Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM vs. ConvertFlow

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

I'd say just about every marketing application can benefit from ConvertFlow's features and flexibility. Some step-by-step logic form builders limit what you can have on each step, ConvertFlow leaves that totally up to you which is a huge plus. If you use Keap as your CRM, it is especially helpful as not all systems have a direct connection like this does. If there's an area it may be less suited than other specific tools, I'd say maybe survey forms. You certainly CAN build them, but there are other tools for that which create an easier experience building and for the user.

Incentivized

• 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.

• step-by-step forms
• CRM integration
• logic-based user interface
• lead data

Incentivized

• 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

• lead source from Google - can't tell paid vs organic
• Some custom fields in forms require duplicating or re-setting up across forms - could used custom saved questions library
• From landing pages, opening a pop-up requires building a pop-up outside the page. this is good when multiple pages use the same pop-up but in other cases can be time-consuming to exit the page, build, then go back and finish the page. small detail really but worth knowing about
• you can set up custom URLs, but so far no option to integrate, for instance, into WordPress and give a landing page your actual URL. So instead of "domain.com/page" you have to use "go.domain.com/page" or something like that. would be nice to keep it within my URL in some cases.

Incentivized

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

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

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

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

All of these I used for different, specific purposes. ConvertFlow accomplishes ALL of those purposes and does them well. There might be an area or two where others excel, but you end up needing more than one tool to accomplish the same results as ConvertFlow can do in one tool.

Incentivized

• 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.

• Saves my team a TON of time. we've used form tools before that generated results but took a whole afternoon to properly set up. My team can set up new forms or a/b test designs in minutes.
• Signup optimization is now attainable for many team members. Even my designers can easily test their own work, you don't have to have a deep data analysis to see what's working

Incentivized