Are you a small business or non-profit looking to build your email list by leverage amazing tools and features, but unsure which email and marketing platform to go for?
Constant Contact could be a great fit for you. This platform is a strong contender in the Email & Marketing Platform arena. Stay with me and allow me to show you exactly why.
Table of Contents
Constant Contact Reviews – Email & Marketing Platform for NPOs and Small Businesses
Introduction and Summary
Constant Contact is a powerful email and marketing platform offering automation and email marketing solutions.
These tools assist a business in becoming more proficient with email marketing and more – social media for example.
The platform is designed to keep in constant contact (punny that) with your email list. Not only that, also to acquire, convert, and retain customers.
They offer a host of great email templates with drag & drop features and also offer more than one way to upload contacts.
As a Constant Contact user, you will enjoy the intuitive event management tools, social media features, and a super array of resources to assist you with your marketing efforts.
Constant Contact Review
Welcome to Late Bloomer, one of the many things I do is review Online Marketing Tools, naturally, Email and Marketing Platforms fall into this category.
It is with great pleasure that I bring this Constant Contact Review to you. Not only do I have this website up and running but I also do pro bono work for an NPO, so Constant Contact is of particular interest to me.
You must be interested in developing your email marketing activities and strategies. That is such an exciting plan. There is no doubt that email marketing has awesome benefits!
Constant Contact has been described as the best email marketing service for beginners.
If you have more experience than a beginner though, don’t allow that to put your off – Constant Contact is consistently growing and developing their offering and is well worth your attention.
Let’s get into it.
With Constant Contact, you get email and marketing tools that are full-featured and offer marketing automation, e-commerce integrations, real-time reporting, and contact management.
As I said, full-featured, everything you could need for your small business and/or NPO in one place!
Overview: Constant Contact At A Glance:
NAME: Constant Contact
WEBSITE: https://constantcontact.com
PRICE: Core: from $9.99+ per month / Plus from $45+ per month (prices based on no. of contacts)
FOUNDER: Randy Parker
FOUNDED: 1995
PARENT COMPANY: Endurance International Group
OVERALL RANK: 8 OF OUT OF 10
The Good & The Bad
The Good:
PRO #1 Great features on offer, one is the drag and drop editor which assists with customizing their email templates
PRO #2 Contact list management is made easy with the different options available to upload contacts
PRO #3 Great training resources
PRO #4 Excellent support in place
PRO #5 User-friendly system design
The Bad:
CON #1 An extra step is required in order to save individual test or image blocks
CON #2 System grows with your business needs, join on the Email plan and upgrade to Email Plus when you are ready
CON #3 The pricing is pretty steep especially for an NPO or small business
Who is Constant Contact For?
Constant Contact is built with small businesses and non-profit organizations in mind.
That is not to say that their offering is not sophisticated and intuitive, it certainly is.
The training and system are such that a beginner can be onboarded with ease. The system is advanced enough that an experienced email marketer will be more than comfortable with the capabilities it has.
Here are ideas of potential users of Constant Contact
- Small businesses
- NPO’s
- Affiliate Marketers,
- eCommerce Businesses,
- Bloggers
- Content Marketers,
- Fund Raisers
- YouTubers
Constant Contact Tools
Offering a full bouquet of tools, you can expect to be easily enabled to create awesome emails making use of their templates and easy-to-use drag-and-drop features:
Easy To Use Drag & Drop Features
Email Marketing Automation – keeping your audience engaged
The Email Marketing Automation system allows you to keep your audience engaged and build great relationships with your customers:
Integrations – Opening The Door To eCommerce
Constant Contact is cloud-based and very user-friendly. In the Integration section, you have access to MarketPlace, and will find hundreds of apps and integrations to customize your account.
The Constant Contact platform integrates with platforms such as Outlook, Facebook, Gmail, Shopify – and much, much more.
In MarketPlace you also have access to search for services such as content creation, email marketing, social media, and web design.
Constant Contact goes even further by offering integrations with a host of platforms (literally more than 400), and provides their users with the facility to search for platforms too! Awesome tools right here.
Constant Contact makes your life easier by providing a search facility where you can key in your keyword, the categories your business falls into, and even the affordability range.
