iContact vs. Yesmail360i

I would only recommend it if someone was a small business. I think they are the best suited for companies who will send out a coupon or offer here and there. The most recent updates made it more complicated to use for more complicated processes. It is easy to train someone on the program, and so quick to learn. But I would also only stick to the simpler things. I also think the colorful templates are great, and show great creativity. But again, it is hard to justify recommending the program when it isn't WYSIWYG.

Incentivized

For all outbound messaging, YesMail is perfect. For Social Media management, or for customer service management, where customers or subscribers need a place to "talk back" to your organization, YesMail might not be the best platform.

Incentivized

• Contact management. iContact is really great for entering all your contact. You are able to put them onto different lists, and let them choose which lists they would like to be a part of as well. There are many data fields provided to fill in information.
• Emailing. We use the email feature at least once a month. They are always improving and adding new features, which is very helpful in presenting content in a new and exciting way to our readers. There are many options with remade templates and themes, or you can add your own.
• Insights. It is really helpful being able to have the data to see what is working and what isn't. It is nice to be able to go back and see how things went in the past compared to now. Opens, clicks, shares, etc.

Incentivized

• Large Enterprise email campaigns for Fortune 500 clients.
• Account managers are very easy to work with and contact. I usually can get a response within a few hours to solve an issue.
• Software is very easy to use and ramp up time was short.

• We also would like to send transactional messages which don't require an opt-out, this is a challenge with iContact. (May be a feature with pro?)
• The regular version of iContact doesn't support event management or logic flows for automated messaging.
• Custom form fields have limited field type options (can't build a drop-down).

Incentivized

• The ramp up time for new users is pretty poor. Since it is not an intuitive interface non tech savvy users have a hard time getting the most out of it
• A lot of common functionality has to be built in... Which costs extra
• Support isn't the best, they do respond but not at the speed I would like.

Incentivized

iContact has been a quick and easy way to send any announcements and news directly to email and social media subscribers. Its tracking and reporting capabilities turn a simple email into a marketing campaign that can be used as a tool to efficiently gauge reader response and customer satisfaction, and ultimately to reach potential customers. The consistency and excellent customer service is what makes this program a pleasant experience.

I do not have the buying decision to renew/change providers, but do have the ability to provide my feedback to those who do. Yesmail has a lot of kinks that need to be worked out. But, for those that just need to deploy emails, and house subscriptions, this is a decent platform to do so. Companies with more advanced campaign targeting/analysis needs should explore other service providers.

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

Overall it is easy to use but there's several different portals you must log into instead of having everything at your disposal in one place (reporting, emails, extracting data, etc).

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

Very easy to get a hold of an actual person and quick responses.

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

I didn't have a say in the decision because I wasn't with the company at the time. I listed HubSpot here because I know we used it in conjunction with iContact for email automation, but HubSpot Email was only recently built-out to the point where it is today. Now, iContact and HubSpot are no longer integrated.

We currently use MailChimp for automation campaigns. While there are limitations with MailChimp segmentation, it was much faster to get set up. We still use Yesmail for the bulk of our sending, and could probably do all the same things we do with MailChimp but it would just take a bit longer to get it set up

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.

• We have a template for webinars that we send every month. We just edit it and send. This couldn't be easier (once you know where to find it).
• We like the breakdown of statistics in the dashboard. They're easy to read.
• iContact isn't a comprehensive solution, so it is only one of a few products we use for marketing.

Incentivized

• We spend quite a bit of time troubleshooting, so it has had a negative impact on employee efficiency. When there is an issue we have to give them step by step examples of what went wrong so they can re-create it. 8 times out of 10, they can't recreate the issue.