Elite Email – Email Marketing Reviews

Elite Email Review - 2/5/2012 12:05 AM

Top 10 Email Marketing Services

1.		6.
2.		7.
3.		8.
4.		9.
5.		10.

EliteEmail Review - Gold

Website: http://www.eliteemail.com
Year Founded: 2003
Location: New York

Phone Support : Yes
Email Support : Yes
Live Chat : Yes

Overall User rating -
Read Detailed User Reviews	Submit Detailed User Review

Summary:

Elite Email is rated the number 1 email marketing service provider because it excels in all possible avenues. The service is packed with features, is the most user-friendly of all the email marketing options, and is backed by superior customer support.

Highlights:

Elite Email offers customers the best value for the services they provide. They have pricing plans set up so that each customer, regardless of the size of their mailing list or frequency of their mailings can get the most cost effective pricing structure. They offer monthly subscription plans that are based on the size of your contact list; or a pre-paid, pay-as-you-go credit plan for those that send infrequently and don't want a recurring cost. Regardless of which option you choose, the prices are incredibly competitive and some of the best we've found in the industry.

Elite Email gives potential customers a very generous free trial offer that is amongst the best in the industry, especially since they do not enforce any sort of time limit. This means you could be on their free trial while you build your mailing list without any pressure at all to pay anything. New users receive 1,000 free credits. A credit is used for each email that is sent out, which means you can send a total of 1,000 emails without even entering a credit card. While many of the other email marketing service providers limit a free trial to one/two months or have a low restriction on the number of emails sent, Elite Email lets you really get a feel for it before committing to everything. Even once you do signup for one of their plans, there are no long-term contracts. During one of our test customer support calls we asked why they don't have longer term contracts and the response was "Our customers stay with us because they love us, not because they are obligated to due to a contract".

Elite Email also had the most superior customer service of all the email marketing services that were reviewed. One of the things we liked the most is that as soon as we signed up, we were assigned to a dedicated account executive. We were told this person would help us with everything we needed, which at first we thought was just marketing hype, but after a few phone calls, it became clear this was the real deal. Our account executive promptly answered our calls and was incredibly friendly and knowledgeable. It was clear this person had a lot of industry experience because he did not just help answer our technical questions, but also took the time to discuss how we could use email marketing to meet our needs. When we called some other email marketing providers we felt like we were being rushed off the call, but with Elite Email, our account executive took the time to make sure each one of our questions was fully answered. This was incredibly refreshing and definitely helped take Elite Email to the top spot.

Elite Email performed incredibly well in our deliverability tests. Every email on our test list was delivered right into the inbox. We tried to send an email with some spam trigger words and we actually got an email from their live Email Review Dept. with suggestions on how we can improve our content. The fact that they have a real person review the emails was a pleasure since they were able to provide insight that some of the automated spam checking systems just missed.

Like most email service providers, Elite Email is split up into 3 main sections, which are easily accessible on their clean interface: Contacts, Email, & Reports.

The contacts section was incredibly flexible. You can add contacts by uploading an Excel/CSV file, manually typing in email addresses and there is even an option to type in the email address along with other details in one simple step. Every field associated with a contact was completely editable so we could customize the program to meet our exact needs. We were even able to specify some fields that were drop-down menus or check boxes, which is a feature that we did not find on most other email marketing companies. One of the things we also liked was that every screen a contact may see can be totally customized with our logo, text, colors, and page layout. There was also a huge variety of tools to help build our mailing list including signup buttons, signup forms, direct links, and more.

The email creation process was quick and straightforward. The program has a ton of template options in every category you could think of from newsletters to promotions to postcards. Customizing the template was easy since it used a familiar Word-style toolbar for text formatting. Depending on the template that was selected, it would suggest to include links in certain spots and we could add additional links wherever we wanted. Uploading images into our image gallery (and even re-sizing and rotating them) was a simple action. Upon completing the email design, we were able to schedule it and specify the date & time (even while on the free trial, which is restricted by some other companies) or send it immediately.

Although the Contacts and Emails sections were impressive, we were truly blown away by the Reports section. Elite Email really spent a lot of time giving their customers all the information they could want and a whole lot more. The results from each email is summarized on the initial Reports Dashboard, but then you can access the Report Wizard and find over a hundred other reports to help identify the best day of the week to send, the best time of day, identify the most frequent clickers and everything else you could imagine. They also offer Geo-Reports so we could see a world map with heat-map functionality that would show us where people were located. We could even drill down to view state-by-state reports or province-by-province.

Elite Email also had a neat feature that let you specify a certain email address and it would display a full record of that specific person's engagement with your email. They also have a Twitter-style ticker that shows a running feed of all your email marketing action.

Elite Email provides a very large database of information on email marketing through their Email University. This can be very helpful and informative for users who are tackling email marketing for the first time. They also provide video tutorials for using the program, which made using it even easier.

Elite Email offers unlimited image storage, which was a nice benefit considering some other email marketing companies we reviewed (such as Constant Contact) charged an additional fee for image storage.

Elite Email has an affiliate program (which we did not explore too much beyond seeing that it exists), has special corporate account features for those managing multiple accounts, and provides free migration services when moving your account from another email marketing company.

They also offer nonprofit organizations a 20% discount.

Criticism:

At the time of review, Elite Email did not have an API. If you require API access, then this could be a problem, but if you don’t need an API (or don’t know what an API is) then it’s not an issue.
They do not offer a white label program. So, reselling their services and trying to pass it off as your own (which some other email marketing companies offer) would not be possible.
Some colors of their templates were hard-coded and could not be changed in the email editor.
The program is currently only available in English. You can send emails in any language, but the on-screen instructions and customer support is English only.
Elite Email does not accept payments through PayPal or Google Checkout. They do accept Visa, MasterCard and American Express in both US$ and CDN$.

Submit Your Elite Email Quick Comments Below:
If you would prefer to submit a detailed review, please Click here.

Name:
Email:
Location:
Comment:

Recent Customer Comments

Add Your Own Comment

Best customer support ever... ever!..
-- Danielle Giordano , Boston, MA

The new features Elite Email just added are fantastic...
-- Jacob Reeser , Los Angeles, CA

Best email marketing solution. No doubt about it!..
-- Bernie Johnson , Ft. Lauderdale, FL

For my small business this is perfect..
-- Roger Englebert , Two Foot Falls

I really enjoy this service, its actually fun to learn :)..
-- Gordon Banks , Starlight

Elite Email Review