iContact vs. ReachMail

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

I think it is well suited for running a series of campaigns that have variations in subject lines and content. The interface is easy to utilize when making copies and variations of previously built email blasts, as well as organizing them into proper folders and determining metrics of each campaign. The reporting tool delivers very useful metrics, but the lack of options for pulling reports hurts the overall experience. It would be great if ReachMail were to give the user more options in determining reporting, such as a range of dates, a range of campaigns, all campaigns sent that contain "X and Y" assets, and so forth, all while giving the user the ability to download reports individually, or by group

Incentivized

• 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

• I have a $10 account, but customer support treat me like a princess. They even added a feature to one page to remedy a problem I was having with that page. They care about their customers.
• ReachMail Features (or at least, these are the ones I know they have): WYSIWYG Email Editor, Template Management, Mobile Optimized Emails, Dynamic Content, Subscribe/Unsubscribe, Mailing List Management, Drip Campaigns, Auto-Responders, Image Library, A/B Testing, Customer Surveys, CAN SPAM Compliance, Reporting/Analytics.
• These folks know what they’re doing. I can’t speak highly enough about ReachMail.

Incentivized

• 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 like the tutorials they have helped figure most of my issues out
• The formatting text gave me lots of issues before I saw the tutorial it was a little complicated
• Not to many bad things to say really, even customer service is fast, maybe it could be faster?

Incentivized

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

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

Their team is knowledgable and willing to help offer insight and support to build out the right campaigns to fit our business needs and goals

Incentivized

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

Constant Contact:
Program marketing dollars disallowed when organization was absorbed by another entity, so Reachmail's free account was chosen to replace for localized target audiences. Constant Contact is visually more appealing and has more ready-to-use templates, but Reachmail has larger contact base, bigger graphic and doc storage capacity than did the paid Constant Contact account.
MailChimp:
MailChimp's drag and drop template designer is easier to use than Reachmail's formatting tools. Reachmail was not selected by this client in lieu of MailChimp.

Incentivized

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.

• Enhanced target audience reach for fundraising events, a definite positive.
• Detailed metrics reporting on opens and click-throughs, for refining target audiences, a definite positive.
• Increased Facebook audience as a result of Reachmail campaigns, a definite positive.
• No negative impacts on business objectives.

Incentivized