Item: Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM
Rating: 10
Author: Vikki Baumler, MBA

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The three main reasons we launched SharpSpring was for 1) branded marketing automation in response to online inquiries 2) digital data tracking relative to sales pipeline 3) marketing ROI measurement - i.e., which campaigns are driving traffic and lead to the most won leads? It's used across the organization - but not all users log into the system to access data. Most users receive notifications from online inquiries. Only half the organization is using the sales pipeline feature (because one side of the business is primarily medical referrals.)

Pros and Cons

The ability to create beautiful, branded marketing messages with links to videos or marketing collateral - or to online content.
Dynamic content - the ability to change the message based on the persona and location.

Blog - this feature is still a bit weak in that the page name for the page reads "PAGE 1 (or 2, etc.) instead of being a branded URL - or "Company" Blog.
Reporting - this feature is growing but I would like the ability to include my custom fields in reporting. To me, since the data is there, I'd like to run a report on that. I have figured out I can export data to excel and create reports but that's a little time consuming.

Return on Investment

Positive: better lead and ROI tracking to understand marketing effectiveness
Positive: greater insights to target audience behavior

Alternatives Considered

HubSpot, Marketo and Basecamp

HubSpot and Marketo and very robust software/programs but I felt they were cost prohibitive to many companies just entering into the field of marketing automation (or companies just starting to expand their marketing budgets.)

Other Software Used

YouCanBook.Me, Hotjar, Zapier

Likelihood to Recommend

SharpSpring was a big step forward for our company since we were tracking inquiries on paper - in binders - or via Excel documents. Now, we can track leads efficiently, associate them with personas and campaigns and follow-up/nurture leads more easily. I particularly like the personas and the data I've been able to pull to understand which persona (i.e., the son or daughter helping mom and dad research) contacts us most frequently. It's a great confirmation of our target audience information (and which campaigns are most effective for certain target audiences. i.e., I've discovered Google Ads are most effective for employment prospects.)

Customization and Excellent Support Team - Have it your way! (Stealing from Burger King)

Overall Satisfaction with SharpSpring