Small Business Email & Marketing Automation Platform

4 thoughts on “Small Business Email & Marketing Automation Platform”

1. Let me start by saying, that since I am in the process of preparing to re-launch a business, so I could be a potential client. I have used Constant Contact and, have barely, used MailChimp.
    
   1) Look around the home page – what is your initial impression of what you see?
    
   Your home page clearly states the purpose of the site: “Email Marketing and Marketing Automation.”
    
   The colors look great. And I like the font; clean, professional, but not overly serious.
    
   I like the way you use recommendations.
    
   However, I don’t understand the bouncing heads in the header. They look like golf balls on tees. I’m not certain what the purpose of the balloons is? Why are those messages important.
    
   What is the purpose of the moving clouds? They seem more of a distraction than anything.
    
   Why should I use ActiveCampaign rather than any of the other email services? What is your value proposition? What makes you unique? What differentiates you from everyone else?
    
   2) Can you quickly understand what we offer and why it could be useful for a small business?
    
   I understand what you offer and why email marketing and marketing automation is valuable to small businesses. I have no idea why ActiveCampaign is valuable to small businesses when it doesn’t do anything that all the other services do? Tell me why I should use you? What problem do you solve that isn’t being solved by the other companies?
    
   3) Are you encouraged to create a free account? Can you tell us why (or why not)?
    
   No. You haven’t given me any reason to switch from MailChimp. Give me a reason.
    
   You certainly aren’t less expensive. With MailChimp, I can have up to 2,000 contacts and send 12,000 emails a month for free.
    
   I looked at the feature page, MailChimp has all of these features and more. All email services enable people/businesses to customize emails and use their own branding, provide automation, have reports and analytics, have codes that can be embedded on web pages to create opt-ins. What do you do that is different, unique, better than anyone else?
    
   The home page mentions Social Media Integration. I clicked on the link, but it doesn’t explain how  ActiveCampaign is integrated with social media. Please explain more clearly. This might be something that isn’t available with MailChimp.
    
   4) Go to search engine of your choice and find one other company that offers a similar service. Compare the two companies. Which one do you prefer? Why?
    
   I chose iContact.com. It has slides at the top showing how it differentiates itself. One point that is extremely interesting is that it has a team to provide marketing strategies. Another point is people with any skill level can use it.
    
   These are points that make sense to me. Reasons why I might want to use iContact rather than ActiveCampaign or any of the other email services.
    
   5) Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have.
    
    
   I’m sure there are things you can do better than any other email service. Please tell me what they are. Show me. Instead of having those golf ball heads, use that space to impress me. Show examples. Or have a video. Or make an open invitation that entices me to try your system.

2. 1) Look around the homepage- what is your initial impression of what you see?
   When I look at the activecampaign.com homepage, I see a website that is dedicated to helping small business owners with email marketing and marketing automation. This website seems to allows its user to join for free without paying any out-of-pocket costs for their services. It seems like Active Campaign also helps users with social media marketing and has a reporting and analytic section for small business websites.
    
   2) Can you understand what we offer and why it could be used for small business?
   So far, I understand that the purpose of this website is to help small business owners with email marketing. The goal for this website is to help small business owners reach more potential customers by allowing them to use their services for free. There have been a few testimonies written on the website by small business owners who use this service.
    
   3) Are you encouraged to create a free account? Can you tell us why (or why not)?
   Although this website seems legit, I am not encouraged to create a free account because I do not feel like I need these services for my small business. However, I would not discourage any small business owner from joining this website if they need help with email marketing.
    
   4) Go to search engine of your choice and find one other company that offers a similar service. Compare the two companies. Which one do you prefer? Why?
    The other email marketing service website I chose was Constant Contact. Constant Contact offers similar services to Active Campaign, but they only offer potential members with a free trial. That means that after 30 days, their members may have to pay a monthly fee just to use their service. Both websites seem legitimate. However, I’ll have to choose Active Campaign because of their free service. I also like the fact that Active Campaign offers additional services like marketing automation and reporting and analytics.
    
   5) Please share any additional feedback/comments you have.
   Active Campaign seems like a really good website. Their services have seemed to work for many small business owners.
    

