iContact Product Details
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Over 25 Email Marketing Articles & Resources!
- A 31-page Email Marketing Whitepaper
- Message Scheduling
- SpamCheck™
- Open and Clickthrough Tracking
- Bounce-back Handling
- Subscription Management
- Over 300 Templates Included
- Integrated Surveying
- Industry Leading Deliverability
iContact's Newest Features
iContact Community
We've been hard at work for many months preparing the iContact Community. The Community helps you attract new readers, get your content on Google and other search engines, grow your subscriber list, and foster discussion about your content. You can learn more about the Community by reading the publisher tour or the member tour. The publisher tour is designed to help you see the power of the Community; the member tour is written to help your subscribers learn about the Community.
Revised Sending Process
The sending process has been simplified. It is easier to select your Community address and paths for your publications.
Revised Blog Composition Process
Now, when your want to post to your blog, you don't have to worry about any newsletter-only details. The newsletter composition and blog composition processes are separate.
Recently Added Features
API Improvements
It is now more difficult for people to perform replay attacks on accounts that have had API access enabled. Basic client folder support has also been added.
Autoresponder Tracking
This is one of our most requested features, and has been added to the Track page. It allows you to see detailed, per-message reporting for all of the autoresponders you have created.
Blogs have emerged out of beta and into the light
iContact has released a full version of our blogs! Over the past few months, blogs were kept in beta development. Now that blogs are out of beta, they are integrated into the main software. You can find iContact blogs in the campaigns' section of the software. You can now have a individual blog for each of your campaigns.
Blogs in the New Knowledgebase
Our new knowledgebase now includes a full section on Blogs. For pointers on managing your Blogs, visit the knowledgebase at http://www.iContact.com/help/.
Client Folder Footers
Each client folder can have its own footer, and account managers have the ability to swap out the image in the message footer without contacting Customer Support.
Confirmation Message for Adding One Contact at a Time
Whenever you add a new contact using the 'One at a Time' feature, iContact will display a message confirming the addition.
Continued Bug Siege
Last month the iContact team continued its assualt on software bugs. The teams fixed 72 separate bugs. We will continue destroying those bugs to make your iContact experience as smooth as possible.
Customize Your Public Newsletter Archive
Last month, we released a much-improved public newsletter archive. With this month's upgrade, we've made it possible to customize your archive's color scheme. If you're not much of a designer, we've also provided five new themes to make your archive your own
Disable Click Tracking
If you don't want iContact to track when people click on links in your broadcasts, you can disable this under your Campaign Settings
Expanded SpamCheck Power
We've expanded the power of SpamCheck to smoothly handle autoresponder messages. Keep clicking the SpamCheck button to make sure your autoresponder messages always hit their mark.
External Notification Support
If your company has an API exposed, and you would like us to notify you each time an event (such as a contact unsubscribing, somebody new signing up, etc.) occurs, please contact our sales team. We would be more than happy to integrate our software with yours.
Forward-to-a-Friend Error Fixed!
Once upon a time, a month ago, some email clients couldn't handle messages sent using the Forward-to-a-Friend link. If you used one of these programs, you received a disappointing error page. Now, everything is smooth and no one will be disappointed.
iContact API (Alpha)
We're in the initial stages of releasing an API. The API makes it possible to manage your contacts, create, send & track messages without using our web-based interface. If you want to start to use the API, you'll need to contact support.
iContact Assist
iContact is also unveiling a brand new walkthrough system called iContact Assist. When you log in, the welcome page will display links to walkthroughs for some of our coolest features. The iContact Assist panel will display tutorials for your unused features. Click any link to receive step-by-step instructions for some of our coolest features.
iContact Blogs (Beta)
If you don't have a blog already, why not create one with iContact? After you make your first blog, you'll be able to post any message you create to it.
iContact Enterprise
iContact Enterprise is a service-level offering that combines iContact with dedicated Account Management service. If you choose to upgrade to iContact Enterprise, your tailored service begins with direct access by email and telephone to your assigned Account Manager.
Importing Excel Files
We've supported uploading CSV files for a while, but now we have support for uploading Excel files, too! If you have an Excel file that contains contacts that you want to add to iContact, you can upload it the same way you upload CSV files. Go to the My Contacts tab and choose to add contacts From a File.
Improved Bounce Reporting
Let's face it ... sometimes emails that you send out bounce. With the upgrade we just released, when you track a message or autoresponder, we will give you more detailed reasons about why a certain address bounced.
