SharpSpring from a Partner Perspective
Overall Satisfaction with SharpSpring
My partner and I run a digital marketing agency and we utilize SharpSpring for various aspects of our business. I use it to onboard new clients, we track our prospects, and we also resell SharpSpring to our clients. Internally, I love that I can automate our onboarding process. I send an automation to new clients with links and directions to complete their intake. It helps me stay more organized. For our clients, they get a one size fits all solution. Most of our clients that have adopted SharpSpring give up every other email, CRM, or lead tracking software they were previously using.
- Simple automation implementation. I am the writing side of our agency, but of course, I jump in to help with the technical stuff as needed. I learned fairly quickly how to load emails and set automations. SharpSprings system is pretty self-explanatory and easy to use if you are familiar with computers in general. Being user-friendly is a huge strength in this field, because for someone like me who is not particularly technically inclined, if a program is too hard to use I will just look for a simpler competitor.
- Custom fields for segmenting email lists. I do not have a lot of experience with competitors, but I know that SharpSpring's customer field capabilities allow me to exactly what I want with no limitations. I have created custom fields for my clients that I am onboarding, as well as created custom email lists for our clients to help them better market to their customers.
- From a Partner perspective, SharpSping has amazing resources and is always changing and growing. They listen to our feedback and change with the needs of the industry. They also have an extensive Partner Portal with loads of articles and webinars, as well as amazing customer service. Any issues have always been responded to and resolved in a very timely manner.
- One feature in reporting I noticed missing was being able to separate campaign by email send dates. We have a client that launches 120 new emails to his client list each day, which sparks a 30 email automation. While we can see the overall reporting, it would be nice to see them segmented by date so we can track data based on day of the week, etc. I know I can do this by copying the automation and creating a separate campaign, but I like to avoid extra steps.
- A navigation function (that I'm sure has been reported and is being worked on) is the ability to navigate via a back and forward button. Currently, if you are inside an email, to go back to a list you have to navigate from the start at the navigation bar.
- I know this issue is probably universal, and exists for good reason, but I wish there were an easier way to have two emails listed for the same contact. Obviously, there can only be one email per contact for list eailing to work properly, but instead of created a John Smith-Work and John Smith-Personal, maybe there could be a way to combine the two somehow. When email lists get large, as they often do, I might end up with two John Smiths and get confused! A way to link separate contacts would be ideal.
- Guaranteed monthly retainer. As we work namely with startups and non-profits, we are working with clients that tend to have a minimal marketing budget to start. Since we have a hard cost with SharpSpring, we are guaranteed a minimal retainer from our clients.
- Longevity of contract. We have found that our clients that utilize SharpSpring are almost 100% more likely to stay on as a client because they don't want to lose the SharpSpring capabilities. This has allowed us to hold on to clients that we may have otherwise lost due to temporary loss of marketing budget and other various reasons.
- From our internal perspective, SharpSpring has helped increase our credibility with clients, allowing us to charge more for our services. We are the only Silver Certified SharpSpring Partner in Nevada and have had numerous successful campaigns that we have run for clients.