Email marketing is an important element of blogging and Internet marketing these days due to the various features it offers to the website owner that increases the traffic on the website, thus increments the revenue as well. No matter what kind of online business you deal in, you need to utilize email marketing in your marketing strategy, if you are willing to achieve success.
Luckily, there are many email marketing companies available out there for bloggers and Internet marketers that you can appoint. However, choosing the best should be your priority as all of them are not created the same. Some offer better features and functionality while some are cheaper than the others.
Today, we will mainly focus on two of such email marketing service, which are - Getresponse and iContact. These are two of the most leading companies in the email marketing service providers. They offer services like sending emails, managing emails, track email campaigns and create e-newsletters. This post is detailed comparison between
Getresponse and
iContact, and which among these two offers the best services. So let’s get started.
Pricing
Pricing is one of the first and foremost deciding factors in choosing any services and it is the same in the case of email marketing. As per the cost is involved, Getresponse is ahead of its competitor iContact as it offers better pricing for its subscribers. The plans at Getresponse on subscription basis are as follows:
- $15 per month for 1,000 subscribers
- $25 per month for 1,001 to 2,500 subscribers
- $45 per month for 2,501 to 5,000 subscribers
- $65 per month for 5,001 to 10,000 subscribers
- $145 per month for 10,001 to 25,000 subscribers
- $250 per month for 25,001 to 50,000 subscribers
- $450 per month for 50,001 to 100,000 subscribers
The plans at iContact are as follows:
- $14 per month for 500 subscribers
- $32 per month for 501 to 2,500 subscribers
- $52 per month for 2,501 to 5,000 subscribers
- $79 per month for 5,001 to 10,000 subscribers
- $117 per month for 10,001 to 15,000 subscribers
As you can see, the pricing of Getresponse is better than iContact in every term. For instance, if you have a mailing list of some 10,000 subscribers, then you will find that with Getresponse, you can save up to $14.
Price Verdict: Getresponse Wins
Support systemGetresponse and iContact support system doesn’t vary much, whether it is phone support, email support or chat support. Getresponse offer phone support from 9AM to 5 PM on working days while email, chat system and other various tutorials are available 24 hours a day.
While iContact provides phone support, email support and chat support from 11 AM to 2 AM on working days. When it comes to a support system, both the platforms offer the same value of support and contains resources such as video tutorials, FAQ, and Q&A, which can solve most of your issues without having to contact them. Spending a little time on both the companies support page will most probably solve your problems.
Support Verdict: Tie
FeaturesGetresponseGetresponse offers various universal features to its users along with some additional features as well that makes it superior from its competitors. It has some of the most brilliant marketing features, especially when it comes to tracking and reporting email campaigns. Here are some of the best features Getresponse offers:
- Landing Page creator helps you create over 100 landing page templates that assist you gain more lead.
Autoresponder feature that allows you to send time based and action based emails. It is more advanced than its current competitor iContact.
- The inbox preview feature allows you to see how your email appears to the user before you send it to the user.
- Incredibly easy web form builder for your page, blog and website.
- Split testing feature enables you to analyze which campaign is performing better with A/B testing.
- The email creator function will make your visions possible with unlimited editing options and multiple email templates. Now add and edit images, change the color and fonts, add social network sharing button and many more such options at a click.
- Track campaigns, ROI, segmentation and autoresponders with advanced analytic tools.
- Free 30-day trial without entering your credit card details.
- 99% deliverability rate.
iContact featuresGreat features are also available in iContact, which are somewhat similar to Getresponse. These features are as follows:
- iContact offers completely customizable email templates (600+ free email templates). You can choose layouts from various ones including one-column, multi-column and others. You can also insert custom logos and images in the email as well.
- iContact can send unlimited monthly emails to the subscribers
- Its MessageBuilder toolbar feature allows you to create messages by simply drag and drop blocks. Advanced users can also create messages through HTML.
- Register form can be inserted in Facebook pages and other websites.
- Many advanced tracking tools to see clicks, views, trending emails, list of unsubscribers and other significant resports.
- Ability to publish archived messages as blog posts on your website.
- Also includes Autoresponder feature, which is a must for every online marketer.
- Its spam check technology also ensures that your mails get a high deliverability rate.
- Free 30-day trial for new users.
If we look closely to both the platforms services, Getresponse tends to offer better features than iContact. One great feature of Getresponse over iContact is the Landing Page creator. With this effective feature, you can create and publish many landing pages in a matter of minutes. It has 100+ predefined mobile templates, incredible drag and drop editor, set of optimization tools and built-in web forms that will assist you in generating high converting sales pages, squeeze pages, video pages and much without requiring any IT skills whatsoever.
Furthermore, Getresponse’s autoresponder calendar is also very easy to use and lets you manage contacts through drag and drop. It also has a iStock library, whereas contact users need to pay additional money for over 5 MB picture storage. Also, Getresponse’s free trial provides access to up to 250 subscribers while iContact only gives access to 100 subscribers.
Feature verdict: Getresponse Wins
The final verdictBoth of the email marketing services are good for many reasons and you need to know that no platform is perfect and each of them has its own pros and cons. However, between these two competitors, I would prefer Getresponse due to these following reasons.
- Better pricing - As we discussed before, Getresponse offer better pricing for its subscription. No matter how many email addresses you have in your mailing list, it is cheaper than iContact in every way.
- Landing Page Creator - Another clear advantage of Getresponse over iContact is landing page creator that allows you to design mobile friendly landing pages in minutes and saves them hundreds of dollars.
- Tracking and reporting - Getresponse offers by far the best tracking and reporting feature among its rivals. Its A/B testing functionality is wide-ranging as it permits split testing up to five different emails.
- Free Trials - Getresponse offer a more generous free trial where you can use all the features up to 250subsrcribers completely for absolutely free without you having to enter your card details. It is very useful and it lets the user know for what he is paying without jumping aboard.
- Mobile and email preview - this feature lets you get an instant preview of what your email will appear to the subscribers in desktop and mobile format such as iPad, iPhone and other Android devices.
- User Interface - Getresponse offer more user friendly and easy to use interface as it is more modern than iContact. iContact platform seems to be a bit outdated. The web form creator feature of Getresponse allows the users to customize forms pretty easily with drag and drop editor. While iContact web form creator is a little complicated and limited.
Overall, we have come to the conclusion that Getresponse is better than iContact in almost every way and there should be no doubt in choosing the earlier one's services on the latter one. If you have started an online business and are looking for the best email marketing services, then without any delay, you should appoint the services of Getresponse as soon as possible. Utilize their free trial and see the features you will be enjoying in the future.