PFL Direct Mail Platform vs. Vbout

The reason it's not a seven or above is purely because of the timing of a solution we had requested originally back in August 2023. It's now February 2024, and we're waiting for a wow-factor pitch deck. Previously, we only received a demo recording and an order form quote. These truthfully aren't helpful enough to convince and sway our senior leaders into spending the $35k+ investment into the PMC.

Incentivized

To Automate your social media presence by bulk scheduling content. Create multiple drip email marketing campaigns to support different marketing promotion initiatives. Visualize your marketing funnel. Learn what is your best referral traffic source per each initiative (for example, I learned that Quora was bringing us highly qualified leads). Create lead scores and start qualifying your prospects. Create multiple landing pages to promote your product to different audiences.

Incentivized

• Personalization: It allows us to create highly personalized direct mail pieces tailored to individual recipients. For instance, we can include the recipient's name, relevant product recommendations, or even custom images that resonate with their preferences.
• Multi-Channel Integration: The platform seamlessly integrates with our existing digital marketing tools and CRM systems. It enables us to orchestrate cohesive campaigns that combine email, social media, and direct mail to reach our target audience through multiple touchpoints.
• Automated Workflows: PFL offers robust automation capabilities, streamlining the entire direct mail process. We can set triggers, such as website visits or email engagement, to automatically trigger the sending of personalized direct mail pieces, ensuring timely and relevant outreach.
• Variable Data Printing: The platform simplifies variable data printing, enabling us to print custom content for each recipient efficiently. This is particularly useful for A/B testing different messaging or designs within a single campaign.

Incentivized

• On email marketing, it has petty good recommendation for sending methods.
• The landing pages can be fully customized with code editor and works with Bootstrap frameworks.
• The automation comes in handy since it works on all Vbout tools.
• We can also install the Tracking Code on external websites to utilize Vbout tools.
• Awesome support team!

Incentivized

• There is no built-in functionality to automate direct mail; this has to be created through triggers in Salesforce.
• The sales cloud integration didn't give us the syncing or reporting we thought would be available.
• We would like to see more support from team members in the post-onboarding process.

Incentivized

• Since their team is so focused on being the best, they occasionally have small feature appearance issues

Incentivized

I will continue to use the platform as long as my employer provides access, but I do not have purchasing power myself.

Incentivized

The better relation quality / features / pricing in the market

Incentivized

The UI is friendly, clear, and accessible, and I access it directly through the interface (Salesforce) that I perform my function in every day. It is intuitive to navigate, and I am able to find most functionalities I need without the need to consult an admin and/or support teams.

Incentivized

Great experience so far. Vbout has low learning curve. It's a user-friendly product with comprehensive knowledge base. Even if we meet a blocker, their team is ready to help us solve the issue. Their keep the dashboard straightforward that contains all tools, so we can access each one of them right away.

Incentivized

Only thing holding me back from a perfect 10 would be the timelines for involving the technical team on occasion. There have been a few times where the PFL technical support team has been booked up for days or more than a week out which can delay our project timelines. This doesn't happen often, let me be clear. But when it does, it's usually at the worst time for our campaigns.

Incentivized

JourneyMail is one I have evaluated. It did not seem as full featured as PFL Direct Mail Platform, nor did it integrate with the rest of the Salesforce products like PFL Direct Mail Platform (journeymail ONLY integrates to marketing cloud). My customers tend to be cross-cloud and own multiple products and want solutions that can integrate across their stack easily.

Incentivized

Vbout offers a very robust overall solution, with a more basic solution, and a much lower price point than the Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM solution.

Incentivized

It does take a while to launch or re-launch a campaign, which can make it difficult to pivot quickly. However, if you're integrated with Marketo, then PFL is as scalable as your database and marketing strategy! The sky is the limit in terms of creativity. Post launch, the program is hands-off apart from report monitoring and potential optimization tweaks.

Incentivized

• We've sometimes struggled to maintain a positive ROI due to some issues with packages not arriving, arriving broken, or including the wrong items.

Incentivized

• The platform has saved us a lot of money
• It's highly functional and allows us to do a lot more than Marketo
• It's easy to manage, and it saves us a lot of time on a regular basis.

Incentivized