Emma by Marigold vs. VerticalResponse

Using Emma for weekly templated email use with minimal changes is awesome. If you want you can create a master and make minor graphic edits quickly and easily from your smartphone. Any edit is possible as long as the artwork is on the online server. Only time I hit a bump in the road is when I was asked to change the style sheet and did not know that the pricing plan I was on did not include this feature. Client had to wait to send new format until Emma performed the requested changes.

For businesses requiring advanced email marketing features like sophisticated automation, in-depth analytics, and extensive customization, VerticalResponse might fall short due to its limited featuresVerticalResponse is ideal for small businesses or freelancers who need a simple, straightforward email marketing tool. Its ease of use and basic features make it suitable for those without extensive technical expertise in email marketing

Incentivized

• Drag and Drop Interface - I love the drag-and-drop interface used to design campaigns. It makes it easy for creative types to get the look they want, and it helps less technically and aesthetically adept users to create campaigns that still look great. After using both Constant Contact and Mailchimp, I think Emma comes out on top in terms of ease of template design.
• Master Admin Account - Having a master admin account controlled by one person allows us to deploy brand assets to each sub-account, and we're also able to push out templates for users who aren't ready or don't have the time to design their own.
• Dynamic Content - Dynamic content has proven so useful to us, especially in our Admissions Office. Making it possible for regular users to easily create emails using dynamic content is a VERY strong feature that, in my experience, is unique to Emma.
• Great Tutorials - Emma does a great job taking care of its users. The support folks are always kind and helpful, but Emma publishes an array of tutorials and resources to help with just about anything its users encounter, from how to use custom merge fields to advice on creating the best campaigns.

Incentivized

• The tools that they provide you with for building out emails are particularly easy to use. I love the drag and drop ability that gives anyone the opportunity to build professional looking emails without any extensive experience.
• With the majority of people checking emails on mobile, it is necessary to have highly responsive designs and this tool does all the work for you, no developer is needed and that is a MAJOR plus.

Incentivized

• Setup of users - We used to be able to setup a user and send them our own welcome email. Emma has since set up the ability to add users where they send the welcome email. It's a great new feature, but it doesn't always work. We've had some users who never receive these emails and then we need to reach out to support anyway.
• The code to set up a configurable email is cumbersome. It's great that it is so customizable, but there is a learning curve.

Incentivized

• The type face is small. Not sure if this is to avoid overwhelming the reader, but I could see this being an issue with vision-impaired people or people who don't see small print well.
• Sometimes I find it takes multiple clicks to make one simple change. I wish there was a search field at the top of the screen that allowed me to jump directly to a client's entry to update it there.

Easy to use and gets the job done without too many "extras" (ex. we didn't need a full marketing automation platform so Emma had what we needed to send email marketing communications without having to pay for the stuff we didn't need)

Incentivized

Product is easy for both technical and non-technical people to use. A cost effective solution for sending out large number of messages. We can manage unsubscribes by individual accounts, so we can have multiple multiple accounts combined to maximize our buying power on credits. Effective API for sending/receiving data makes tool a valuable asset.

While every WYSIWYG software will experience glitches, Emma handles them well. Keep in mind they rarely happen, but they do, it can be of annoyance. Regardless, Emma allows my organization to create seamless email campaigns using fresh data. Emma makes coming up with strategic decisions very easy. The list segmentation that Emma feature allows us to easily manage a large list without issues. Overall, Emma is extremely usable with nearly no learning curve!

Incentivized

I truly love this product. We are moving to an all-in-one system next year and my greatest fear in doing so is how much I will miss this platform. Although we are excited for things ahead, I will always keep Vertical Response in my back pocket incase I don't love the new platform as much

Incentivized

Never had an issue with uptime

No issues

I hate that to get support I have to submit a question to a public forum and wait for a response. I just want the ability for a quick live chat to answer my simple help questions quickly or at the very least submit a ticket via email and get a status update.

Incentivized

At Vertical Response the help desk associates are courteous, knowledgeable and helpful. You can tell they enjoy what they do. And clearly, they are well trained because most times, the first point of contact is able to resolve any issue you may have. There have been very few times where an associate has needed to get back to me or escalate me to a supervisor

Incentivized

Basic functions and online help...we used what was needed, at the time, and will continue to explore other online trainings as our functional needs expand

Salesforce integration never worked right. We had to abandon.

Emma had a more robust multi-level account structure which empowered individual locations to participate at the ground-level. Additionally corporate was able to maintain oversight, template creation, marketing automation, and data reporting. The goal is to provide the locations with the ability to send their own marketing messages, saving corporate marketing time, and providing more genuine, locally-focused email campaigns. Emma was very effective at making that happen.

Incentivized

I am a true believer in Vertical Response. So much so, that this is the first and only software I have used for this type of marketing. When this program was first launched it was a godsend - truly innovative for its time. And in the years since, I have continued to implement this software at three other winery properties because there is nothing else I want to use

Incentivized

• It's been pretty overwhelmingly positive. Our clients are happy about the savings that we're able to pass onto them.
• We're able to better determine what headlines receive the most clicks from our client's emails based on the dashboard.
• Super easy email designer that frees up some of our graphic designers to take on other jobs.

Incentivized

• We were able to blast out promotions our company was having to customers which created an increase in business.
• By blasting out any service issues, it keeps our customers informed so that they are not wondering what is going on.
• Allows us to store unsubscribed emails so that we are not constantly pestering people who do not want to be emailed.

Incentivized