Increased Control Over Sign-up Forms
iContact now gives you increased control over your sign-up forms. You can have iContact automatically maintain your sign-up form. Or if you prefer, you can manually edit your own HTML code. The choice is up to you. Sign-up forms are simpler for people who want simplicity and customizable for people who want customization. iContact sign-up forms are now served á la carte!
Internet Explorer 7.0 Support
iContact 4.0 has been revised to make sure it looks good in IE7.
New Blog Features
Along with their escape from beta, blogs now have some juicy new features. Blogs now have a whole new look and feel that will make your iContact experience even better. You can select new colors and layouts for your blogs. The newly-released blogs also come complete with a section for customer comments.
New Knowledgebase
iContact has released a new knowledgebase. This knowledgebase contains a robust collection of easy-to-find articles. Please visit http://www.icontact.com/help/ for information on our software.
New MessageBuilder Templates
We have added 75 new professionally-designed HTML templates. Our MessageBuilder templates will keep growing over the coming months.
New Message Creation Screen
The message creation screen has a new look. We know you'll love the look and feel of the new page:
New Name
Recently, IntelliContact became known as iContact! Our shorter, crisper name reflects our commitment to simplifying communication. We are extremely excited to move forward with you into the future of communication.
Our new look!
We simplify email marketing, and now our look makes it obvious. It's crisp. It's clean. And best of all, it's easy to use. Did you know that iContact has a fancy surveying tool built in? Or that we have an industry-leading Autoresponder? Have you ever wondered how to change the "From" address for your messages? We've thought hard about how to highlight these features and make them easier to use. After all, we simplify email marketing!
Pay Per Send
If you go over your send limit, it will be much easier now to approve payment before your broadcast goes out.
Really Simple Sign-up Forms
Our sign-up form feature is now greatly improved. You can now manage multiple sign-up forms from your iContact account. This gives you increased control and simplicity for managing your contact lists.
Receipts and Invoices
We're constantly adding new features that our customers have requested. Most recently, we've provided a way for you to download your old invoices and receipts. To access them, click Settings and then My Invoices & Receipts.
Reduced Signup Form Spam
Some of our customers have been suffering from people submitting "spammy" e-mail addresses through the signup forms on their website. We have investigated this problem and come up with a solution that should block the vast majority of these bad e-mail addresses.
Removal Receipts Go to the Proper Place
From now on, when someone unsusbcribes, the removal notification will be sent to the address on file rather than the campaign's address. Bug crushed!
Revised Public Newsletter Archive
The iContact Public Newsletter Archive (PNA) will allow you to easily organize your newsletters, build your lists by sharing your content with more visitors, and give you access to quality content from other publishers.
RSS-In
These had been in beta for a while, but after receiving lots of good feedback from our customers, we've finished them and promoted them out of our beta area. Simply specify the address of the RSS feed, give it a name, an optional description and the campaign that you want associated with each message. You can also tell us whether you would like us to import the most recent message in the RSS Feed or start importing with the next message that shows up in the feed. You can create one of these by going to the Create tab and then clicking Create a message. You'll see Create New Messages from an Incoming RSS Feed is the second option.
RSS Feeds
You can now use iContact to stay in touch with your customers in ways other than email. When you enable RSS feeds and broadcast messages to one, your customers will be able to see your messages in an RSS feed.
Simplified Blogs
If you haven't set up a blog yet, iContact now does this for you. If you don't have a blog set up, iContact will automatically create one when you send a message. This removed a step and makes sending messages even smoother.
Strides in Deliverability
Since we are always concerned with increasing our deliverability, iContact now sends List-Unsubscribe headers with all messages. This header helps improve the reputation of all messages sent through iContact by making it clear how and where users can unsubscribe. When you send a message to one of several large ISPs, this 'Unsubscribe' button will begin to replace the 'Report as Spam' button. This should reduce complaints and help maintain our industry-leading deliverability. This means better deliverability rates for everyone!
Training Webinars
iContact now offers live webinars twice a week. Our webinars provide you with a live demo of the software and an introduction to the email marketing industry. Users often walk away with strategies that increase the power of their campaigns. Come and share the learning experience with other iContact customers by registering at http://www.icontact.com/webinars.
UTF-8 Support
iContact now has built-in support for UTF-8. Every character that shows up in Unicode can be displayed in iContact.
View the Sending Progress of Your Messages
On the Pending Messages page in the Send tab, you can now watch the progress of each message that you send. The progress bar beneath each broadcast will increment to show the number of messages that have been released to your contacts.
Screenshots:
A complete list of features and side-by-side comparisons are available on the Email Marketing Services Review HomePage.
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