Constant Contact

Constant Contact. “Constant Contact logo.svg.” 22 August 2019. Wikimedia Commons.

Constant Contact is a web-based email marketing tool. Its purpose is to help smaller businesses and organizations manage email lists and create professional mass marketing emails from its provided templates. Constant Contact is relatively in expensive with its base price being $20 a month, which gets you general email marketing capabilities such as templates, basic eCommerce abilities, open and clickthrough rates, and list segmentation among other things, and EMAIL PLUS, which costs $45 a month and provides additional capabilities such as A/B testing to maximize open rates and the ability to embed surveys, polls, and online donations. However, prices can vary based on the size of your email lists.

Arts organizations can use this tool to communicate upcoming events and promotions to patrons and subscribers. The Center for the Arts and the Hylton Center for the Performing Arts at George Mason University use Constant Contact for that express purpose. An example of a newsletter these organizations send out can be found here.  In this example, the Hylton Center is highlighting an upcoming event and providing the recipient with information on future performances at the Hylton and its sister venue, the Center for the Arts. Individual artists can use it for the same purpose, but the members of their lists might include fans who subscribed to it from the artist’s website or social media or previously bought a ticket to or attended one of their shows. Both arts organizations and artists can leverage the basic tools of pre-made templates and open and clickthrough rates.

 

Vertical Response

What is Vertical Response?

Vertical Response is a web-based email marketing campaign service that is geared for both large and small audiences. This tool allows arts organizations to create unique emails, surveys, and landing pages to connect with their audiences and subscribers. Vertical response has a free 60-day trial, but following that there are three pricing options, two of which operate on a sliding scale. They offer a basic and pro subscription which ranges from $11-$363. The Pro version offers more features such as A/B testing and additional information on the analytic reports. Individuals also have the option “Pay as you go” meaning paying for each email that is sent rather than pay for unlimited emails per month. Emails and surveys are created online via a computer through the Vertical Response email manager editing page. Vertical Response has roughly 30 templates for users to edit for their use as well as a “Create you Own” option. This system is most useful because it is easy to establish mailing lists and schedule emails, allowing administrators to write several emails at once and not have to go back and send them later. The system also has the option to schedule auto-follow-up emails to send to specific groups, such as those that didn’t open the first email.

Emily Johnson. “Screenshot of Final AMGT Class Email .” 19 February 2020. Vertical Response.

Arts organizations would benefit from using this system because it allows organizations to create well-designed email to share information and advertisements with their audiences. Ambassador Theater uses Vertical Response to manage their launch page and reach audiences through regular emails. Many private artists such as Mick McAndrews also use Vertical Response since it is an affordable resource to send email campaigns to audiences.

Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor (CM) is an online HTML email marketing tool to turn customers into loyal customers by personalized email campaigns and automated customer journeys. It helps drive real, bottom line, business results. As an easy-to-use tool, CM allows their customers to create, send, and track advertising or fundraising emails to their customers. Unlike other majority email marketing tools, the pricing of CM is reasonable and flexible. There is no registration fee. Any company can get started for free if the company send emails to no more than 5 clients. You can choose one of four plans right for your company. It will depend on how many clients that you will send to. If you send emails to a large of number customers frequently, only need $29 you can send unlimited emails and can use other additional features. You also can manage your emails online and download Campaign Monitor Application for monitoring your clients.

The view of Campaign Monitor’s home page. Screenshot by Yuhan Zhang, March 8, 2018

 

You won’t want to miss it. The first impressive thing is the simple process of sending your email. You can just follow the Campaign Monitor Website to set subject line, campaign title, and the email addresses of senders and receivers. Another thing is that CM prevents your emails from getting trapped behind firewalls or spam filters if the campaign emails are sent from a paid email address. The last impressive thing is that every sender can get the “Google Analytics” style-report to track your clients’ response and have a clear interaction and prompt campaign feedback.  Up to now, lots of organizations have benefited from Campaign Monitor. For instance, the one of the largest performing arts organization, Broadway, send weekly news to their biggest fans and subscribers by CM.  Campaign Monitor has been increased ticket sales and built loyal audiences with email marketing for the Broadway. Every subscriber can know what is hot on the Broadway and can start their Broadway experience from a musical to Tony Awards.

The case of Broadway in CM. Screenshot by Yuhan Zhang, March 8, 2018

An example of the weekly newsletter. Screenshot by Yuhan Zhang, March 8, 2018

The view of biggest events’ announcement. Screenshot by Yuhan Zhang, March 8, 2018

 

 

Classy.org

 

Classy.org  is a fundraising software for non-profits. Arts organizations can use it to set up website donations, e-mails, crowdfunding, and event registration. Organizations can also allow individuals to set up peer-to-peer fundraising.

Once an account is set up and payment processing is established, organizations can start setting up fundraising campaigns right away. Everything can be set up through the online portal. The campaign look can be personalized and is automatically mobile-optimized. There is an extensive library of templates, articles, videos and other educational resources available online.

MailChimp

MailChimp is used to organize email addresses and to send marketing emails and newsletters.  It’s free for users with under 2,000 subscribers to send up to 12,000 emails/month.  After that, there is the option to pay a monthly rate for unlimited emails, or to purchase as you go.  The program is accessed completely online, and can have multiple users for the same organization, allowing different people across multiple departments to have access to the same information.

I think this is a great tool for a small arts organization because it’s easy to use, free, and integrates well across social media platforms.  An arts organization can use MailChimp for everything from an email marketing blast to thanking guests after a special event.  Creating a campaign is easy enough that anyone with basic computer knowledge can accomplish a professional looking email without a major time commitment.  Newsletter sign-up forms can be integrated into your organization’s Facebook page and website, so even maintaining lists is simple.  MailChimp has built in analytics, which can also be integrated with Facebook, Twitter, and Google Analytics, in order to track social media activity and traffic to your website that come from the emails you send.

While MailChimp has many competitors, I think that it is the best choice for small arts organizations for two reasons.  The first is its support options.  Since small organizations are working with limited staff, having the ability to get help with a project is extremely important.  The second thing that sets MailChimp apart is that it provides unlimited storage space for uploaded images.  For arts organizations that want to use lots of images to get their patrons excited, having that storage space is crucial.  Overall, I think that the ease of use, social media integration, and support system for its clients are what sets MailChimp apart.

Sowinski, Jennifer. “MailChimp Summary Report.” 4 April 2015. https://us3.admin.mailchimp.com/reports/#t:campaigns-list. Accessed 4 April 2015.