides management of all your email marketing initiatives.  It handles bounce-backs, manages subscriptions, and allows you to schedule your messaging.  You'll also be able to monitor the effectiveness of your campaigns with Open and Clickthrough tracking.  The software also integrates some educational resources

Who would use the iContact Email Marketing System?

Web marketers, small businesses, non-profits, bloggers

What does the iContact Email Marketing System Do?

You won't get too far sending out your email marketing campaigns via your Gmail.  There is a lot to keep track of and that requires some sophisticated software.  To judge the efficacy of your campaign, iContact Email Marketing System allows you to track who opens your email, and whether they clicked through on any of the links.  The system also manages subscriptions, handles emails sent to inaccurate email addresses, and allows you to schedule your messages. 

iContact does provide Live Support through email, live chat, and phone.  They further extend their impact by providing a few educational resources on email marketing techniques.  While iContact does provide 250-300 templates, they will also custom design a template for your organization in their Premium Services department.

The Features and Benefits of The iContact Email Marketing System

Create

• Create and manage an unlimited number of lists
• Use mail-merge to send personalized HTML or text email newsletters
• Compose and send emails from any computer with an Internet connection
• Select from our sample HTML templates or use your own
• Create and use custom mail merge fields
• Built in HTML WYSIWYG Editor
• 500kb of image hosting included to store commonly used images

Send

• Schedule emails to be sent in the future
• Send personalized emails to each recipient using mail merge fields
• Resend archived messages without retyping
• T3 connected servers deliver emails to your entire list quickly. No more waiting hours for delivery
• Send test emails to ensure professional, typo-free communications
• Send to multiple lists at a single time
• Our exclusion list feature allows you to choose lists or segments who should not receive a specific message delivery.

Manage

• Create and manage an unlimited number of lists
• A complete contact management and follow-up system
• Track how well your subscriber lists are retaining contacts via detailed reports
• Complete list add/remove/sent statistics and activity reports
• Create your own sign-up form(s) to collect subscribers from visitors to your web site
• Complete bounce-back email handling
• Easily import subscribers and contacts from any application or database
• Event RSVP Management & Follow-up
• Subscribers manage subscription. No more manual removes and complete opt-out ability ensured
• Complete list archive and subscriber reports
• View dates and addresses of user removals
• Save your emails as drafts to send later
• Searchable database allows you to easily find and update subscriber information

Track

• Complete message reporting including open and click-through tracking
• View delivery, bounces, opens, clickthroughs, and unsubscribes for each message
• See who opened and clicked on which message
• Export available of all reporting data
• Segment your list based on reporting results

Segment

• List segmentation - divide your lists into smaller, targeted segments
• Segment by any field or set of fields you have stored in your lists
• Easily save segments for future use
• Segments dynamically update as additional people fit the segment criteria

Follow-up

• Send automated messages to subscribers based on date or how long they subscribed
• Create multiple day e-courses to educate your prospects and clients
• Create a follow-up campaign in advance to put your marketing on auto-pilot
• Add an autoresponder sign-up form to your web site

API

• Keep your application up to date by synchronizing contacts and lists
• Retrieve message statistics and subscriber behavior for additional insight
• Add a "Subscribe to Newsletter" option anywhere on your site
• Deliver messages according to business rules managed by your applications
• Create custom reports in your applications

Survey

• Create, send, and track the results of surveys sent to your customers and subscribers
• Add an unlimited number of survey questions
• Customize your survey with your logo and color scheme
• Ask multiple choice, yes/no, and open-response questions
• Real-time tracking data with responses and graphs
• Export all data for further analysis

The Pros of the iContact Email Marketing System

iContact is extremely economical and an excellent choice for those just getting into email marketing. Surveys are included in the package as well as newsletter archiving, and you can create auto-responders.  Also, they are very flexible in their subscriber sign up forms.  Finally, they claim to have an industry leading deliverability rate.

The Cons of The iContact Email Marketing System

Many people feel that iContact has inexperienced support people, with long wait times.  There seems to be a feeling that the support staff use stock phrases rather than doing real problem solving.  Also, they have very limited storage space for online images. 

Further comments have noted that they lack the speed of their competitors, and their tracking capabilities don't live up to their claims.  Finally, it is unclear how many templates they have.  One area of their site says 250, while another says over 300.

The iContact Email Marketing System Pricing
15-day free trial

Subscriber numbers in excess of 100,000 require communication with the sales team.

The iContact Email Marketing System Guarantee

15-day free trial allows you to get a sense of whether the software is really right for you.

Similar Products to The iContact Email Marketing System

Emma Email Marketing

Constant Contact

Bronto

Vertical Response

Ideas for using the iContact Email Marketing System:

Keep in active communication with your subscriber base and analyze the way they interact with your messages.

For more information on Contact Click here

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