If there were 240,984 users during the first weeks of launching iContact, what does that tell you?
? It meets the marketing objectives of small business owners
? It appeals to users because of its user-friendly interface
? It enhances the user?s contact management efforts.
Overview:
iContact is primarily an e-mail marketing tool that puts templates, surveys, auto-responders and RSS feeds at the disposal of users. People who have bought this product said that their e-mail marketing campaigns have increased their sales by 25%. It is a software that comes with online contact management (basic CRM) capabilities for marketers to capitalize on.
Features include:
? Bounce back handling (of e-mails)
? Subscription management
? Scheduling of messages
? Tracking
Focusing on iContact?s Contact Management Features
What constitutes a successful and effective e-mail marketing campaign?
The answer: e-mail credibility.
These e-mails have to meet the standards of good quality content, high rate of deliverability, and measurable conversion rates. iContact offers over 300 e-mail templates that you can choose from (compared to about 220 templates offered by Constant Contact, 35 by Campaigner and 148 by Bronto). As for deliverability rates, iContact asked a third party ? Pivotal Veracity ? to assess iContact on this particular feature. iContact scored a 98% deliverability rate.
E-mail marketing is a very critical but delicate activity. You don?t want your e-mails to come across as advertisements. This is one factor that marketers like to guard against ? giving the e-mail recipient the impression that they?re receiving a hard-sell strategy. The folks who created iContact understand this dilemma.
Their advice? You can adopt some measures to add credibility to your e-mail marketing strategy. According to Jeffrey Gray, the marketing chief at iContact:
? Personalise your e-mails ? add the first name of your contact in the opening line. Instead of saying ?Hello customer? you can say ?Hello Perry.? Repeat the name in the body of your e-mail two to three more times;
? Add images ? recipients receive a strong of boring e-mails in their inbox. Let yours stand out.
? Don?t use hard-sell lines like ?Buy now before inventory runs out.? Instead say, ?we?ll give you a 5% discount and some free bonuses if you sign up in the next 2 weeks.?
? Use a friendly voice (remember the advice, ?write as if you?re talking to a friend over a cup of coffee?)
? Use templates ? distinguish yourself to your potential and existing customers. Get them used to your look and feel.
iContact?s Contact Management ?goodies?: you get to set up an unlimited number of e-mail distribution lists (Bronto does not provide this), you can use the survey creation tool to track your customers (Constant Contact charges more for this service and Campaigner does not offer it).
The auto-responder feature ensures you hold your client?s hand every step of the way (Constant Contact does not offer auto-responders while Campaigner and Bronto offer limited auto-responders). For the low monthly price of $9.95 (lower than Constant Contact ($15), Campaigner ($25) and Bronto ($100), iContact gives you much more for a lot less.
One user believes that iContact has a powerful tool for marketers: segmentation.
Angela Brown thinks that in managing their contacts, marketers should know each name on their lists, know their subscribers and then divide these lists into certain categories (buying behaviour, lifestyles, demographics, interests (what are visitors clicking on and reading longer) and socio-economic status so that the most appropriate marketing strategy can be deployed. When an e-mail is sent to a prospective customer, the iContact user can note any responses or reactions from the recipient and can note this down for future reference. iContact offers this segmentation feature to allow marketers to test the effectiveness of subject lines and merging techniques or to perform A/B variable testing.
