iContact vs. LoopFuse (discontinued)

iContact is a great option for small businesses. It doesn't have enough features to create the demands of a large corporation. Of course the price goes up exponentially with more subscribers, which would also make it beneficial for small businesses. If you have too many lists to add people to it can get a little crazy too.

Incentivized

My advice in choosing software in general is to know what you want to get out of the software. Then start researching the software on your own to see what features and benefits each has that will help you accomplish what you need. Once you have a good idea of what sorts of features you're looking for, reach out to the vendors that have them to see demos. Get really in-depth with your demos and ask for practical use-cases for each feature. Free trials are pretty useless with this sort of technology because the initial set-up is so time-consuming that you would either not set it up properly, or you would not stop using the provider you chose after the set up because you don't want to do it again!

• Customer service is wonderful! They are always helpful, guiding and available for any odd question, even if those questions are training for a newbie to the email world.
• Building forms for data collection and the code generator the for the site is very easy.
• Ensuring double opt-in is extremely straightforward.
• Including unsubscribe on every message automatically means we never have to worry about CAN-SPAM.

Incentivized

• It is easy to use without too much set-up.
• The e-mail engine is simple to use and straightforward, and e-mails seemed to get delivered for the most part.
• The reporting information is very in-depth and detailed.

• Every time you edit or sometimes open an email it brings it to the top of the list. I would prefer my email to go to the top only after I send it out to my subscribers.
• When I add a new contact I sometimes copy and paste the email. This is not allowed sometimes and I have to manually type the email in.
• LinkedIn will not allow you to add pictures anymore when sending emails out.

Incentivized

• I think creating the HTML email campaigns could be made easier.
• I would like to have more HTML templates available.

After 4 years of using iContact we finally cut the cord. It was hard to justify staying with them when it seemed like they had some of the most outdated software in the industry, some of the worst deliverability, and were in general extremely lacking in customization. They are a decent ESP for a great price point, so if that is your main concern it may be worth it, but if you want to have your emails you are paying for hit inboxes (not spam folders) then look into someone else that guarantees great deliverability.

Incentivized

My new company is much larger and we need robust capabilities so we're implementing Marketo currently.

I rate iContact as an easy to use program due to its user friendly dashboard and user interface. Most companies of small to medium size do not have a dedicated marketer, therefore it is someone multitasking who may or may not have this kind of experience. iContact makes it relatively simple and can actually expand one's knowledge in the area of business promotion.

Incentivized

It's pretty easy to use without any technical abilities, but the email editor will require html skills (no drag and drop).

iContact is regularly up and running. Only once has it been unavailable for maintenance, which is to be expected and even desired for optimal performance when needed.

They have always been responsive to any issues or concerns that have arisen with our account. Our customer account manager participates in our monthly county-wide communicators meetings via telephone to ensure that we are getting the most from the service. He also analyzes our lists to help us weed out inactive contacts.

Incentivized

The templates are difficult to customize, and they don't render well in email platforms

i wouldn't be using it if i wasn't satisfied. time is money

We selected iContact because it was available at the time, and in our price range. I inherited it at the school. If it had been the program it is now back then, I would not have chosen it. At the moment, we are too busy to fully vet another program, so we are stuck with this one. It does get the job done. It is great for a small business with small needs, but once you start expanding and having more intricate needs, it does not compete with others like MailChimp

Incentivized

At the time we had to choose between several versions of marketing products. We decided to choose LoopFuse since a few of our employees were quite amused with the ease of use of LoopFuse. Also when looking at cost-effectiveness LoopFuse is a great product for the smaller companies. Making the decision was not too hard.

iContact stays the same with the number of users added or taken away. It certainly remains reliable despite increased usage, and so, can be considered scaleable in that aspect.

• Increased Employee Efficiency - once a template is created, it is very easy to edit the content within the template with minimal or no assistance from developers.
• Domain Reputation - if you aren't careful, it is very easy to hurt your domain reputation when using iContact. Make sure the person in charge of email marketing knows the risks of email marketing or is willing to closely work with iContact's customer service to follow best practices.
• Increased Lead Conversion - through the use of automated email functionality, you can stay in the forefront of your customer's minds. This increases conversions by reminding customers that you are there to provide the goods or services that they may need periodically or in the future.

• The workflows were really easy to build and definitely increased our lead conversion. We did a lot of webinars, eBooks, etc - and it was so easy to decide on workflows to turn those prospects into hot leads by watching what they did on our website, or what they clicked on in our emails.
• Lead scoring also made our sales team more efficient. We had quite a few leads coming through our system, and many were not sales ready - but Loopfuse could transfer the lead score into Salesforce to show them which leads to focus on, as well as why the leads had the score they did (Loopfuse also imported lead activity into Salesforce - including emails sent, opened, clicked, webpages viewed, forms filled out, etc).