iContact vs. Mapp Digital

iContact is a great option for small businesses. It doesn't have enough features to create the demands of a large corporation. Of course the price goes up exponentially with more subscribers, which would also make it beneficial for small businesses. If you have too many lists to add people to it can get a little crazy too.

Incentivized

With this program, we're able to keep track of our marketing campaigns, as well as use additional features to enhance the product. A lot of the software's success may be attributed to its statistical capabilities. A large part of our company's growth has come from improving the product, which our staff does on a daily basis.

Incentivized

• Customer service is wonderful! They are always helpful, guiding and available for any odd question, even if those questions are training for a newbie to the email world.
• Building forms for data collection and the code generator the for the site is very easy.
• Ensuring double opt-in is extremely straightforward.
• Including unsubscribe on every message automatically means we never have to worry about CAN-SPAM.

Incentivized

• API functionality, alongside reporting, is unparalleled in an environment where you may not have IT support to build out tools.
• The user interface is easy to understand, allowing users to have control over the creative delivery for MIME, HTML, text and mobile ads.
• It allows deliverability experts to throttle deliveries by selecting mailing domain and IP pairs, granting access to stats on these individual paired delivery tools.

• Every time you edit or sometimes open an email it brings it to the top of the list. I would prefer my email to go to the top only after I send it out to my subscribers.
• When I add a new contact I sometimes copy and paste the email. This is not allowed sometimes and I have to manually type the email in.
• LinkedIn will not allow you to add pictures anymore when sending emails out.

Incentivized

• I have used Blue Hornet over the last few years as it is the selected email platform used by my content provider. I have never used a more glitchy platform! Every time I use it I run into broken links, glitches and kinks. Their tech team is very quick to blame your machine - but I have access to several machines on all major OS platforms, and I run into the same issues every time.
• The Blue Hornet user interface is poor and clunky. They have a great looking homepage - but you can tell that there focus is on selling and not on current clients. This is plainly apparent by the fact that the login button is buried at the very bottom of the page and difficult to find the first time you look for it. Not to mention the fact that the user interface itself is nowhere near as smooth and polished as their branded website is. Additionally, their reports are often inaccurate.
• I would suggest any serious marketer looking to execute an email campaign with Blue Hornet to look elsewhere. I have reached out to my content provider to ask that they provide support on a different system - and was kindly informed that they are working around the clock to make this happen due to the overwhelmingly negative criticism of Blue Hornet from their clients.

After 4 years of using iContact we finally cut the cord. It was hard to justify staying with them when it seemed like they had some of the most outdated software in the industry, some of the worst deliverability, and were in general extremely lacking in customization. They are a decent ESP for a great price point, so if that is your main concern it may be worth it, but if you want to have your emails you are paying for hit inboxes (not spam folders) then look into someone else that guarantees great deliverability.

Incentivized

Although BlueHornet offers helpful testing capabilities, the ESP is a bit outdated. There is a lot of room for aesthetics improvement as they are not appealing. The reporting tool is usually broken, and reporting either no, or wrong metrics. If this ESP were to update their design, as well as fix the reporting tool, I think this platform would be much better.

I rate iContact as an easy to use program due to its user friendly dashboard and user interface. Most companies of small to medium size do not have a dedicated marketer, therefore it is someone multitasking who may or may not have this kind of experience. iContact makes it relatively simple and can actually expand one's knowledge in the area of business promotion.

Incentivized

Once you start using the product a lot and are taught how it works, it's pretty simple. You just need that initial training and to use it a lot to get used to it.

iContact is regularly up and running. Only once has it been unavailable for maintenance, which is to be expected and even desired for optimal performance when needed.

They rolled out new feature requests quite frequently and always kept our team up to speed on what they were changing/adding to the system

They have always been responsive to any issues or concerns that have arisen with our account. Our customer account manager participates in our monthly county-wide communicators meetings via telephone to ensure that we are getting the most from the service. He also analyzes our lists to help us weed out inactive contacts.

Incentivized

Sometimes it was hard to get an initial response but after we started CCing more people, it became a lot better!

The templates are difficult to customize, and they don't render well in email platforms

They made sure to go through anything and everything that we wanted

i wouldn't be using it if i wasn't satisfied. time is money

I wasn't there when they first got it, but when I got there there were only a few people that knew a little bit about it. There was A LOT that we didn't know. Then BlueHornet came and had some workshops and we learned a lot that we didn't even know existed. They were doing a lot of things wrong before BlueHornet came and showed up more about the tool

We selected iContact because it was available at the time, and in our price range. I inherited it at the school. If it had been the program it is now back then, I would not have chosen it. At the moment, we are too busy to fully vet another program, so we are stuck with this one. It does get the job done. It is great for a small business with small needs, but once you start expanding and having more intricate needs, it does not compete with others like MailChimp

Incentivized

Mapp Digital offers a unique breadth of services which other software failed to offer. The AI based insights Mapp provides are very accurate and useful in order to create hyper-personalized re-marketing campaigns for our customers. Also, the customer experience analytics that Mapp offers are informative and helps us to take decisions based on those.

Incentivized

iContact stays the same with the number of users added or taken away. It certainly remains reliable despite increased usage, and so, can be considered scaleable in that aspect.

• Increased Employee Efficiency - once a template is created, it is very easy to edit the content within the template with minimal or no assistance from developers.
• Domain Reputation - if you aren't careful, it is very easy to hurt your domain reputation when using iContact. Make sure the person in charge of email marketing knows the risks of email marketing or is willing to closely work with iContact's customer service to follow best practices.
• Increased Lead Conversion - through the use of automated email functionality, you can stay in the forefront of your customer's minds. This increases conversions by reminding customers that you are there to provide the goods or services that they may need periodically or in the future.

• BlueHornet has been a good entry-level platform. We have successfully launched scores of clients with limited email marketing experience onto this platform. Because it is easy to use, we have spent minimal effort needing to help these clients with problems.
• It is easy to migrate clients on or off BlueHornet, depending upon their needs. This is helpful because it allows our clients to be on exactly the right platform. Some platforms make it difficult to migrate off, essentially trapping clients on a platform that no longer meets their needs or business objectives.
• I wish BlueHornet were keeping pace with technology advancements in the industry. The gap between the biggest ESPs and competitors like BlueHornet seems to be growing.