Email software for complicated lead nurturing campaign
July 12, 2013 1:12 PM Subscribe
I’m doing a lead nurturing email program and looking for an email program that supports lead nurturing. Pinpointe isn't set up for lead nurturing, Hubspot is too expensive, and Mailchimp won't do what I need for single opt-in (rather than double-opt-in) contacts. Any ideas?
The idea is that users enter their contact information to download an ebook, whitepaper, etc. Then we email them the ebook. Then we put them into an auto-responder that emails them opportunities to download additional ebooks. Based on the type of ebook they’re downloading, we can see where they are in the sales funnel. When they start downloading sales material, I send them to our sales team.
A few challenges:
If they download more than one thing from the website, that needs to be recorded (at least if they use the same email address) so that I know what they’ve downloaded and what they haven’t.
I want all the people who have downloaded anything to be put into one auto-responder list. The autoresponder should then email them additional ebooks each week. But it should filter the contacts so that it doesn’t send an ebook that the contact has already downloaded.
Ideally, it would be also be able to automatically email them sales material after they’ve clicked X number of links, or after they’ve download 3 out of 5 of the advanced level ebooks, etc. But this part is more of a wish than a need.
So which software should I use?
So far, I’ve been using PinPointe which is NOT set-up for this at all. Every time I ask them how to do something I’m dealing with work-arounds and patches that come out months later then they’re supposed to.
Hubspot would be ideal – I’m basing the plan off of their inbound marketing techniques - but at $700+/month it’s out of our price range right now. (At least until I can prove that this method of lead generation is profitable).
I considered MailChimp but in order to use the auto-responder, your list needs to be double-opt in. Our users are single opt-in and I don’t want to ask them to double-opt in.
Oh, and in terms of numbers – currently we have about 200 contacts in this lead nurturing system. We have several thousand other contacts as well that we need to email occasionally, but those are simple one-off emails.
So what does that leave me with? Any advice or recommendations are greatly appreciated.
The idea is that users enter their contact information to download an ebook, whitepaper, etc. Then we email them the ebook. Then we put them into an auto-responder that emails them opportunities to download additional ebooks. Based on the type of ebook they’re downloading, we can see where they are in the sales funnel. When they start downloading sales material, I send them to our sales team.
A few challenges:
If they download more than one thing from the website, that needs to be recorded (at least if they use the same email address) so that I know what they’ve downloaded and what they haven’t.
I want all the people who have downloaded anything to be put into one auto-responder list. The autoresponder should then email them additional ebooks each week. But it should filter the contacts so that it doesn’t send an ebook that the contact has already downloaded.
Ideally, it would be also be able to automatically email them sales material after they’ve clicked X number of links, or after they’ve download 3 out of 5 of the advanced level ebooks, etc. But this part is more of a wish than a need.
So which software should I use?
So far, I’ve been using PinPointe which is NOT set-up for this at all. Every time I ask them how to do something I’m dealing with work-arounds and patches that come out months later then they’re supposed to.
Hubspot would be ideal – I’m basing the plan off of their inbound marketing techniques - but at $700+/month it’s out of our price range right now. (At least until I can prove that this method of lead generation is profitable).
I considered MailChimp but in order to use the auto-responder, your list needs to be double-opt in. Our users are single opt-in and I don’t want to ask them to double-opt in.
Oh, and in terms of numbers – currently we have about 200 contacts in this lead nurturing system. We have several thousand other contacts as well that we need to email occasionally, but those are simple one-off emails.
So what does that leave me with? Any advice or recommendations are greatly appreciated.
I own/run an advertising agency, so take my suggestions with a grain of salt ;-)
Your best bet in the long-run is to use a marketing automation platform. There are less expensive ones (like Loopfuse), mid-tier (like Silverpop, Pardot) and more expensive (Marketo, Eloqua, etc.). There are pros and cons to each but overall marketing automation will allow you to create landing pages, manage complex email workflows, track your lead scoring and push all of that data into your CRM. With that said, they're also a little more expensive than standard email marketing service providers (ESPs).
If you're leaning toward and ESP but just need to have one that supports single opt-in I recommend looking at Contactology (which is your most affordable bet as it has a strong balance of features and price) [full disclosure: Contactology is a client of my agency]. If you need something a little more advance and you're willing to pay more Bronto is a solid platform.
Hope this helps!
posted by tundro at 2:35 PM on July 12, 2013 [3 favorites]
Your best bet in the long-run is to use a marketing automation platform. There are less expensive ones (like Loopfuse), mid-tier (like Silverpop, Pardot) and more expensive (Marketo, Eloqua, etc.). There are pros and cons to each but overall marketing automation will allow you to create landing pages, manage complex email workflows, track your lead scoring and push all of that data into your CRM. With that said, they're also a little more expensive than standard email marketing service providers (ESPs).
If you're leaning toward and ESP but just need to have one that supports single opt-in I recommend looking at Contactology (which is your most affordable bet as it has a strong balance of features and price) [full disclosure: Contactology is a client of my agency]. If you need something a little more advance and you're willing to pay more Bronto is a solid platform.
Hope this helps!
posted by tundro at 2:35 PM on July 12, 2013 [3 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
Anyway, MailChimp seems to be easiest, but BlueHornet also does this (more painfully) without the need (I believe) for double opt-in.
posted by KokuRyu at 1:28 PM on July 12, 2013