It might be difficult to find the ideal email marketing solution for a small company. The process of selecting an email marketing solution may be challenging for small company owners who must weigh pricing, usability, and functionality. Email marketing software is necessary to retain a competitive edge, however, since 64% of small firms utilize email marketing to contact clients. Therefore, many small company owners place a high importance on developing a balanced, efficient system.
Constant Contact allows small companies the freedom to send many emails since it bases its fees on the volume of contacts in a list. Additionally, Constant Contact offers comprehensive reporting, an intuitive email builder, and integrations with well-known corporate software. Small company owners wishing to implement a new email marketing system need to take Constant Contact into consideration because of all of these characteristics, as well as friendly customer support, a reasonable pricing point, and great scalability.
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Why Constant Contact Is the Best for Small Businesses
For small companies that are eager to grow, Constant Contact blends reasonable pricing with practical email automation software to provide an efficient email marketing tool. Marketers can build and deploy an email campaign in less than 10 minutes thanks to the user-friendly interface and speedy registration. Constant Contact is helpful even for small firms on a limited budget since it is also reasonably priced for the value it provides.
Pros
- Constant Contact is an easy-to-use, risk-free service for small businesses.
- It has a large array of features for an affordable price.
- Constant Contact’s customer service is helpful via both live chat and phone.
Cons
- Constant Contact does not offer a free plan.
- The A/B testing function is only for email subject lines.
Usability
One of the most user-friendly email marketing platforms we tested is Constant Contact, and the email editor is excellent. The editor automatically searches your website for your logo, colours, and social network accounts even if you have never created an email. Once you’ve entered this data, it’s simple to modify templates to produce a visually attractive email. There are many different templates to choose from, and we appreciated that we could store our favourites for convenient reuse when making new emails.
You can simply sync contacts and other data using Constant Contact’s integrations with a number of other services, including Microsoft Excel, Salesforce, Outlook, and email list building tools. Users may combine Constant Contact with Vimeo. Through this joint venture, email marketers will be able to produce, host, and manage videos on the Constant Contact platform. Users may record films, include GIFs, collect and sync leads, and evaluate the effectiveness of their videos for any specific campaign.
Additionally, Constant Contact’s automated service enables you to send emails automatically in response to client activities, ensuring that you are prepared to respond when customers show interest in your goods or services.
Constant Contact Features
Constant Contact has an array of tools that make it easy to create eye-catching, appealing email marketing campaigns. Here are some features we like:
A/B Split Testing
You may construct two subject lines and send them to various groups of contacts on your contact list using Constant Contact’s A/B testing functionality. The better-performing subject line is chosen by the programme, which then automatically delivers it to the remainder of your audience. The email marketing providers we researched all had this functionality.
Autoresponders
We developed a series of tailored, automated emails using Constant Contact’s autoresponders. These emails are automatically delivered in response to certain triggers. Emails like welcome letters for new subscribers and birthday or anniversary emails for your current clients may be automated.
Deliverability
The deliverability rate for Constant Contact is 97%. The business also provides information on typical email blunders, words that might set off spam filters, and recommended practises to make sure your communications are received. In addition to ensuring that you reach consumers more efficiently, staying out of spam folders improves your deliverability rate to other users and keeps your address from being blacklisted as a spam source.
Email Editor
In our evaluation, we found the email editor to be the most user-friendly. Your website may be included in the email when you choose “Create Email.” If you do, Constant Contact searches your website for the colours, logo, and social media profiles associated with your business and automatically adds them to the email. The next step is to choose a template and alter it using basic drag-and-drop tools.
The email editing tool is introduced in a video lesson the first time you use it, so even brand-new users will get a brief introduction to the platform before getting started. The emails we created were simple to construct and were sent to test inboxes rather than spam bins.
Email Templates
Numerous templates are available in Constant Contact’s library. Both desktop and mobile versions of each template are available. After selecting a design, you may edit it to include your own photographs as well as the colours, logos, and fonts of your company. Your ability to draw in your target audience no matter where they engage with your content may be improved by maintaining a consistent brand in look and tone across all platforms.
List Management
You may import your current contacts into Constant Contact from Microsoft Excel, Outlook, or Salesforce. Using tags like “VIP donor” or “prospect” can help you classify fresh email contacts that you submit. Other email marketing platforms also provide this capability, but Constant Contact makes it extremely simple to use by managing your lists automatically for you by deleting duplicates and unsubscribed contacts.
Reporting
You may get campaign reports right after after sending emails. Open rates, click rates, amount of emails sent, bounces, successful delivery, unsubscribes, spam complaints, and did-not-opens are all included in statistics. Additionally, you may see social media analytics, poll results, and links that were clicked. You also have the option to resend an email from this dashboard.
