Why I Chose GetResponse Over iContact?

Email marketing has always remained one of the most important parts of my online promotional strategy. In fact, it is the earliest online marketing method that I have been using. In the early days, it was as simple as sending out emails to a few dozens of prospects after collecting the email addresses from the web and business cards. Then came the era of buying thousands of email addresses and sending out emails in bulk. Then came the era of email marketing programs like GetResponse.

GetResponse is the email marketing software of choice for me, and I will recommend it over any other alternative. iContact is one of the most promising contenders but I have more than enough reasons why I chose the former option.

A comparison between the two will provide others like me enough reasons why they should also choose GetResponse above iContact.

1. Response Design

Both GetResponse (GR) and iContact (IC) support allow creation of custom landing pages and email messages. There are over a hundred templates available for creating the perfect landing pages and emails. But I liked the former because of 3 big reasons. Firstly, it is easy to work with GR; secondly, it offers me more number of templates; and thirdly I liked the responsive properties better on this platform.

2. Autoresponders 

When deciding between GR and IC, I found that both supported autoresponders effectively. But GetResponse gave me the edge with Autoresponders 2.0. This helps me achieve the most powerful level of marketing automation for my campaign. This is an edge that only this software can provide me.

The feature allows me to deliver the most relevant deals at the right time. The messages are sent out to my subscribers based on their precise actions and their stage in the buying process. While iContact also offers the same benefits, but GetResponse takes things to an advanced level. It’s smart!

3. Subscribers

My subscription list has grown to over 27K. So it was natural for me to choose GetResponse. The comparison is simple! While my email marketing platform supports lists up to 100K subscribers, IC doesn’t come anywhere near. There are some mentions of unlimited number of contacts in IC, I couldn’t find a package with them that could support the number of subscribers I have at the budget I have. So it wasn’t difficult for me to skip the iContact.

In fact, pricing is the big factor that pushed me to choose GR over any other solution.

4. Pricing

This is where things are really interesting when I compare GR and IC. The former is much more affordable. Imagine having to churn out $14 a month for a list of just 500 subscribers, while the other email marketing program charges $15 for a contact list of 1,000 subscribers. Similarly, IC costs around $79 for a package comprising of 10K contacts, while GetResponse costs $65. And this comparison is between the standard GR plan and iContact’s starting plan. The Pro and Premier plan on IC contact several times what GR charges me.

I had no reason to give a second thought about which one to choose!

5. Email Intelligence 

While other email marketing platforms deliver email marketing statistics, GR offers me email ‘intelligence’. There is a world of a difference between the two and that is where my ROI stands out.

This is not to say that IC doesn't have any smart reporting system. It provides tools that deliver real-time valuable information. But GetResponse takes things to an entirely different level! The best features of this smart email ‘intelligence’ system include:

• Most responsive time – GR tells me the best day of the week and hour of the day when my subscribers are most responsive.
• Easy segmentation – It takes me just one click to segment the groups based on their responsiveness and send out the right messages.
• ROI – I get real ROI on my email campaigns. It takes just a tracking code to give me all the information about my campaigns.
• Smart reports – I can set automatic reports which are delivered directly into my inbox on a periodic basis. The reports include graphs that provide all the info I need to tweak my campaign.

GR provides me more than enough information than I can expect from an email marketing software. It includes email client statistics, social sharing statistics, and much more.

6. Growing my Subscription List

IC provides lots of help with regard to managing my contacts and solving the challenges associated with fast-growing list. It is their Premier account that offers some good features. But it’s too expensive, as I have already mentioned.

On the other hand GetResponse offers a new and innovative tool in the form of List Booster. In fact, it allows me to ‘boost’ my list in 16 better ways. I can upload my list from any system, import contacts from mail clients or other services including Google Docs and Salesforce, and do much more!

7. Preview into Recipients’ Inbox 

I cannot think of anything else that can be better than this. GR helps me get a look into my recipients’ inboxes. It helps achieve this by giving a view of how may messages will look in different email clients, in both mobile and desktop systems.

This helps me check things and ensure that everything is fine before I hit the ‘send’ button! There are so many programs out there that actually charge me additionally to be able to test my emails. But GR does that for free and gives me a better view!

Conclusion

GetResponse has kept things simple for me from the very beginning. They don't have multiple plans for people with different budget. You get what you need! That seems to be the goal here. In simple words, everyone gets the best from them at the same price! The email marketing program offers me everything I need within my budget. A look at IC’s pricing and different levels of plans and comparing with a simpler pricing and features structure on GetResponse can allow anyone to make the right choice.

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* The views in the above article are opinions of one of our authors and are not necessarily of entire Amfas Tech team.