Home Based Real Estate Business

Overall Rank: 5 out 5 stars

Based on my review I would give iContact a 5 out 5 as it stands the test all in areas evaluated. The application is feature rich which allows you to gain more for your buck. The iContact interface is easy to navigate and visually appealing. It was built with the novice in mind. IContact is a very user friendly application.

Pricing - Ranking: 5 out 5 stars

They also offer a Free Trial for 15 day. The minimum pricing for 1000 Contacts is $14. IConact is reasonably priced.

Basic Features - Ranking: 5 out 5 stars

Pros

Utilizing this feature you will be able to gear your newsletter and product promotions to what your customers actually want. The Survey feature allows you to create surveys so that you can get the input from the people you have in your database. One of these include the Survey feature. Some of the basic features they offer are actually paid services with other email marketing services. IConact has a very rich feature set.

IContact's image hosting plan allows you to host up to 500kb of images on their servers thus eliminating the need to host your images outside of iContact. Another great basic feature iContact offers is Image Hosting.

Cons

None

Creating Messages - Ranking: 4 out 5 stars

Pros

This is a GREAT feature to use to make sure your newsletter and website maintains it's branding without having to recreate your newsletter from scratch. I've personally used this feature and it brings the website in exactly the way it looks on the web. You also have the option to import a website despite the server the website resides on, in addition to creating messages using HTML and the WYSIWYG editor. IConact allows you to use a WYSIWYG editor to create your messages.

They allow you to automatically keep in touch with your clients based on their interest. Autoresponders are essential to any online business. You will also have the ability to setup autoresponders. It's clear that the templates they offer are just as jazzy and professional, just looking at iContact's visually appealing interface. IContact offers over 300 templates you can use instead, if you aren't design savvy.

Cons

The only other thing here is that they do not offer an option to add attachments to your emails. The easy solution to that would be to copy/paste from a text editor. It appears that once it's a problem it's difficult to rectify. IContact's WYISWYG editor adds extra HTML code when copying/pasting from a Word document, according to feedback I've received.

Reporting and Tracking - Ranking: 5 out 5 stars

Pros

Utilizing the reporting and tracking features in iContact you can then determine what time of the day on Thursday yields the best results. You decide to send 500 of them your newsletter on Thursday morning and the other 500 on Thursday evening. Say for instance you have 1000 contacts in your database. And even be able to tell how many of your emails are undeliverable, click on links in the newsletter, you will be able to track the number of people that open your newsletter. IContact has a set of reporting tools that will assist you with this task. Tracking the results of your campaigns is absolutely necessary to determine what's working and what's not.

Cons

None

List Management - Ranking: 4 out 5 stars

Pros

Automatic unsubscribe and many more, double opt-in is optional, automatic duplicate removal, sign up form generation, some of the key features that iContact offer in this category are list segmentation. How your list is managed is one of the most important factors in email marketing.

This is an excellent tool. Utilizing the custom forms feature allows you to request information unique to your specific campaign. Subscription verification has it place and generally yields a higher open rate, don't get me wrong. When someone signs up for your newsletter on your website it's nice to decide whether or not they need to verify their subscription. The two list management features that jump out at me are optional double opt-in and the ability to design custom forms.

Cons

None

Sending Options - Ranking: 5 out 5 stars

Pros

IContact stands the test in both areas. The key is reliability and usability, while these are generally standard services for most email marketing services. And spam check, html and text message options, some of these include sending via the internet. IContact offers all of the standard sending options available with other email marketing services.

If you are person that do teleclasses or any other event oriented marketing this would be an ideal tool. One feature that iContact has that others don't is the ability to manage events.

Cons

Starting out you can go in an queue up your campaign at the specified time that you need it to be sent, no worries though. This can be a rather important feature if you learn that sending out newsletters at a specific time greatly increases your open and clickthrough ratio. Although iContact offers the ability to to schedule a future date to send your emails they do not have a time option.

Support and Extras - Ranking: 5 out 5 stars

Pros

You will be given a url that you can direct people to allow them to read your newsletters online. Your newsletters will be published in an archive for other users to view as well. They also have a community that you can ask questions concerning the use of iContact. Email and online, iContact offers tech support via phone.

Cons

None