I did a very simple search as you will see below and receive a great recommendation of Promot-e.com which has a review score of 5.0.
Contact Management
Tracking Email Results In Real-Time
Training Offered By Constant Contact
Constant Contact offers a Knowledge Base section where you have access to a plethora of information, as you can see below on the right-hand side.
You have Video Tutorials, QuickStart Guide, and a What’s New area to choose from.
I am very partial to QuickStart Guides, going through Video Tutorials is something I also love. But QuickStart is where I begin the process to get the framework in place. Once that is done, I delve deeper into the Video Tutorials.
How do you prefer to work? I’d love to hear your comments, you are welcome to pop them into the comments section at the bottom of this article.
Constant Contact QuickStart Guide
Below I have taken a screenshot of the QuickStart Guides page and the search option drop down on the left-hand side. Very easy to use, with no complicated jargon or search methodologies here. Nice and simple.
Video Tutorials By Constant Contact
Here is where you delve deeper into the training offered and they really have not left anything to chance.
In fact, I was excited to see the amount of information they offer – this can prompt you into thinking more laterally and expanding your campaigns.
Valuable content offered in the Video Tutorials, not only how to use the Constant Contact system but also what you should be doing to build your business.
I had a quick look at just two of the Video Tutorials – there is more than one thing I loved instantly:
- The tutorials are detailed but also short, nice little “training bites” rather than long-winded sessions
- The designers of the tutorials seem to have thought of everything, for example:
- With the Event Tutorial, you are prompted and offered every detail you need to create and manage your event from:
- Invites to
- Registrations to
- Landing pages (for additional event information)
- and more
- With the Event Tutorial, you are prompted and offered every detail you need to create and manage your event from:
- The Product Integrations Tutorial (Using Facebook Lead Ads) is also great because it is short and detailed. This covers everything you need to do to run an effective social media ad and collect the resulting data, all in one place.
- The third thing I really love about these tutorials is that they are consistently available to you. If you are anything like me, you will have found the online business world is a space where you never stop learning. And, because you have so many tasks to action which are not everyday tasks, it’s extremely handy to have easy access to a quick reminder of how to do certain things. Yes, my “forgettory” works very well, on occasion, better than my memory!
In short – great training available!
Support Offered By Constant Contact
Another area where Constant Contact excels is their Support.
This platform offers a wide range of options for customers to get information and as quickly as possible.
As you can see below, you can call support, chat online, watch video tutorials and also ask the community.
These are great, not only do you have help at your fingertips, you can choose the method that suits you best. I prefer to watch tutorials before I reach out for assistance; you may be one who prefers the interaction first. This is smart, catering to different personalities and learning styles.
My experience of “Ask The Community” in the online world has only been positive. One can only really do well online if you are prepared to get involved and offer assistance too.
Think about the social media platforms, they are the highest form of teaching people that “sharing is caring” (Barney, the purple dinosaur was right!). When you are prepared to share posts by others, you receive in the process.
More about the online community I belong to a little later.
Included in their support is not just access to a call center agent who will give you the standard responses, but they have experts available to you, have a look below.
You will notice there are the following: a Marketing Adviser; Personal Marketer; or a team who will offer you Full Service and handle your email marketing for you!
Constant Contact is well-designed in the sense that it is very user-friendly but should a user hit a block (yeah, it happens to the best of us!) there is help available any time you need it.
Yes, you can exhale a sigh of relief on that score! Not only if you are a beginner but even as a seasoned online marketer, it helps to know that you have access to assistance.
Let’s face it, with the rapid advancement in the technological world, not one of us could possibly be 100% up-to-date at all times!
Constant Contact Pricing – Find One That Fits Your Budget
There are two plans available with Constant Contact, as follows:
- CORE – $9.99 / month – this basic plan is designed for small teams or freelancers who do not need the advanced email marketing features
- PLUS – $45 / month – perfect for managing teams and is a great choice if your needs include features such as automation, event management, and online surveys.
