In the world of autoresponders, CRM’s and email services is an array of options with all sorts of different functionality.
At the higher end of functionality, you have Ontraport, Keap and Hubspot. For a lot of people (including Stealth Seminar) those services are amazing and we highly recommend them when in need of those higher-end functionalities.
For other business, those services provide functionality that is beyond their needs. If you don’t need the added functionality, then the additional costs and complexity does not make sense.
Added functionalities include things such as payment processing, membership sites, personalized direct mail triggering, advanced tracking, etc.
In this article, we will be talking to those specifically, that do not need the more robust functionality. This is for those individuals that are looking for a more “basic tool.” It is based on over a decade of integration experience for our Stealth Seminar clients.
Our recommendation for “basic” tool is Active Campaign. It offers a wealth of features and functionalities without all the added bells and whistles that perhaps you do not need yet or that you already have covered.
In this article, I will highlight some key benefits of Active Campaign, provide some details on how it works, and even some quick steps on how to get started with this great tool.
How Active Campaign Works
In addition to acting as an email management system, Active Campaign also acts as a CRM, allowing you to store and organize leads and contacts, and track email activity associated with them. By working with a powerful and robust CRM, this helps your sales team sell more.
Active Campaign allows you to:
- Segment email lists
- Split email tests
- Build forms
- Set emails on “autopilot” with automation
How to Use Active Campaign
In addition to the wealth of useful features and functionalities, another reason why I love Active Campaign is that it is easy to set up and use. Here are a few steps on how to get started and use Active Campaign.
Step 1. Pick Your Path. If you want to explore various solutions with Active Campaign, you can “pick your own path” by choosing a specific solution to begin with based on your goals.
For example, are you trying to manage contacts and sales, convert more customers, deliver more targeted messages, or automatically follow up?
Step 2. Build Email Campaigns. For Stealth Seminar users, we understand that after hosting a webinar, you want to nurture those leads and contacts who have “registered” and convert them into loyal customers. Therefore, for the sake of this article, and knowing our own customers at Stealth Seminar, let’s choose the “convert more customers” solution.
Building and setting up email campaigns with Active Campaign is easy. With the easy-to-use email builder, you can build highly-attractive, compelling emails in minutes.
Step 3. Personalize Emails. Once you have your email(s) built and set up to your liking in Active Campaign, you can add a little personalization to based on contact information. Adding personalization to your emails helps your emails stand out among the sea of emails that flow into your contact’s email inbox.
Here are some examples of personalization tokens you can add to your emails:
What I Like Most About Active Campaign
Active Campaign definitely gives you the tools to take your email campaigns to the next level, allowing you to get as granular and detailed as necessary without a lot of unnecessary features or functionalities in your way.
Some of my favorite features of Active Campaign include the following:
- Easily add or import new contacts
- Segment your lists and audience to increase email performance
- View and report analytics for each email sent
- Choose from a variety of pre-made email campaign templates to achieve the look and feel you’re after
- Connect Active Campaign with a number of third-party apps you are already using
Furthermore, Active Campaign is a simple yet powerful email management and CRM tool when compared with some other tools we have reviewed. So, if you want to build attractive, compelling email campaigns with dynamic content, I definitely recommend Active Campaign. You can try Active Campaign for free by signing up here.
Who is Active Campaign Best For?
All in all, every business can benefit from a reliable and robust email management tool and CRM. However, building effective email automation can be time-consuming, overwhelming, and frustrating, especially for new entrepreneurs and small businesses who are tight on resources.
However, Active Campaign makes the whole process easy — from start to finish. Although Active Campaign does not have all the robust eCommerce functionality we’ve seen from some other tools as previously mentioned (Ontraport, Keap, Hubspot) Active Campaign is top for those who don’t need all that those offer. Try Active Campaign today for free.
