TrustRadius
Benchmark EmailBenchmark Email a good option for education-related non-profits2017-09-25T18:47:01.903ZOur non-profit family/faculty organization needed a way to distribute a monthly newsletter to approximately 450 families and 850 family members.
Benchmark Email has a generous free pricing tier, discount for 501(c)(3) non-profits, and a completely free option for Parent/Teacher educational associations. This was the hands-down deciding factor at the time for our organization.
Getting up to speed was quick and the product initially served us well. In time, small quirks in the editor became annoying and slowed down the time to assemble and publish the newsletter. Reception of test emails could be quick at times and painfully slow a few minutes later. The data collection custom fields were not well suited to the types of data we needed to track.
Support was always friendly and attempted to be helpful, but some issues seemed to be related to features that were not well thought out. I do not recall any updates or improvements in the platform during the period we used it.
Delivery metrics were impressive; however, for our limited-geographic group and small size, they were not highly necessary.,Ease of use - required minimal training to get started.
Value - free service for non-profits, with powerful features.
User Experience - flow of the process is logical and easy to follow.,Glitchy editor - powerful drag and drop features, but precise formatting can have issues.
Stagnant platform - few notable features or fixes over the past two years.
Delivery Success - anecdotal customer reports suggest high percent of emails are diverted by spam filters.,6,Enabled our organization to increase communication reach from less than 2% of our audience to over 30%.
Provided a distribution channel with minimal training.
Given the free cost for our non-profit, the ROI was undoubtedly positive; however, a fee may have turned minor frustrations into deal breakers for the value proposition.,MailChimp,Less than 10,000,B2CTim ColsonA good alternative to Zoho Campaigns and MooSend2017-02-22T16:30:34.642ZI tested out Benchmark Email and several other email marketing services while searching for free email marketing solutions for E.D.G. & Atelier as we just starting to grow our mailing list and there was no budget allocated for email marketing. We needed an email marketing solution that was free yet had features such as responsive email, automation, and reports. Since I was the only user, we didn't need features such as multiple users.
We just needed a software to grow our mailing list and send responsive emails.,Price: This one was a major Pro for us as we had zero budget for email marketing, so finding an email marketing service that was free for up to 2000 subscribers was a major win for us.
Ease of use: Benchmark Email was simple to use, and while it might have to do with the fact that I had tested out over 5 other email services prior to signing up, its simplicity was noteworthy. While ease of use wasn't among my top 3 qualities I needed our ESP to have, it was nice to use one anyone else could use. Creating an email was simple and the drag and drop elements were great and allowed for flexible design.
Responsive Emails: This one was a biggie for me. I needed an ESP that made my emails look good on a laptop, desktop, smartphone or tablet. I created a test email and opened it on all my gadgets [laptop, desktop computer, windows smartphone, Kindle tablet and android tablet] and I was really impressed by its responsiveness.,Limited branding on signup forms: I think MailChimp ruined most free ESPs for me as most free email marketing services have limited design and branding options on signup forms. I wanted my signup form to have an image header with the company's logo on it. This feature was important to me so I asked the live customer support at that time if this feature was available and he said yes. Sadly unlike MailChimp that allowed an option for image headers in signup forms (which made it act as a simple landing page) Benchmark email did not. Benchmark now allows the option to add a logo to the top of the form. It wasn't until I went back to SendinBlue that I remembered a workaround to get image headers which was editing the signup forms' HTML code and including an Of course this, also meant constant tweaking to get the right image size.
Limited signup form design: Compared to most ESPs both free and paid, Benchmark's signup forms are not very attractive,. The form's design needs an urgent upgrade as it is rather unattractive.
Automation: I wouldn't call this a major con as Benchmark does have basic automation which is limited to welcome messages and similar one-off messages but, I suppose SendinBlue and MailerLite are to blame for running free ESPs for me by giving me a rather high expectation.
Form publishing: After designing my signup form, I was presented with three options: Place Signup Form directly on your website, Pop-up from a button on your website, Pop-up from a text link on your website. While option one was good and option two was much appreciated, I wanted the form to have a link I could share on social media.,6,Unfortunately we switched to a different email service provider so Benchmark has not had any impact on our business objectives.,MailChimp, Mailerlite, SendinBlue, Zoho Campaigns and Moosend,Less than 10,000,Both,Mailerlite, MailChimp, SendinBlue,1,No,Price
Product Features
Product Usability
Third-party Reviews,I think I would have been more specific with my selection process and taken the time to talk to customer support about each feature I wanted and if their free plan had those features. I do believe that I might have jumped the gun a bit in selecting Benchmark email because I should have taken the time to ask the customer support about the customization and publishing options of the signup forms.Abigail NwaochaGive your Email some Extra Byte2016-09-12T19:03:58.578ZBenchmark Email is one of the key softwares or tools used by my organization for their operation. Benchmark email has been used by my organization for the last 2-3 years or maybe longer. It is used by the digital marketing department of our organization. It is used to send business email for our clients in a customized business email template form. It fulfills our business email needs and helps to get a full analysis of all the emails sent over Benchmark. It gives open rates, bounce rates, unopened rates, unsubscribe rates, and abuse complaint rates in a very systematic manner.,Benchmark Email is very accurate for giving numbers. It gives a clear number of how many mails are delivered from the sent mails. After that it gives a clear analysis in the form of a Pie Chart on how many emails are opened, clicked, bounce and unsubscribe.
It also gives the numerous range of email template options to send the email in the way you want to your client. You can also customize it according to your creativity and need. You can send business text email, pictorial email, design email and various types of email. It has a separate column for a logo, text, pictures and images. Also every template has various types of catchy button like: click here, subscribe here. You can get quote buttons which attract your customers for simplified way of getting information from your content. It also has the option of putting a landing page link to your content which can be directed to your website or product page.
In Benchmark you have a huge space for data storage. It not only stores your data but you can also sort it according to your need whenever you want. It is compatible with almost all formats for data uploads (like Excel) You can sort your data from all the data available in Benchmark for example if you want data on a specific job title then you can search for it and Benchmark will give you a number of how much data is available for that.
It also gives the option to schedule your email for different time zones. Suppose you want to send a email to overseas where time zone is different, in that case you can schedule your email for that particular time zone and date you want to send it. Benchmark will schedule and deliver that email on that time and will give a complete analysis.
Benchmark also takes care of various norms and regulations you have to follow for sending the email. Nowadays laws are very strict for emails. If any person unsubscribes from your email Benchmark will automatically delete that person's email and also take care in future that not to send any more emails to that person.,Benchmark is almost good and at the mark for various email sending requirements. But it is said every thing has some cons so Benchmark also has some. Benchmark sometimes has server issues so it gets very slow in sending emails.
Benchmark provides 24/7 service but sometimes there are delays in solving your issue.,8,If we think particularly on the ROI then benchmark email gives you a definite amount of ROI. But it takes time, you will see the results after a six month span of time. Because sending an email itself is a slow and steady process to follow.,mailchimp and Zoho Campaigns,MailChimp, SAS Business Intelligence, SAS Marketing Automation,30,30,Benchmark helps us with sending emails at the last moment to generate leads for clients.,We innovate the time factor of sending emails..Because time factor always work for getting more opens and clicks on emails sent,We may use all newly added features from Benchmark in the coming days.,8Verified User
Unspecified
Benchmark Email
9 Ratings
