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We will review the features of the best marketing software platforms, highlighting the ones that are most useful for growth teams. We will also discuss the pricing options and provide tips on how these tools can be utilized to increase productivity, facilitate collaboration, and get the most value for the investment.
ActiveCampaign is a automation tool that combines email marketing and customer relationship management and is ideal for small businesses seeking to engage with customers at scale. The platform recently won the Best Software Companies of 2020 award from G2Crowd and was ranked #12 in the world. It offers omni-channel management for various channels including email, text messaging, and social media, as well as machine learning tools. The pricing for ActiveCampaign ranges from $9 to $229 per month based on your contact list size and any additional upgrades, such as lead win probabilities and design services, that your team may be interested in. With ActiveCampaign, you can tailor ads to the hobbies and interests of your market segmentations to drive online sales growth.
Nutshell is a CRM and email marketing platform that offers a range of features to help B2B companies succeed. The Nutshell Pro package, which costs $49 per user per month, includes a customizable pipeline automation builder, advanced reporting tools, automated personal email sequences, in-app phone dialing, unlimited CRM contacts and data storage, and live support. In 2021, Nutshell launched their Nutshell Marketing email marketing automation suite, which allows sales and marketing teams to create and send marketing emails, trigger drip sequences based on subscriber behavior, track engagement, and manage customer nurturing all in one place. The flexibility and value of Nutshell’s platform make it a popular choice for marketers.
Sender is a comprehensive multichannel marketing tool that combines email and SMS functionality in one platform. It allows businesses to communicate with their customers through an omnichannel experience and has received top ratings from Capterra for SMS marketing. The platform offers powerful marketing automation features and all the tools you need for effective email marketing at a more affordable price than other leading providers. With Sender, you can easily manage contacts, create automated scenarios such as abandoned cart messages and welcome sequences, and use popups and subscription forms to collect leads. The automation features also simplify lead nurturing and scoring techniques. Overall, Sender is a full-featured marketing platform that can be tested out without any financial commitment.
Keap is a popular email marketing and sales platform that helps small businesses organize their client information and daily tasks in a single, user-friendly dashboard. It includes features such as quoting, scheduling sales calls, creating invoices, collecting payments, and using a CRM with follow-up tools to build long-term relationships. Keap Grow syncs client data across devices and users and allows you to communicate with leads via email, call, or text right from your phone. It also streamlines payment activities with one-click features. While Keap sometimes offers limited time discounts, individual Keap Grow users can expect to pay $24 for the first two months and then $79 per month for up to 500 total contacts. To boost lead generation like Keap customer Presidential Pools did, consider setting up web forms with automated follow-up messages tailored to the customer’s interest level.
EngageBay is an all-in-one marketing, sales, and service platform that offers small to medium businesses modular solutions to automate tasks, manage contacts, visualize deals, manage sales, and support customers. The platform is divided into three stacks for marketing, sales, and service, called “Bays.” The Marketing Bay includes features such as automation and scheduling, landing page and form builders, and the ability to update content on social media platforms using the “Stream” feature. The CRM & Sales Bay offers tools to streamline the sales process and provides a bird’s eye view of leads and deal statuses, as well as the ability to connect with third-party calendar applications and view sales progress using charts and metrics on the dashboard. The Service Bay allows businesses to efficiently manage and issue customer tickets using features such as canned responses, support groups, and autoresponders, and also offers a live chat feature for real-time customer interactions. EngageBay is a great choice for small businesses and startups looking for a comprehensive solution, and offers a free CRM, migration services, and onboarding sessions.
Constant Contact is a user-friendly automation software that offers powerful tools for automating email marketing. It allows you to send targeted messages, automated email series for lead nurturing, and more. This lead generation tool also has a reputation for excellent customer support, online training, and helpful webinars. The Email Plus plan, which includes automated marketing, starts at around $45 and comes with a free 60-day trial.
Sendinblue is a sales and marketing platform that enables you to reach out to customers through various channels such as social media, live chat, email, and text messages. It allows you to segment your email list and send personalized emails, and has a convenient drag and drop builder for creating automated email campaigns. You can also set up Sendinblue with WP Mail SMTP for reliable transactional email delivery. The Premium plan, which includes marketing automation for small businesses, starts at around $55 per month.
Hubspot is a well-known and highly-rated CRM with a standalone marketing automation service that allows you to create drip campaigns using a visual board and automate various tasks such as scoring and rotating leads, setting up webhooks with workflows, and triggering internal notifications based on contact actions. While it may be challenging for beginners to use, Hubspot provides access to HubSpot Academy to assist with learning the platform. Prices for the plans start at $50 per month and a free version of the basic Hubspot CRM is also available.
OptinMonster is a tool that helps you create effective lightboxes, landing pages, and popups to capture leads. It includes a ChatBot feature that allows you to automate social media campaigns and the WPForms block to embed custom newsletter signup and lead capture forms. With OptinMonster’s behavior personalization feature, you can easily segment leads and customers and automatically funnel them into campaigns, allowing you to sit back and monitor the results. Plans start at $9 per month (billed annually).
WPForms is a user-friendly drag and drop form builder that offers addons for integrating forms with email marketing platforms like Sendinblue, Constant Contact, and Hubspot Marketing, as well as other web applications like Freshsales via the Zapier addon. The Pro version also allows you to automate marketing processes such as payments, subscriptions, and registrations using workflows. Plans start at $39.50 per year.