Overview of SharpSpring
SharpSpring, now known as Constant Contact Lead Gen CRM, is a comprehensive marketing automation platform designed to enhance the efficiency and ROI of businesses, particularly those in the B2B sector. Here’s a detailed look at what the product does and its key features.
What SharpSpring Does
SharpSpring integrates essential components of marketing automation, CRM, email marketing, and social media management into a single, user-friendly platform. It is tailored to help businesses streamline their sales and marketing activities, leverage data segmentation, and drive ROI-focused engagement.
Key Features and Functionality
Marketing Automation
SharpSpring streamlines complex marketing tasks through robust automation features. This includes automating email campaigns, social media posts, and lead nurturing processes. Users can create visual workflows to track and automate activities, making the process intuitive and efficient.
Built-in CRM
The platform comes with its own CRM system, which integrates sales and marketing efforts seamlessly. It allows for unlimited users and contacts, making it a viable alternative to more complex solutions like Salesforce. The CRM enables businesses to manage contacts, accounts, and opportunities across both marketing and sales departments.
Email Marketing
SharpSpring offers advanced email marketing capabilities with detailed analytics. Users can create personalized email campaigns using pre-built templates and track email communications from Gmail, IMAP, or Exchange, which are then stored in the contact records.
Social Media Management
The platform includes tools for managing social media campaigns, allowing businesses to send and manage posts across various social media platforms directly from the CRM. It also collects and links customer data from social media interactions in real time.
Form and Landing Page Builders
SharpSpring features a dynamic form builder with a drag-and-drop WYSIWYG framework, making it easy to build responsive web forms and integrate them with the CRM. Additionally, users can design custom web pages for specific events or promotions to convert web visits into leads.
ROI Tracking
The platform includes robust ROI tracking abilities, enabling businesses to measure the effectiveness of individual campaigns or marketing channels. Leads can be tracked from initial contact to conversion, and sales numbers are automatically attributed to the associated campaign, providing complete ROI monitoring.
Dynamic Website Content
SharpSpring allows businesses to set up dynamic website content that changes based on visitor characteristics and past behaviors. This feature enhances content delivery and lead nurturing by providing personalized experiences for visitors.
Visitor ID and Zoom Info Integration
The Visitor ID feature identifies anonymous web visitors based on their IP addresses and integrates with Zoom Info to provide contact information of employees from the visiting companies. This helps in qualifying unknown visitors as leads without them filling out forms.
Opportunity Management
The platform offers a bird’s eye view of the sales pipeline with a drag-and-drop interface to manage opportunities across custom deal stages. This feature allows for tracking the progress of leads through the sales cycle and making informed decisions with all relevant information easily accessible.
Lead Scoring and Segmentation
SharpSpring includes automatic lead scoring based on activities and interactions with content. This, combined with advanced segmentation tools, helps businesses focus their sales resources more effectively and nurture leads more efficiently.
Reporting and Analytics
The platform provides comprehensive reporting features, including CRM reporting, to help businesses analyze their performance and make data-driven decisions. It also offers full life-cycle attribution tracking to show which marketing strategies are producing qualified leads and the exact revenue each campaign generates.
Ease of Use and Setup
While the initial setup of SharpSpring can be somewhat cumbersome and may require technical support, the platform offers a user-friendly interface and a guided tour for new users. Once set up, tasks such as creating forms, updating contact lists, and automating workflows are relatively fast and intuitive.
Pricing
SharpSpring is known for its cost-effectiveness, with transparent and straightforward pricing starting at $30 per day. The platform offers scalable plans with no long-term contracts, making it accessible for smaller businesses as well as larger enterprises.