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Cheaper Alternative to ActiveCampaign

In today’s fast paced age of constantly changing technology, running a business or getting yourself out there for potential customers, followers or subscribers takes a lot more than just talking to friends and family. We connect online now more than ever, from Facebook and Instagram to Twitter and YouTube, but just how much do we really connect beyond the surface? At first, we may have a much closer relationship with our first subscribers or followers or the first regular customers to help support our goals and business, but after a while when the numbers build up it can become exponentially more difficult to keep track of things. It’s not hard to send a small greeting, notification, or maybe an update every once in a while to the people that have helped grow your business on Facebook when there’s only a few people that you have on your mailing list, but eventually that gets to be work in and of itself when the numbers reach a certain point. Having to send messages to everyone to keep them updated or to even just make them feel like valued customers can become too much when it’s something you’re not getting paid directly to do, but that’s where having an ESP (Email Service Provider) comes in. This type of communication autoresponder is the solution that will keep you connected to your audience and more.

As the market matures, so too does the necessity for multi-channel marketing—such as Facebook Messenger, SMS text notifications, and  Web Push Notifications; in addition to the more traditional email engagement. This could be more accurately dubbed an Engagement Service Provider or simply a Cross-Channel or Omnichannel Autoresponder.

What exactly is an ESP or Autoresponder?

These services vary in what they can do and how they work, but for the most part, they help with streamline processes while also helping companies keep connected with their customers. A good example of a popular ESP is ActiveCampaign, an email autoresponder that focuses on sending emails to leads and gauging their interest based on how responsive they are or how far along they get in a form Along with that, they have reports, support, an automation builder and even an email builder. With various plans that offer more features, it’s a powerful tool that I personally loved when trying it for myself, but its price can become a bit much. Starting off with only 500 contacts for $129 a month, it didn’t feel all that worth it as the numbers grew and the price of ActiveCampaign grew with it. This is especially true for those with cheap products where the business relies more on a higher number of customers, as compared to businesses with more expensive products that are more targeted to specific customers in a lower number. In the end what I needed was something more geared towards that which could do the things ActiveCampaign did at a lower price. After learning more about what ESPs were and finding the time to do further research on them, I discovered a few alternatives that could help others who have also been in the same boat as me.

How much does ActiveCampaign Cost?

There is no free version with ActiveCampaign so you’ll have to jump right in on one of their paid plans.

The general consensus across the internet is that the cost for ActiveCampaign is extremely high and only becomes more expensive as you scale your business and your list.

They do offer some lower plans which honestly shouldn’t even exist in my opinion because they are so bare bones that they are pretty much useless. For anyone really needing an autoresponder you’ll have to shell out at least $159/month to have all the features you’d expect to have from an ESP.

And so continued my search for the best Email Autoresponder…. In my journey to find an alternative to ActiveCampaign, I found many ESPs such as… Mailchimp which is quite popular but falls short on the best features. ConstantContact which has great integration with tons of platforms and was built for small businesses. SendLane which promises multiple channel communication but has poor email deliverability GetResponse which used to be pretty good but has gotten worse and worse at hitting the inbox lately. Still though, I felt they were all just a bit lacking in comparison to ActiveCampaign or were just not right for me… that is, until I came across SmartEngage. Now, I can’t say what’s perfect for everyone since we all have different needs for our own businesses and goals, but I can’t imagine who SmartEngage wouldn’t be for.

Just take a look at this screenshot I grabbed from one of their customers posting honest feedback to their Facebook group:

When it comes to the things that I felt mattered most for my business, SmartEngage is a clear winner and that’s what I want to talk about. Not only is it a lower price for more features, SmartEngage allows you to try it risk free just to let you get an idea of what it can do. From its hybrid lead magnets to its amazing email deliverability, SmartEngage has all the main features that make ActiveCampaign great and much more, but for a much better deal. Even when it comes to SMS text messaging, SmartEngage actually includes more free SMS sends per month than ActiveCampaign. To give a list though, here are just some of the main features of SmartEngage: – Website Visitor Tracking – Web Notifications – WYSIWYG Email Editor – Visual Notifications – Subscribe/Unsubscribe – Facebook Messenger – Social Marketing – Segmentation – Sales Intelligence – Reporting/Analytics – Notification Scheduling – Mobile Optimized Emails – Mobile Notifications – Mass Email Delivery – Marketing Automation – Landing Pages/Web Forms – Geo Targeting – File Sharing – Expiry Notifications – Dynamic Content – Drip Campaigns – Device Targeting – Customizable Fields – Customizable CTAs – Customer Surveys – Contextual Targeting – Email Templates – Analytics/ROI Tracking – Analytics As you can see, SmartEngage offers a pretty wide variety of features that will be more than useful for just about anyone trying to grow anything that needs more people and can benefit from their engagement. If you’re still not convinced, here is an example of just one of the many great things other users of SmartEngage have had to say about it after finding success with it:

Who is SmartEngage for?

