What Is iContact? How Does It Work and Prices

What is iContact?

The feature set of iContact is adequate but not exceptional. It’s a jargon-free, straightforward approach that makes it a fantastic choice for individuals who want to get up and don’t want to waste time building and maintaining email campaigns. iContact is a low-cost service for email marketing. While it isn’t the cheapest email marketing service, it is reasonably priced. The iContact email marketing solution provides a nice set of capabilities that will be fantastic for many businesses, and it’s a good choice for those searching for simplicity.

Plan and Pricing

There are two main iContact plans: Free and Advanced. The Free plan is free for businesses with fewer than 500 contacts, while the Advanced plan starts at $23/month. The Free plan does not require a credit card and includes email support, a drag-and-drop email designer, and the capacity to send up to 2,000 emails per month. It’s a terrific choice for those who don’t want to spend all day learning how to use the software and instead want to generate suitable ads quickly. They also want to utilize those campaigns to get the most outstanding results without spending all day learning how to use them.

The Advanced plan includes functionality and supports up to 1,500 contacts in the most basic configuration. This higher-tier service includes unlimited monthly sends, landing page design, marketing automation, phone, live chat, and email support. More automated workflows, such as campaigns for client re-engagement and event marketing, are included in the Advanced plan—a subscription price increase on a sliding scale based on the number of subscribers. For example, if you have 5,000 subscribers, the Advanced plan costs $65 per month, while the 25,000-contact plan costs $199. If you have more than 50,000 members, you’ll need to get a special price from the company. Also worth noting is that iContact comes with a free Kickbox account. It helps keep a “healthy contact list” so that emails reach the right people. Non-profit groups that meet specific criteria can also get a 20% discount.

Performance

The email deliverability rate of iContact is higher than other email marketing platforms we’ve examined. It’s worth noting that just a small percentage of emails received through this platform ends up in the spam folder. Over 1,000 licensed stock images are available to build a unique email for maximum impact, and the drag-and-drop interface makes composing an email simple. However, the procedure is more complicated if you wish to construct an email from scratch. iContact also provides excellent list management capabilities. Subsets of contact lists can be easily created depending on zip code or when the person was added to the database. PayPal, Shopify, and Survey Monkey are all simply integrated into this platform.

Ease of Use

The first step in gaining consumers is to make the signup procedure as simple as possible. Once you’ve completed the signup procedure, iContact gives you two options for getting started with your email marketing campaigns: Create Your First Message or Add Some Contacts. When you first begin using iContact, most features are easily understandable, and there is no actual learning curve. You are free to get right in and start building email campaigns. On the one hand, iContact offers a well-organized primary menu with the feature’s name highlighted. It is a solution that is devoid of jargon. The navigations are simple to use, making it simple to get to any functions. The dashboard also displays information, such as the emails you’ve sent, drafts you’ve made, and data on email campaign performance based on your most recent activity.

Features

iContact is a relatively minimal core feature set, but it does have a few good social media features. The following are some of the highlights:

1. Message Builder

iContact comes with a drag-and-drop editing block and a simple toolbar that work well with the 500+ email templates with every subscription. Basic templates without a theme are also available in the application, which provides a straightforward layout for users to follow.

2. Automation Features

iContact Pro harnesses the power of marketing automation to simplify your day-to-day marketing tasks. Individualized workflows allow you to provide the suitable material at the right time to your customers based on their kind, location, and behavior. Meanwhile, their automated marketing solution combines email marketing, landing pages, social media management, powerful analytics, and timed drip marketing campaigns to help you stand out from the competition.

3. Drag-and-Drop Editor

The drag-and-drop editor enables the creation of creative templates that drive conversion, provide information using UX best practices, and assist in appropriately branding communications.

4. List Segmentation

Create and target audience lists based on defined requirements to send relevant and tailored emails, and deliver dynamic content by inserting merge fields into messaging to boost subscription chances.

5. Contact management

Collecting as much data on clients as possible is essential for segmenting them into lists and personalizing marketing. In the form of free text boxes, checkboxes, numbers, and dates, iContact allow you to add as many custom fields as you like to your signup forms.

6. Reporting & Analytics

Users get a choice of primary reporting data with each email they send. Though the Google Analytics integration is only available to Pro Account subscribers, users on the Free Plan can still get a breakdown of openings, forwards, clicks, unsubscribes, and spam reports. Users can measure email effectiveness by subscribers and use Facebook and Twitter social media stats.

7. Forms and Templates

On iContact, developing signup forms is a breeze. All you have to do is select a template from the list. Alternatively, you can use HTML to create web forms and write code to change things like font, background color, and input fields. Simply save your work, then copy and paste the code onto your homepage or any other signup page. You may also use third-party apps such as 123ContactForm to create forms. iContact can also integrate signup forms straight into Facebook pages.

8. API Integration

With an exposed API, you can easily integrate your other corporate solutions with iContact, and extensions for the platform, such as the LiveChat iContact integration, may be produced quickly. Pre-chat surveys can help increase newsletter registration.

Conclusion

In conclusion, iContact is a solid device that is reasonably priced. With loads of support articles, webinars, and blogs to help your continued growth, it’s an excellent pick for a small business starting in email marketing, thanks to its great onboarding and detailed lessons. While some professional marketers may find the automation, segmentation, and metrics lacking the detail required for large-scale, complicated marketing plans, individuals with more modest aims will undoubtedly be delighted with what iContact does better than the majority.