Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM vs. Makesbridge

Constant Contact is excellent for small businesses wanting a simple email to their customers and leads. We've found that it's not the most robust solution for more complex funnels involved in e-commerce or information publishing. For instance, setting up specific flows based on user behavior, VIP status, and other attributes is lacking.

Incentivized

Makesbridge is great for email marketing and Salesforce integration. It is great for a startup or large company. Support is terrific. You can't go wrong with the service.

• Their Emailers are very easy to construct and user-friendly. It takes your Newsletter and sales emails to the next level, especially with the action groups and trigger functionalities.
• The life of the lead functionality allows you to see when leads get warmer, so you know when to send them what. Helps improve conversions.

• Makesbridge had the highest reviews in customer service on the Salesforce app exchange. This was the major reason that I chose them. Some of the implementation was over my head, but this was not a problem since they were always available to help with any issues that came up.
• The team has even taken suggestions and implemented them quickly when I voiced a need for a particular Salesforce integration. Makesbridge has been a fantastic addition to my company.

• The landing page builder is a bit hard to use. Doesn’t have much flexibility.
• Sometimes confusing between types of workflows to use. Opportunity versus visual.
• If you imported contacts that weren’t formatted correctly. It is hard to delete a bull amount. Need to type DELETE for each one manually. No bull options to make changes.

Incentivized

• I would like for users to be able to see campaigns and templates created by other non-admin users. I'd like the option as the sysadmin to select which parts of the application should be open to all users, and which I'd like to gate. (Permissions, if you will).
• Configuration of training materials. The content is great, I just have had difficulty locating the specific article that would be most relevant to the situation. I'd love step-by-step guides for campaign creation, etc.

We have been very impressed with all aspects of this software and the potential for it to radically change how we operate is huge! Support has been exceptional and we have discovered many extra uses for the software than originally thought. Not only will it give us benefits for our company's growth, but for our client's growth as well.

Incentivized

Great product, exceptional support. I'm going to be honest and say that I was apprehensive that the Makesbridge team was actually as wonderful as the app exchange reviews claim...How often does that actually happen?! But now, I can honestly say that the glowing reviews are spot-on, and my only concern is that they do not do justice in describing the product, support and service Makesbridge provides.

This rating is coming from an administrative perspective. With so many features, workflows, dashboards, and more, there is certainly a lot going on, and even the most savvy software user can get a little overwhelmed when trying to decide how to best implement and utilize the platform to its full potential. That being said, the SharpSpring platform is well-implemented and well-organized, with most solutions being fairly intuitive, once you have a grasp of the software. It is fairly easy to learn, but difficult to master. Just like any powerful platform, however, the complexity is worth it, and once you are comfortable navigating and problem solving within SharpSpring, it becomes a great marketing and sales tool which can do virtually anything you need it to.

Incentivized

I'm not an IT guru. The layout and workflows make sense, and I appreciate not having to involve a developer for every change I'd like to make.

Their tech support staff is the BEST I have worked with!

Best tech support in the software industry.

The support is great which really helps overcome challenges if you become stuck and the training videos are great too. Same-day replies are great and I even got some help with some CSS code on the chat. Not many organizations would do this or even respond.

Incentivized

While their phone/chat support is outstanding, I wish there was more documentation and how-to information available online. There are many features that I have not used because I don't understand how to use them as well as I should

Overall I would say to be patient and bring everyone who will be touching the platform to the onboarding sessions. The Virtual Classroom lets you onboard as quickly or slowly as you want. Sales, marketing, design, account management, get 'em all in on it. For the most part, they will be happy to use this platform. I recommend getting as many people as possible to see the SharpSpring demo.

Incentivized

Pros of SharpSpring:

• Design unlimited custom fields
• Can send content & templates to Sales to send in their reach-outs (Outlook extension)
• Ad retargeting
• Social listening tool
• Social media scheduling
• Email builder: dynamic content
• Landing pages: dynamic content, rebrandable domain name
• Chatbot Platform seems intuitive to use
• Forms auto-complete for known visitors
• Instant 2-way sync with Salesforce
• Trigger automated workflows from social media
• It was easy to receive demo, streamlined sales process

SharpSpring: approx. $13,000 USD per year + $2,000 USD one-time for onboarding Pardot: $32,400 USD per year + $3,000 to $5,000 USD one-time for onboarding HubSpot: $20,381 USD per year + $3,000 USD one-time for onboarding Marketo: $29,015 USD per year + $4,500 USD one-time for onboarding

Incentivized

Makesbridge was easier to use and has a much better help desk. We were originally impressed with sales and then the technical side. At one point we handled e-mails with an internal program, what a headache, especially the list management.

• Streamlined Processes - sales and marketing are now all in the same place.
• Reduced Number of Platforms/Tools - CRM/lead management, email, automation, landing pages, forms, etc are all in the same place rather than using multiple tools.
• Time-saving - sales pipeline is very easy to use for sales. For marketing, we have dozens of workflows that eliminate much of our manual processes from the past.
• Return on Investment - We're more focused on moving the building the business than ever before because SharpSpring has simplified so many of our business operations and we're seeing massive results!
• Lead generation - Up SIGNIFICANTLY (between 3x & 4x) since setting up SharpSpring.

• Good customer service and allows us to use our leads without much restriction.
• Price still considered quite high for a very small business like us.