Video Marketers and local business owners, digital agencies and influencers, e-commerce store owners or website owners in general, it doesn’t matter what you do. SmartEngage is powerful enough to help you grow in any of those things and more like never before. Website owners will love using Hybrid Lead Magnets to easily collect subscribers while having the Facebook Chat Assistant to send unlimited messages to their list. For e-commerce stores, you can make follow ups for abandoned carts by Email, Facebook Messenger or even web push notifications. Influencers can link the SmartEngage Chatbot in their profile and collect Emails to interact with their followers and fans in ways that would have been impossible before. Digital Agencies can charge clients monthly payments and make use of SmartEngage’s Facebook Chatbot Marketing with Email Marketing, Facebook Messenger ads, website chat assistant and much more. Local businesses can use marketing automation to acquire more leads with autopilot engagement and grow their business exponentially. With Facebook Messenger Conversations and cutting edge Lead Magnets, video marketers can send all their video traffic straight into their opt-ins with ease. With so many uses, SmartEngage is the only auto responder and ESP you’ll ever need to use. Not only does it have tons of features, it can support integration with WooCommerce, WordPress, Magento, OptimizePress, Stripe, Click Funnels, Shopify, PayPal, Convertri, Unbounce, WarriorPlus, Zapier, JVZoo.com and Salesforce to name a few. Facebook Chatbots With that all said, one of the major features of SmartEngage I feel isn’t talked enough about is its unlimited Facebook Chatbots. Although chatbots have been around and in development for along time, only somewhat recently have people begun to notice their immense potential and usefulness for business and marketing strategies. Going more into Facebook chatbots, these ones in particular live within Facebook Messenger and are able to chat with the 1.3billion users of Facebook who log in every month. You yourself also likely have a messenger strategy if you’re already on Facebook, but the power of chatbots allows you to expand upon it significantly! Customers hate having to wait just to be put on hold, but chatbots put you at the 24/7 availability they expect without having to work non-stop or hire other people to be there for that. If that’s not convincing enough yet and all this talk about what bots can do sounds too good to be true then let me reassure you, as someone who thought it sounded a bit too sci-fi myself at first, the times have changed. The things bots can do can range from identifying leads to handling e-commerce transactions; everything from asking what your budget is, to asking if you’d like fries with that order. Data shows that not only is Facebook considered the second best way to talk to companies based on a recent survey, there are only 300,000 chatbots despite Facebook having at least 6 million advertisers. That means using SmartEngage’s unlimited Facebook chatbots puts you at an advantage where you won’t even have all that much competition! Think about this – every month, over 2 billion messages are exchanged over Facebook Messenger which is used by over 68 percent of people who use apps. Meanwhile, the rest of the market for mobile apps sees at least 71 percent of those same people delete an app within 3 months. This is why I can’t stress enough just how useful the unlimited Facebook chatbots can be if you have any desire to grow your business online. Web Push Notifications Along with its unlimited Emails and Facebook Chatbots, SmartEngage also allows for unlimited web push notifications. Those more new or less in touch with more modern advances in computer software might be confused on what that is, so it’s probably worth explaining what that means exactly for your business. We’ve already covered Facebook and Emails which most people already know about and probably use on a nearly daily basis, but what about Web push notifications? Web push notifications are a relatively new development in the world of online marketing that allow notifications to make their way to your customers from website, even when they aren’t on the website the notification is coming from. They keep your visitors engaged without having to know their contact details such as their Email or Facebook by showing messages directly on their screen wherever they are. Not only will you reach the most tech-savvy of your customers with the most tech-savvy and modern updates, studies have shown that you’ll likely have up to 30 times more success with them! Along with that, opt-ins from web push notifications have been shown to easily be higher than Emails since users don’t have to give contact details such as their Email or Facebook. Unlike Emails, web push notifications are also significantly more likely to be seen since they don’t have the problem of possibly going straight to a spam folder or failing to deliver. They’re delivered straight to your audience or customers as soon as you decide to send them out. Having unlimited web push with SmartEngage means unlimited potential for re-engaging with users even without their contact info. Customer Tracking Finally, the last big feature I want to go over that SmartEngage has is its customer tracking. For the many who don’t know what customer tracking exactly is or what it does, just as I didn’t know at first either, customer tracking is essentially following every step your subscriber takes; this includes what emails they open, what links they click, even what pages they visit on your website. With customer tracking, if I were to go to your site or place of business online, you would be able to see that along with other details. You could see what pages a potential customer visited, how long they stay and where they stay, what their biggest interests on your site are, etc. You could also gauge out what things might have caused them to leave, what brought them there in the first place, where people are most likely to go and a variety of other things along those lines which can be followed up with in messages or notifications. More than just that, you can use customer tracking to help keep track of information that would be difficult to just memorize. Customer tracking is essential in the modern online world for keeping organization. Normally, customer tracking software is something separate from other things such as ESPs, but SmartEngage has customer tracking built in that allows you to be even more organized with everything all in one place. In conclusion… Overall, I would have to say SmartEngage having all of these features makes it a clear winner over its competition. Not only does it take the lead with what it can do with those features, but in its price and reliability as well. While other auto-responders and similar software to SmartEngage only focus on Emails most of the time, SmartEngage takes into account all the other missed opportunities when it comes to ways you could be profiting. Nothing else exists that will get you more engagement, more leads and more profit, and with its risk free trial you have nothing to lose. That’s how confident they are that you too will love SmartEngage. If you ever get lost or confused on how to use SmartEngage, their Knowledge Base has tons of help articles and training videos to help you get the hang of things from start to finish. If you still need further help, they even have a support desk for when their Knowledge Base isn’t enough. With even more features than ActiveCampaign and great reviews, SmartEngage will keep your audience and/or customers fully engaged with you and what you have to offer them. In the past, I hadn’t realized just how much money I was just throwing away to a variety of different services. Thanks to SmartEngage though, I can now put my business on autopilot in just three steps with one tool and I can’t recommend it enough to everyone else facing the same issues I had.