Constant Contact Pricing
The budgets of the majority of small companies may be accommodated by Constant Contact’s two email marketing plans, Core and Plus. Both plans come with the email editor, hundreds of email templates, built-in suggestions, and A/B testing for subject lines, which are all necessary for producing professional email campaigns.
Even while the Core and Plus plans share many capabilities, the Plus plan offers advantages for automated email marketing, advertising tools, and more storage that the Core plan does not. Both versions have a monthly send limit of 24 times the total contacts, and there is a 0.2 cent per email overage cost, according to the Constant Contact website.
For their services, Constant Contact provides prepay and charity discounts. Businesses who prepay for 12 months get a discount of 15%, while organizations may save up to 30% by doing the same. Constant Contact provides special pricing for groups and franchisees with certain requirements.
Core:
The basic price of this plan is $9.99 for up to 500 subscribers and $55 for up to 5,000 contacts every month. The most costly subscription, which costs $300 per month and supports up to 50,000 contacts, is available.
Plus:
This subscription offers access to dynamic content, more contact management capabilities, surveys, increased storage, and synchronization with Shopify, eBay, and Etsy in addition to everything in the Core plan. The price for subscriber lists with up to 500 contacts begins at $45 per month. Budget $95 per month for up to 5,000 contacts. The most costly option, which includes up to 50,000 contacts, costs $410 each month.
Contact Constant Contact for a personalized price if your company expects to have more than 50,000 members. In the event that contact lists change from one payment period to the next, Constant Contact automatically adjusts user costs.
A 60-day free trial is available from Constant Contact, and it includes all of the company’s features, including templates, photos, an email editor, contact management, reporting, and live support. The free trial of Constant Contact may be accessed without committing to anything or providing credit card details.
Setup for Constant Contact
Start by registering for the free 60-day trial that is offered with each package. You just need to submit your name, business name, email address, and phone number; no credit card information is required. Once you have an account, click “Create an email” to start your first email campaign.
After that, choose an email template and write your message using media, fonts, and colours. You’re prepared to build a mailing list and send the email after you’ve done writing it. We produced and sent an email using Constant Contact’s email editor in under 10 minutes.
Customer Service
There are several tools available to you via Constant Contact. It provides a comprehensive knowledge base, videos, chat, and phone help in addition to free blogs, webinars, and blogs. The hours of operation for Constant Contact’s phone lines vary based on the department and are available Monday through Saturday. It’s possible to use the chat functions from Monday through Friday. The guy we spoke with was kind, patiently answered all of our questions, and didn’t attempt to pressure us into buying anything.
Drawbacks
Constant Contact does not have a free plan, while having a 60-day free trial, which is a possible disadvantage. Other email marketing businesses often offer a free version of their software, which frequently has less features. Read our Mailchimp review to find out more about a cost-free alternative.
Another drawback is that Constant Contact’s A/B testing function only allows you to compare subject lines, which may restrict your ability to assess the efficacy of your email campaigns. With your A/B testing, the top email marketing services allow you to compare several factors, such as various designs.
Methodology
We prepared a list of well-known platforms based on web research and thoroughly assessed each service’s online reputation in order to determine the finest email marketing services. We investigated each email marketing service’s offers, watched tutorials and how-to videos, tested the software (where feasible), and read customer evaluations over the course of many weeks. By pretending to be company owners, we also assessed each service’s pricing policy and customer support. We searched for software that is user-friendly, has capabilities for small company owners who are new to email marketing, and has a cheap price when choosing our top selection for small companies.
Constant Contact FAQs
What is Constant Contact best for?
Constant Contact is email marketing software that mainly assists companies in developing branded emails, websites, online shops, and other forms of online marketing under a single platform.
Does Constant Contact offer a free version?
No, there is no free version of Constant Contact. However, a 60-day free trial is available.
How much does Constant Contact cost monthly?
Email services from Constant Contact start at $9.99 per month. Your contact list size will determine the monthly price. Discounts and tier pricing are also offered.
Does Constant Contact have A/B testing?
However, this just applies to email subject lines. Contrary to many other top suppliers of email marketing software, Constant Contact does not allow A/B testing for the body text of an email marketing campaign.
Overall Value
We recommend Constant Contact for …
- Small and midsize businesses looking for an affordable marketing solution.
- Businesses that want to try a new email marketing service without risk.
- Businesses that want to integrate their email marketing with other e-commerce or social media platforms.
We do not recommend Constant Contact for …
- Businesses with over 50,000 email contacts.
- Businesses that need a free plan.
- Businesses that want extensive A/B testing capabilities.