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Stay Sharp with SharpSpring
Updated February 25, 2015

Stay Sharp with SharpSpring

Zoë Ong | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with SharpSpring

Currently, we are using SharpSpring as a means to collect data, segment data, and target our audiences based on information given to us both by the means of their registration form data, and their web behaviour. This in turn allows us to show our prospective buyers something that is relevant to them - both in terms of the email content that they get, but also soon the web experience that they have. The purpose was to ensure that we were better targeting our audiences to engage them for longer. And so far it's been working, with high e-blast response rates, and calls to action driving traffic to sites, I'm really excited with how well this has been working for us.
  • The customer service has been phenomenal. Whenever I have an issue, my account manager is right there making sure that I have numbers, that I have answers, and if there are features that I think would be useful, he is an advocate for me. That's all you can ever ask for from customer service, and I know that when I have a problem with something, I can expect a reasonable response to it. So far, from what changes have been made on the platform, I'm very pleased!
  • Response rates on our targeted e-blasts have shown to be evidence unto themselves. Each is a success, and we're able to tell that from the get go, that people really do respond to content that they feel is relevant to them. In our industry, numbers rule everything, and the response open and click through rates are almost always hovering around 40-50%. I'm not sure where else I could get such a positive response so consistently, but I'm happy for it, as are our clients.
  • The e-mail template editor recently got an update and it's been absolutely fantastic! It functions similarly to MailChimp but only at a fraction of the cost. Essentially for people without any coding knowledge, this is a fast an easy way to build templates to send out to your databases that look fresh, professional, and are readily mobile responsive - a must in today's marketing environment.
  • Right now my biggest problem is with how lists are built. Sometimes it's great to have dynamic lists, but I need lists that are able to be built using both dynamic and uploaded content. However I have been given a means by which to get around this, but I feel this could simply be easier if the rule system for making lists were more flexible.
  • Along with lists, I feel that a task should be executed against a list instead of simply a workflow. The task defines rules - my problem with lists would be eliminated if a task were able to be applied instead of simply a workflow.
  • I really want to see more examples of website personalization, as it is something that my company will be strongly pushing for in the first quarter of the new year.
  • We're looking to better convert leads into sales for our clients, which we're looking into seeing the impact of as we lead into 4 new product launches. So far the e-mail responses to the targeted groups have proven to be phenomenal, with 40-50% average open rates, and once we have our product openings, we hope to see that translate through into increased sales.
Marketo is, for lack of a better word, very expensive. It has a wonderful breadth of tools, but many of the tools offered are the sort that we would have no use for at the agency in which I'm employed. MailChimp doesn't offer the option to better personalize content on a website off of the data collected, so there too, it falls short of what we're looking for. SharpSpring offers a great middle ground, with personalization made possible, along with a price that feels comfortable for us, especially as we embark into marketing automation for the first time here.
Having been recently acquired by SMTP, a new series of updates are coming that I'm genuinely looking forward to! It means that I'll be having a busy new year, but soon we'll be able to do things such as creating dynamic e-mails based on customer behaviour, similar to what people would receive in terms of product recommendations from Amazon. This would be based on more than simply information received from form responses, but as well web behaviour, which is incredibly powerful when dealing with the sort of purchases that we reside over. Anything we can do to drive a prospective buyer from home, to a sales centre, is welcome! And if this works, there is no doubt we will be renewing.
The key thing to ask yourself is if you have the time and resources required to dedicate yourself to marketing automation. It isn't something that can be done as a side project for any company or agency. It needs to have significant time and energy to devote oneself to the implementation of SharpSpring, or any marketing automation system that you find! Beyond that, are you able to determine what kind of behaviour will produce likely buying habits? Do you feel you understand how to filter relevant content to each group that you determine? Will you use all of the features? It's important to figure out if what you need is really what you're getting into, but at the cost of SharpSpring, I feel it's a great training ground into figuring out if marketing automation is really for your company or not. (But really it should be)

Using SharpSpring