3. 1) Look around the home page – what is your initial impression of what you see?
   My initial impression is that the website is very streamlined and organized. It gets right to the point of what they offer, in organized, summarized sections. The tabs on the top of the page seem to offer deeper explanations and descriptions of what they offer. The title of the webpage is properly located and does not lead anyone to question what their services are, which is really nice. I also really like that there is a live chat tab that pops up at the bottom right. If you had a question about anything or wanted more information, you don’t need to search for an email address or phone number – you can ask right then and there. The bottom of the webpage is well organized as well with links to social networking pages, contact information, resources, information about the company and policies. I am naturally an organized person, and I don’t like visiting a webpage and having to search out what the page is about. I am extremely impressed with ActiveCampaign’s website. It is so easy to navigate, it’s colorful, friendly, inviting and really makes the company seem respectable and trustworthy. 
   2) Can you quickly understand what we offer and why it could be useful for a small business?
   Yes, what you offer is clearly presented right on the homepage, in organized sections, with more detailed information available in each tab and at the bottom of the page. Personally, I have used another company to design and send newsletters before, and it was a pain. So much of a pain that we only ended up sending out 2 newsletters. My initial reaction to your website is that I wish I found your company sooner! I love that you offer free sign-up and a variety of free services. Free email templates are invaluable when you want a professional and engaging “face” to your emails. For a small business that is either looking to grow, or just to engage their clients/customers more, I can certainly see where the value is in such a service. With internet presentation being so important these days, not only would I trust your company with that, I would also recommend it to others, just based off your website. 
   3) Are you encouraged to create a free account? Can you tell us why (or why not)?
   I absolutely am encouraged to create a free account. When sending out business emails, often times that is a first impression, and I am confident that ActiveCampaign would help me make a great first impression. I send out emails often for volunteer work and I will be signing up and trying out ActiveCampaign’s services in the very near future!
   4) Go to search engine of your choice and find one other company that offers a similar service. Compare the two companies. Which on do you prefer? Why?
   I have experience with MailChimp, which is similar. I had a really difficult time integrating my business contacts and found the templates to be rather boring. I browsed ActiveCampaign’s free email templates and was very impressed – they are all bright, engaging, eye-catching and professional. They also offer free one-on-one training and assistance with switching from another email marketing platform, which would certainly be helpful.  I appreciate that you do not have to pay extra for those very helpful services, as you would with other companies. 
   5) Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have.
   I’m really impressed by your services, your very apparent passion for doing what you do and the level of genuine help offered free of charge. It goes to show that you really care about your customers and have their best interests in mind. When they succeed you succeed and that attitude caries over through your website. I will be signing up!

4. 1) Look around the home page – what is your initial impression of what you see?
   My initial impression toward this site is that it provide email marketing services with the title that says “Email marketing & Marketing Automation”. The layout design is pretty nice. By scrolling down from your page, I start to know more about it. I can get newsletter, i can customize the email content, you provide social media integration, marketing automation and also reporting. From all of these, i get to know more about what you offers and features you have without searching or navigating to other pages. You make it very clear and straight forward. 
   2) Can you quickly understand what we offer and why it could be useful for a small business?
   Yes, like i mention above, just scrolling down from the homepage, i know what you offers. For beginner of small business owner they would not know why email marketing is needed. I navigate to the “Why Us” page. It provide a list of benefits which make me understand more about why do small business need your service. All the point you provided is very detailed and it is very convincing for me.
   3) Are you encouraged to create a free account? Can you tell us why (or why not)?
   Yes, it is free, i would like to give it a try.
   4) Go to search engine of your choice and find one other company that offers a similar service. Compare the two companies. Which on do you prefer? Why?
   
   I found http://www.icontact.com which they provide similar service like yours. For the design, their website looks more professional than yours. Their content are much more convincing than yours, which make people feel like this company can be trusted. They provide a slide shows with the content advertising their own brand not their features. Such as their survey result and talking about their award winning stories. They focus not only on their product but also on their brand. They provide a lot of information about their company which this is the big advantage. In term of features, you provide more features than their service. In term of pricing, i think both of you are having similar pricing. I would prefer icontact because the presentation of their website makes me feel that they are professional in this field. However, if i am looking for more features, i would prefer yours.
   5) Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have
   
   Overall, your website are excellent. You just need to market your brand. May be, this is just a start-up, i believe you can build your own reputation slowly. 

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