OutboundEngine vs. Visually, by Rock Content

OutboundEngine does a referral campaign and I've been able to close a couple of deals based on getting in touch with people who engage with this campaign and state they could use my services in the next 6 months. This is a great follow up tool for those you may or may not know are going to be needing your services.

Incentivized

I would be less inclined to recommend Visually to a colleague now than I would have in the past. In the past, highly skilled freelance programmers and designers were more able to get matched with potential clients. Now, things have to go through Visually and creators cannot post their independent work and get matched up independently.

Incentivized

• The content that they generate to send to our clients is relevant and the clients want to engage with us. It makes us appear more professional and consistent, even though we are a smaller company.
• It helps us stay in touch with clients and helps us stay top of mind. We are able to generate more new business leads if we are in consistent contact with current, former, and potential clients.
• Their customer service and support is outstanding. All my questions were answered and I went into the program feeling confident and knowledgeable.

• Staff picks were a great way of sifting through many pieces of content
• It was easy to share things uploaded to visual.ly to other social media channels
• There is an awesome amount of content on Visually

Incentivized

• I do not like the use of drawings to attract new customers, and they have ignored my requests to eliminate that for my personal emails.
• I do not like it when a competitor in my immediate market has the same posts. It cheapens the service or makes it appear that I am simply sharing another's post.

Incentivized

• There is a bias towards infographics (as opposed to 'real' data visualization)
• It is not very clear the path between how people who need content get matched up or find creators
• Interface was redone too often

Incentivized

The biggest issue is poor ROI. The second biggest issue is rigid customer service process, lack of a sense of urgency, and inability to reach out to upper management with issues.

Overall, OutboundEngine is very user friendly. It is simple to set up and explore, and if there are any issues or questions, the customer service team and account managers are always available to help. They are very knowledgeable and were able to explain everything in detail to me. The program is easy to navigate and helps me stay organized, and an uncomplicated and straightforward solution was exactly what I was looking for

I haven't had to contact Outbound Engine because I haven't had any application errors or unplanned outages. I basically have had such a trouble free experience with them that I haven't had to call. Everything is automated and I get a notice to review every isse. I suppose if I personalized the newsletter a bit more and added some of my own articles, I would need to contact them, (which I should really start to do) but so far things have been so on point, I haven't felt the need.

Incentivized

The customer service was excellent! Everyone I spoke to was kind and knowledgeable. My account manager was easily reachable. Setup of the OutboundEngine program was explained really thoroughly, and we knew how we could best use the product to meet the needs of our clients and get our online and social media presence off the ground.

I selected it for the ability to have an automated system do 3 things all at once, social media posts, emails and the instant communication with the chat box. I have never seen a chat come through that lead to a helpful client touchpoint. I have never used another product but have since begun to weigh some of the less expensive options.

Incentivized

I would recommend other design studios that specialize in data visualization and infographics before visually for a few reasons: - small design studios have an emphasis on the creators (who is part of the studio), whereas Visually is more of a black box because you don't know who is creating your project - Portfolio is okay, but not great, there are many other studios with better looking portfolios One way that Visually is better is that it has an impressive client list and quicker turnaround and maybe more streamlined feedback loops.

Incentivized

• One client identified how one article I sent that he read saved him from having to replace his entire AC system.
• One client actually thought I was sending this to him personally because I valued him
• One of the above transacted with me twice for over $3M in sales

Incentivized

• Was helpful in attracting clients when I started doing data visualization work
• Cost was minimal - it was free to upload and took little time
• I have been unable to attract clients lately from visually, so ROI has gone to 0

Incentivized