Constant Contact vs. Swag Pro

Constant Contact is an excellent tool for sending out flyers and newsletters. However, I feel the content's appearance is typically all the same. When I receive an email from Constant Contact, I can immediately identify it - the templates usually all look the same. When sending out communications with images, it is easy to use Constant Contact and link webpages. However, the email layout is always vertical and can get very lengthy. I prefer a more flip-book approach with options to flip the page.

Incentivized

B2B companies, SaaS companies, larger or important swag or customer gifting motions, ABM strategies, large customer thank you motions, certification programs where earners are thanked or rewarded, lean teams, ample budgets, field sales teams with agency of gifting and swag, marketing teams that don't have room or space for holding or managing inventory

Incentivized

• Market segmentation is great: my main segmentation is by region because that's how our sales team is divided.
• Lists: making customized email lists is easy and intuitive; the custom fields allow some flexibility in case our fields don't exactly line up with Constant Contact's.
• Campaigns: creating campaigns is quick and simple. I especially appreciate the 'resend to non-openers' option. I am constantly using this feature.
• Subject line generator: I like using the recommended subject lines. I'm able to plug in their recommended ideas, or sometimes, this feature helps me generate my own ideas.

• The swag catalogue has lots of items to choose from and they try to source anything else you need
• Takes care of the logistical challenges of getting swag to offices, events and to customers
• Their customer team are really hands on and helpful

Incentivized

• It would be nice if we had more customizable options for emails - like moving around pictures and text boxes, rather than a set spot for everything to go.
• I would like it if multiple people could work on a document at one time. So if I'm in charge of graphics, I can get those updated while someone else is entering content, etc.

Incentivized

• Their Giveaway feature was made some improvements but I would like to see it be more flexible
• Being able to get more samples of products and printing prior to ordering
• Swag photography/ items in stock in our closet- we had to provide photos of these items
• Better updates on swag items that are low in stock

Incentivized

There is no doubt that we are going to renew Constant Contact. We have not just invested a lot of time in learning and creating a great looking product but we have developed a strong database of information that allows us to track how we are doing for each newsletter. This supports our goals of creating products that residents desire and are excited to receive.

We are currently extremely satisfied with printfection. The quality of swag is very good, but the customer service ranks high above any other swag company. I have been working closely with my Printfection manager (Tyler Rowland) and he has been more than helpful from the start.

Incentivized

There is always room for improvement. I don't know how they test their systems, but they should invite not-so computer savvy people to test it. If I, as an expert have problems, they need to think like the technophobe. Since I've used Constant Contact in the past as part of my former employment, I have not viewed any of the tutorials and just jumped in to work on my client's newsletter. With that said, I found some areas easy and some a bit cumbersome

I think they do their work well. It's just not amazing or a company I feel a necessity to keep. If someone had the same service with the same cost, I might suggest asking both about the level of customer service.

Incentivized

No major problems in sending out the email campaigns and accessing the analytics

Incentivized

Prinfection's availability has been great. There was one time when a product we needed wasn't available, but our Printfection rep made sure to get what we needed.

Incentivized

The system seemed quite slow sometimes. Specifically, there was sometimes a delay in sends if it was during a high traffic period. There were time-outs when uploading new code for an email, and a lag in reporting analytics which was sometimes as long as 72 hours

Printfection's performance has been top-notch. We have been using Printfection for only about 8 months, and have not had any issues with performance.

Incentivized

I think the overall support for Constant Contact has always been incredible; I have nothing negative to say. Our customer support representative was attentive, easy to understand, and very knowledgeable. I never felt like I wasn't a priority of his and my issues, while very small, were fixed in a very short time frame.

They're willing to help and do what is necessary, even when unnecessary. This is the case when I don't need service at that level, but I'd rather have excellent service always than wonder if it will be there when I need it. Overall, they are perfect, and they have good intentions.

Incentivized

Tyler led some of our staff through training and was very helpful. Tyler was also always available for any questions after training was complete.

Incentivized

We completed online training with a Printfection rep leading us through the process. This made the whole experience easy and helpful.

Incentivized

Implementation is very easy for someone who wants to send out the “batch and blast” type newsletters. If you want to use their templates with no customizations, the product works fine. However, the more customizations you get into involving link color, etc, that’s where things can get tricky for someone who may not be familiar with coding

Their team is very helpful in getting set up and we felt like they worked with us on price and also getting our previous inventory we had at our offices set up in Printfection. The only down side of shipping in your items to Printfection is the photography of the items (which clients can see) is pretty terrible if you don't have clear product photos prior to sending the items to Printfection warehouse.

**All items purchased through Printfection the product photos look better (so this issue won't be the case with those who aren't shipping existing swag to their warehouse)

Incentivized

Constant Contact is much more intuitive for people who are not tech-savvy. Also, while sendgrid offered more options in it's drag and drop interface, it displayed differently across different email clients, which made it very cumbersome to use. It also took much longer to upload contact lists and it was harder to manage existing contacts. Performance in sendgrid was much slower as well, and the Preview feature was quite buggy. Our team initially chose sendgrid because of the integration options that it's API offered, but we ultimately switched to Constant Contact because it was much easier to build campaigns and better suited our requirements.

I reserached swag platforms and narrowed it down to 3 that I wanted to learn more about. I based my choices on response time to demo requests, customer service, items, ability to meet the needs of my supervisor, etc. I learned that 2 out of the 3 platforms I found were both under Custom Ink which I have used in the past. So I know the items are of good quality. The main deciding factor was the staff. Both companies had nice staff. But Printfection did a superb job of not making me feel like a cutomer but a friend. I didn't fee like I was a sale but a partner.

Incentivized

Simple pricing and easy to pitch to stakeholders

Incentivized

Very reliable in sending email campaigns and controlling the recipients so that no contact is sent the same email more than once, even if they are on a resent list

Incentivized

Only two departments use this product effectively. Ideally we have two other departments would use it, but they kept getting confused on how to navigate through it.

Incentivized

There aren't many professional services besides what is related to their product. What would have been great was to get design services included in our membership since we dont have one in house

Incentivized

• I have had nothing but positive impacts from using Constant Contact.
• The church is large, and there are many subgroups and axillary groups within the church. Setting up specific groups based on responsibility, interest, member goals, and service needs allows me to send information quickly, saving valuable time for other tasks.
• Constant Contact allows leadership to stay personally engaged with the members I work with, without over-taxing my time. It feels so seamless.

Incentivized

• Printfection is far more expensive than what we were previously using and we haven't seen a huge ROI yet in terms of influence on pipeline.
• Our employees are more engaged using Printfection than they were with our previous tool.
• Printfection helps with product design and research which saves me a ton of time when selecting new items.

Incentivized