Does Constant Contact Improve Email Marketing Efforts?

Constant Contact wants to help you with your email marketing efforts. Email marketing can be crucial for many businesses out there, and Internet Marketers have a saying that “the money is in the list”. How you reach out to your subscribers makes all the difference, and you have to present yourself in the best light if you want the best response. But is this the service you should go with, or does one of their competitors do it better?

Overview
If you’ve been lax on your email marketing efforts, or are just starting out, you’ll quickly discover that it’s not something you can handle on your own with a personal email account. It just won’t look professional and will make you look like a two bit operation. If you’re going to do it, you have to do it right, and you’ll want a reliable system in place to guide you through the process. Constant Contact hopes to prove to you that they are the system to use.

The Claim
Constant Contact claims that they can increase your revenue, and increase your clickthrough rates when you start implementing their system. You can edit your emails with one click, and you don’t need to be a whiz in order to use their interface. You can even craft HTML emails, the ones that look really good, by using one of their templates, and then customizing it to look the way you want. They claim that their pricing is affordable, and that their customer service is easily accessible.

They also help you out with any event marketing you’ve got in the works, and can help you deploy and analyze surveys, as well as help you organize and track your social marketing efforts.

The Hype
The hype comes from the fact that so many businesses and marketers already use Constant Contact for their email needs. You probably recognize the logo and were perhaps even drawn to the site because you’ve seen it so many times in your inbox. It’s one of the most popular services out there, and that says something because it would be easy enough to switch companies if they didn’t provide a good service.

The Cost
Constant

Contact is free 60 days if you have 100 subscribers or less, and then has plans as low as $15 a month after that. Depending on how big your subscriber list is they have plans to scale to your needs For the price you can send as many emails as you want during the month. But be sure you don’t overdo it, as there’s only so many messages people will tolerate, no matter how helpful or well-intentioned you are with them.

This is one of the rare companies that lets you sign up for a fully functional trial without using your credit card. In our opinion this is usually a tactic used by a company that knows they’ve got the goods, and knows that if you just take it for a test drive, you’ll end up buying it. It’s rare that you see a company offer a full two month trial, but this is great because it will give you plenty of time to gauge the results.

The Commitment
You don’t have to lock yourself in to any long-term contracts with Constant Contact. But you will have to commit to using its different features, as well as coming up with an email marketing strategy that is clever, and well thought out. If you’re expecting Constant Contact to put the words in your mouth, then you might be disappointed. They will make your words look prettier, and allow you to add graphics and pictures so your emails stand out and get a good response rate.

Evaluation
My friend has been using Constant Contact for over a year now to promote her online clothing shop. I’m subscribed to her newsletter, so I’ve received a weekly email for many weeks. I’m always consistently impressed with how great the emails look, and it gives her business a very professional look, even though it’s still a growing start-up. There’s no doubt in my mind that as her user base increases, she won’t have to change her email marketing service, because she’s already sending out top-quality emails to her loyal fans.

Final Constant Contact Review

Constant Contact definitely works, and it gets our Thumbs Up review based on its ease of use, and it’s many features. With a little tinkering, you can send out emails that look like a Fortune 500 company, and you won’t ever run the risk of being flagged as a spammer because they have a one-click Unsubscribe and comply to all of the anti-spam legislature out there.

Our Recommendation
We recommend that you go with the double opt-in option which will require your subscribers to respond to a confirmation email you send them after they enter their email address. This makes sure that they actually have a working email address, and that you’re making into their inbox. It reduces the number of times you’ll be flagged for spam because people will recognize you as something they authorized.

However, it is up to you to keep them interested or entertained in the emails you send them, or they could just get into the habit of archiving or deleting your emails without even reading them, just by seeing your address in the From field. Worst case they locate the Unsubscribe button and now you’re minus one fan.

What do you think? Does Constant Contact work or not?