Email Features Offered
Core Plan
- Send email: Unlimited
- Users: 1
- Support: Chat & Phone
- File storage: 1GB
- Templates: All included
- Registration forms: Inline, Pop-up & Landing Pages
- Stock Photo Library: included
- Integrations: 350+
- Reporting: included
- Smartphone App: iOS & Android
- Email Marketing Automation: No
- Event Management: No
- Surveys: No
- Coupons: No
Plus
- Send email: Unlimited
- Users: 10
- Support: Chat & Phone
- File storage: 2GB
- Templates: All included
- Registration forms: Inline, Pop-up & Landing Pages
- Stock Photo Library: included
- Integrations: 350+
- Reporting: Included
- Smartphone App: iOS & Android
- Email Marketing Automation: Yes
- Event Management: Yes
- Surveys: Yes
- Coupons: Yes
Email Plans – Pricing:
Core Plan
- First month free
- 0 – 500 contacts: $9.99/month (payable monthly), $17/month (annual payment)
- 501 – 2,500 contacts: $45/month (payble monthly), $38.25/month (annual payment)
- 2,501 – 5,000 contacts: $65/month (payable monthly), $55.25/month (annual payment
- 5,001 – 10,000 contacts: $95/month (payable monthly), $80.75/month (annual payment)
- More than 50,000 contacts: Inquire directly with the sales team
Non-profits receive a 20% discount for 6-month prepay and 30% discount for 12-month prepay. No discount is offered for monthly term.
Email Plus Plan
- First month free
- 0 – 500 contacts: $45/month (payable monthly), $38.25/month (annual payment)
- 501 – 2,500 contacts: $70/month (payable monthly), $59.50/month (annual payment)
- 2,501 – 5,000 contacts: $95/month (payable monthly), $80.75/month (annual payment)
- 5,001 – 10,000 contacts: $125/month (payable monthly), $106.25/month (annual payment)
- 10,001 – 15,000 contacts: $195/month (payable monthly), $165.75/month (annual payment)
- 15,001 – 25,000 contacts: $225/month (payable monthly), $191.25/month (annual payment)
- 25,001 – 30,000 contacts: $295/month (payable monthly), $250.75/month (annual payment)
- 30,001 – 35,000 contacts: $315/month (payable monthly), $267.75/month (annual payment)
- 35,001 – 50,000 contacts: $335/month (payable monthly), $284.75/month (annual payment)
- More than 50,000 contacts: Enquire directly with the sales team
As mentioned at the beginning of this review, I straddle both for-profit and not for profit online marketing and it’s disappointing for me to see features which fund-raisers will require (event management specifically) are excluded from the Email plan.
Of course, it is understanderable that the price should go up with more features. This is just an area that came to mind for me as something an NPO really could do. They would probably need to do without the Constant Contact plans as it may become cost-prohibitive.
Overview: Constant Contact At A Glance:
|
NAME: Constant Contact WEBSITE: www.constantcontact.com PRICE: Email: from $9.99+ per month / Email Plus: from $45+ per month (prices based on no. of contacts) OWNER: Randy Parker FOUNDED: 1995 PARENT COMPANY: Endurance International Group OVERALL RANK: 8 OF OUT OF 10 |
My Final Opinion of Constant Contact
There is so much I really appreciate about Constant Contact and I am sure that came through in this review. Their Features, Tools, Training (Knowledge Base, etc), plus the great offering of Community Assistance, Telephonic, and Email support available truly appeals to me.
The biggest downside of Constant Contact is in the pricing, doing more than one review specifically in Email Marketing and Automation has shown me how competitive this field is.
If I were with an NPO and had a sponsor who could afford Constant Contact, I would definitely be keen to sign up with them – the features, tools, and training are perfect for my needs on that side.
As a business exceeding targets and with a budget to allocate, Constant Contact would be a great option for me too.
Community Appeal
I mentioned earlier that I belong to an online community and how much I appreciate it. Truly, this makes the world of difference when it comes to building your online business.
Are you nterested in building your own online business and creating a life of financial freedom? Allow me to introduce you to my Number One Recommendation – when you click on that link it will take you to my review where you can read all about it.
The really great thing about this recommendation is that you do not have to take my word for it – you get to test drive it for free, that’s right, 100% FREE! No need to even part with your card details.
Look forward to seeing YOU on the inside!
Blessings!
