In my last series post, I reviewed iContact — a marketing automation software that, with a diverse set of useful features and competitive pricing, is a good email marketing software choice for your law firm. Today, I’ll report on GetResponse, the first email marketing software in this series with origins outside the United States.
If you’re already familiar with GetResponse, or you’re curious about a different software, you can view our email marketing software for lawyers page to read reviews on other popular marketing automation tools.
Review of GetResponse for Legal Marketing Automation
GetResponse was created in 1998 by coder and site designer Simon Grabowski, who envisioned a software for small businesses that would serve as an inexpensive solution to improve marketing and increase revenue. Since that time, GetResponse has continued to grow from its Polish roots and now serves 350,000 users in nearly 20 different languages.
Let’s look at how GetResponse can improve your law firm’s email marketing.
GetResponse’s Main Features
Responsive design: GetResponse provides users with responsive email design, meaning the emails you send will be easily readable on any device your readers use — be it a desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone.
Inbox preview: Coding can be complicated, and even a small error can cause email designs or copy to render incorrectly when readers open messages. This feature allows you to see how your emails will look when they’re read from a variety of email clients, helping you to be sure that your subscribers aren’t frustrated or confused when they try to engage with your content.
A/B testing: GetResponse’s A/B testing feature gives you a chance to experiment with what appeals to your audience. With this tool, you can test a number of variables ranging from subject line, body text, the time you send your email, the “from” field, or even the day of the week that you choose to send your messages.
Autoresponders: This tool provides you with the ability to send messages based on time of day or subscriber action. The time of day feature allows users to send unlimited messages at a pre-determined time, as well as drag-and-drop order management that gives you the opportunity to further tailor how your messages are sent. Action-based responses to subscribers include opens and clicks, changes in contact preferences and sign-ups.
Email templates and design: Much like some of the other email marketing software I’ve reviewed, GetResponse provides its users with extensive template options — more than 500, in fact. And, just like some of the other software I’ve reviewed (iContact, MailChimp, Constant Contact), GetResponse also lets users create their own designs, either by drag-and-drop or through coding.
Email intelligence: GetResponse caters to user interest in email data with this feature — they offer information about what day of week and time of day subscribers are taking action with your emails, what’s being shared on social media, statistics about what device and email client your subscribers are using, and more.
Collect and organize email lists: If your contacts are scattered in a number of different places and you’re ready to consolidate, you’ll enjoy getting organized with this feature. GetResponse gives you the tools to upload email lists from your hard drive, various email clients, as well as being able to import contacts from other services (SalesForce, LinkedIn, Google Docs, etc.). This helps get your contacts in order and store them in one, easily accessible place.
Newsletter Directory: This is a feature that allows you to extend the reach of your email newsletters by adding them to GetResponse’s directory. With a category specifically for legal services, you can use this directory to boost your visibility and provide those who search the directory with access to information about what your law firm offers. To learn more about the benefits of services such as this one, check out our blog post about online directories.
GetResponse’s Pricing Structure
GetResponse is rather competitively priced among marketing automation software. The company bases its cost on the number of subscribers rather than by features offered. Here’s a breakdown of their pricing structure:
Advantages for Law Firm Email Marketing
GetResponse has a great set of tools to help you improve email marketing at your law firm.
Points of interest include their email intelligence feature, which provides users with a lot of useful and constructive data in regard to the emails they send. Knowing, for example, when most readers are engaging with your content (and what topics catch their eye) can help you streamline your work and send it at a time in which it’s most likely to be noticed. Additionally, this tool integrates other web apps and services such as social media so that you can see how and where your content is being shared. Furthermore, this feature displays data in easy-to-understand arrangements such as pie charts and bar graphs, which means you won’t have to do mental gymnastics to visualize what’s happening with your content.
Depending upon your viewpoint and design needs, GetResponse’s template offerings can be either an advantage or a disadvantage. On the positive side, with more than 500 templates to choose from, users will likely find a canvas for their content that’s aesthetically appealing and suits their needs. Worse comes to worse — or for those who are picky about design — users have the option to build their own email template with GetResponse’s drag-and-drop feature.
This software’s A/B testing is another feature that makes GetResponse a good selection among available marketing automation tools. Some marketing automation software companies offer such a feature as a more expensive add-on, or don’t offer it, period. Not only is A/B testing offered in GetResponse’s most basic packaging, but having the ability to experiment with what works for your readership can help you work smarter, not harder. Knowing what appeals to your audience can help you produce better content that’s seen by more people and encourages more users to take action.
GetResponse’s Potential Drawbacks For Law Offices
As I’ve pointed out above, having lots of options can be an advantage. However, GetResponse has so many templates to choose from that it could potentially get in the way of sending your emails sent in the first place. For those who might spend hours searching through this software’s templates, or for those who are fastidious about building just the right template from scratch, this feature could be a well-intentioned drawback. (Users who want to get their content into inboxes quickly without fussing over multiple design aspects may prefer a software such as Drip that gives users fewer template designs, thereby potentially reducing “analysis paralysis.”)
Also, while the company does offer lots of templates, there are very few that are specific to law firms. The ones that GetResponse does offer seem to contain very basic design elements and not much else. All around, the templates offered are pretty simple, and many of them are quite similar to one another. However, users may find templates that are of interest to them by clicking on other template groupings in the collection. If you don’t like what they have to offer and you don’t have time to design a template on your own, GetResponse offers a directory of web designers that can help you — however, that will cost you extra.
Summary of GetResponse for Law Firms
Overall, GetResponse is a fantastic selection for law firms that want to improve their email marketing. It provides users with all the necessary tools (and then some) to not only showcase great content but also to analyze what’s happening to that content over time. GetResponse’s tools are generally user-friendly, especially for users short on time or those who may not consider themselves to be tech-savvy.
To see other marketing automation software we’ve reviewed, visit our email marketing series for lawyers page.
