In my last series post, I discussed the advantages and potential drawbacks to the marketing automation software known as Drip. Overall, it’s a great tool that’s unfussy and gets the job done. You can read my review here. Today, as we continue along with our email marketing series for lawyers, I’ll breakdown another popular marketing automation software: Constant Contact.
Review of Constant Contact For Law Office Marketing
Constant Contact wasn’t initially a marketing automation tool. It was created in the 1990s under the name “Roving Software” — and at that time it was used primarily as a personal email communication tool. However, the company’s founders quickly recognized it could be used to the advantage of business owners. With continued success in marketing automation, they’ve recently re-vamped the software’s interface in an attempt to provide the most up-to-date features for their users.
Constant Contact’s Main Features
- Email templates: Constant Contact’s email templates are designed with a drag-and-drop feature and include a variety of options to choose from, including industry-specific templates. Their emails use responsive design, meaning that mobile users will have no problem accessing them.
- Integrate your emails with your social media: If you have an email you’d like to promote, you can easily post and track emails on various social media sites. Constant Contact can offer you image and caption suggestions for your posts if you’re feeling short on creativity or time.
- Easily upload emails: This feature can save you time by allowing you to upload email lists from a number of programs (Gmail, Outlook, Excel and more) and alerts you to inactive emails as well as members who have unsubscribed.
- Get data about your emails: This software offers tools to give you the big picture about what’s happening to your emails once you hit send. You’ll be able to see data such as open, click and bounce rates.
- Triggered emails: You can create one personalized email and then send it at a pre-determined time, also “set it and forget it” when you add new contacts to lists — they’ll receive your email series without you having to remember to send it.
- Multiple login credentials: Instead of having to give everyone in your law firm your personal credentials for this software, Constant Contact allows you to create multiple login credentials, instead. Additionally, whether users are creating campaigns or managing email communications, you can tailor access based on specific needs.
Advantages For Law Firm Email Marketing
Constant Contact has several advantages as a marketing automation software for your law office.
As I discussed in my blog post on Drip, this feature could be a plus or a minus: Constant Contact provides plentiful email templates for its users. If you’re the sort of person who agonizes over aesthetics just as much as you care about content quality, you’ll likely delight in perusing the hundreds of available templates. With so many selections to think about, Constant Contact offers a searchable menu to help you narrow your focus — a definite plus for those who love detail but are short on time. For those who are really into email design, this software also gives you the ability to create designs from scratch.
Another plus is the ability to upload email addresses from multiple sources. This is an advantage for you in two different ways. Firstly, if you have an enormous collection of emails to begin with, you’ll avoid the frustration of having to enter them manually, one by one, to Constant Contact. (A major time saver.) Secondly, if your emails are spread out in different places (Gmail, Excel, Outlook) and you haven’t gotten around to organizing them, this tool allows you easily consolidate your contacts all on one site.
Constant Contact’s Potential Drawbacks For Law Offices
One area that straddles the fence between advantage and drawback is the email template choices. Unlike Drip, you’ll have lots of options here: roughly 400 templates, in fact. With hundreds of options to choose from, some may consider this software’s template selections too diverse. Again, for those who are fanatical about design, this could be an advantage — however, for those who have trouble making a quick decision when offered so many variations, this could be a drawback.
Constant Contact also offers a number of components in their “Advanced Features” pricing that wouldn’t necessarily be practical for law firms. Features such as the ability to send coupons, processing event registrations and payments, as well as collecting donations aren’t applicable to most law firms. While a law firm might want to make use of a component like customer surveys, some may not like the idea of having to pay for that feature while the rest are essentially useless.
Constant Contact’s Pricing Structure
Like Drip, Constant Contact is relatively inexpensive. And again, like Drip, there are other programs available that provide a more substantial collection of features, which may or may not justify some extra spending on your part. Here’s a sample of Constant Contact’s pricing:
Summary of Constant Contact for Law Firms
All around, Constant Contact is a solid choice. It’s a name that’s been around a for long time and provides the necessary tools for email marketing and marketing automation.
As I continue to add to our “Email Marketing for Lawyers” series, you can access the very latest by checking out our series page.
