SharpSpring is a smart choice if you're looking for a marketing automation and lead nurturing solution
June 01, 2015
SharpSpring is a smart choice if you're looking for a marketing automation and lead nurturing solution
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with SharpSpring
SharpSpring is a marketing automation and lead nurturing SaaS application sold primarily to marketing agencies - though they also sell directly to businesses too. A newer entry into this rapidly growing market, they compete with Marketo, HubSpot, Pardot, and a plethora of others. We chose SharpSpring very early after their launch because they catered to marketing agencies. That is, the wanted to grow a base of marketing firms that would deploy SharpSpring to their clients - I think mostly because marketing automation is still fairly new - and integrating into a company's marketing takes time and experience. So partnering with agencies provided them the "sales force" and conduit into businesses large and small.
We've been using SharpSpring to help us gather and nurture new business for over a year. It has significantly assisted in better qualifying leads and directing our efforts to hone in on worthwhile clients - rather than in the past where we'd spend time and effort crafting proposals for everyone. But more importantly, we've deployed and use SharpSpring on several of our client's sites. It's allows us to streamline and automate the marketing efforts of these clients. We've found terrific success using it to foster new business and return business on several eCommerce sites - where we can generate inbound traffic, tag what the "shoppers" were interested in and then automatically market to them if they don't buy initially through a series of drip campaigns. Even better now, SharpSpring recently introduced a new abandoned shopping cart trigger - so we can even get more granular in re-attracting leads who filler their carts but didn't follow through with a purchase. For existing ecommerce customers, it's proven wonderfully efficient at managing ongoing customer relationships, leading to repeat and increased orders.
We also use it to manage sales channel marketing where resellers and distributors are offered customized deals and offers based on their activity and order history. And of course it allows us to continually market new product introductions quickly and efficiently based on segmented lists.
For our non eCommerced based clients it's proven equally beneficial. It helps client's sales departments target only the best prospects while it keeps less optimal prospects in the system too - nurturing them. We've used it to also improve ROI on trade show participation - automating a lot of the pre- and post- show communication.
Overall, SharpSpring has been a wonderful addition to our marketing tool set and they keep improving the application month after month. Is it flawless? No, there are bugs and quirks, but their support is generally very responsive and helpful. Most of our glitches have been solved quickly. The challenge today is really keeping up with their continual roll-out of new features and functions. They're doing a great job at responding to the needs of their customers and their customers' customer.
We've been using SharpSpring to help us gather and nurture new business for over a year. It has significantly assisted in better qualifying leads and directing our efforts to hone in on worthwhile clients - rather than in the past where we'd spend time and effort crafting proposals for everyone. But more importantly, we've deployed and use SharpSpring on several of our client's sites. It's allows us to streamline and automate the marketing efforts of these clients. We've found terrific success using it to foster new business and return business on several eCommerce sites - where we can generate inbound traffic, tag what the "shoppers" were interested in and then automatically market to them if they don't buy initially through a series of drip campaigns. Even better now, SharpSpring recently introduced a new abandoned shopping cart trigger - so we can even get more granular in re-attracting leads who filler their carts but didn't follow through with a purchase. For existing ecommerce customers, it's proven wonderfully efficient at managing ongoing customer relationships, leading to repeat and increased orders.
We also use it to manage sales channel marketing where resellers and distributors are offered customized deals and offers based on their activity and order history. And of course it allows us to continually market new product introductions quickly and efficiently based on segmented lists.
For our non eCommerced based clients it's proven equally beneficial. It helps client's sales departments target only the best prospects while it keeps less optimal prospects in the system too - nurturing them. We've used it to also improve ROI on trade show participation - automating a lot of the pre- and post- show communication.
Overall, SharpSpring has been a wonderful addition to our marketing tool set and they keep improving the application month after month. Is it flawless? No, there are bugs and quirks, but their support is generally very responsive and helpful. Most of our glitches have been solved quickly. The challenge today is really keeping up with their continual roll-out of new features and functions. They're doing a great job at responding to the needs of their customers and their customers' customer.
- Their email component went through a tremendous overhaul early on and is now comparable with many of the email marketing tools which we've used in the past. It's very easy to build unique, customized emails that integrate variable data to personalize the correspondence. It's also easy to create templates for each client that still provides an accessible way for them to expand and adjust the email templates too - to better suit the goal of the email.
- They're continuing to improve their ecommerce capabilities which makes us very pleased. Shortly after we started with them they provided a shopping tracking script that recorded purchases, shopping cart data, and tracked the sales. This was wonderfully important to us so we could utilize this data to trigger automate workflows. So we were very excited when this was introduced. And now, they've incorporated an abandon shopping cart trigger which dramatically streamlines our required effort.
- Call tracking is a big feature though I'll admit, as cool as it is, we haven't implemented it for a client yet. But to know it's there, ready to trace and record inbound calls and connect those calls with marketing initiatives is reassuring. I'm certain we'll find the client to implement this for soon - as many have asked about services of this type in the past - but they've always balked at the cost and the need to somehow manage disparate marketing services.
- My largest gripe about SharpSpring is their rapid pace of innovation and their lack of communication about what's new. Often we'll discover new features or capabilities and have to reach out to tech support to learn more about them and how they might benefit our clients. Though I will soften this complaint but admitting they know this is a failure on their end and they've made great strides to correct it. There's now a weekly email that outlines current and future updates, there are regular partner updates, and webinars - so they are getting their act together. Which is impressive for such a young application.
- My other complaint, their online interface, while attractive and functional, it relies heavily on modal windows to display data that would be better displayed on a single page. Modals appear a lot in fact, sometimes where they're not necessary or where they inhibit the user experience. But again, I'll assume I'm not alone in this grievance, since recently they've started to streamline and reduce their use of modals. Which is pleasant but also goes to my complaint number one - they'll roll out an update in the middle of the day - so something you're familiar using in the morning might be different in the afternoon. Yes, it's likely better, but still it introduces that unexpected learning process which can be annoying if you're simply trying to get something done.
- I can definitely confirm that SharpSpring has helped many of our clients upgrade the quality of their leads and thereby improved their closings. By grading leads and levels of interest sales teams can focus on the most interested and leave the others in SharpSpring where they're automatically nurtured along.
- Further, for many of our eCommerce clients, I can look at SharpSprings campaigns and see how well our drip email campaigns convert. This is a wonderful thing, since these are shoppers that browsed but then left - but were converted into customers later simply because SharpSpring existed. So this is a big positive.
- HubSpot,Silverpop Engage,GreenRope
Based on a straight economic comparison - when we signed up for SharpSpring they were much more affordable and provided greater capabilities. Since we've signed on those capabilities have only gotten better and their pricing has not changed. Many of the others had either too high an entry cost or provided such complex plans that limited options at the lower end it made them less attractive.