The post Cheaper Alternative to ActiveCampaign appeared first on Alternative HQ | Finding The Best Alternatives To What’s Available.

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Best ClickFunnels Alternative | We Finally Have Our Winner

During the last six years, ClickFunnels helped thousands of individuals to generate revenue online, and if you utilize the trademarked system, you can create sales funnels, optimize the experiences of the buyers, enhance the designs of websites, improve automation and evaluate detailed statistics. Once you install the system, you can also manage many websites, design landing pages, customize unique domains and utilize free templates.

A Better Page Builder What is GrooveSell? GrooveMailGrooveKart GrooveWebinar – The GoToWebinar Alternative? Is GrooveMember better than ClickFunnels Membership area? Is there a free version of ClickFunnels? What is Cheaper than ClickFunnels? Is ClickFunnels Worth the Money? What is GrooveFunnels? How Much is GrooveFunnels? GrooveFunnels Pros and Cons GrooveFunnels vs ClickFunnels

Choosing an Alternative and Evaluating a Cutting-Edge System

Our experienced marketers have diligently searched for a system that is substantially better than ClickFunnels, and after we completed our exhaustive search, our experts have proven that GrooveFunnels can help thousands of individuals to earn money online. If you utilize the trademarked system, you could create innovative websites, increase the profitability of upselling, join an affiliate network and develop many promotional videos. Once you create a custom website, you could manage a blog, a membership site and automated webinars that may attract thousands of customers.

A Better Page Builder

The company offers many tools that can allow you to customize various websites, and you could add relevant links, offer useful tools, improve the navigation, customize a blog and add many images. When you design an innovative website, you could also create meta tags, detailed descriptions, relevant headlines and a unique design. Typically, you should add important keywords to the meta tags, and this technique can significantly improve the website’s rankings in the search engines.

If you utilize the innovative tools, you could develop a website that features a responsive design, and according to many reports, a responsive design can improve the satisfaction of clients, reduce a website’s bounce rate and augment the website’s conversion rates. Once you develop a website that has a responsive design, many guests may frequently visit the site, and these visitors could purchase various products, watch promotional videos, read informative articles or generate new leads.

The company offers many well-designed templates that are related to several topics, and consequently, marketers can easily create a new website that features an innovative layout. If you add a template, the design could substantially reduce the duration of the project, enhance the navigation and improve the experiences of customers.

Generally, you may add many tools that can automatically customize the website if a visitor is utilizing a smartphone. These tools could modify the sizes of images, alter numerous types of links and customize the navigation. The useful tools may also modify the contact form, and when a customer visits the landing page, the buyer could easily contact the business, send an important message or purchase multiple products. Likewise, the website may feature a clickable phone number, and usually, the phone number can considerably increase a company’s revenue and augment conversion rates.

Using GrooveSell

When you are ready to sell many products, GrooveFunnels could help you to offer cutting-edge products that can meet the needs of customers, and the system may also optimize the effectiveness of upselling. If a client would like to purchase specific products, the software program can automatically suggest comparable products that may interest the customer.

Sometimes, this technique could augment a company’s revenue by more than 55 percent, and the strategy may considerably increase the subtotals of many orders. Several reports have suggested that the strategy could also improve business relationships and enhance the satisfaction of clients.

Customizing the Domains

When you utilize the innovative tools, you can select high-quality domains that could improve the reputation of your website, enhance the site’s rankings and optimize brand awareness. The company also provides free hosting, unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage space.

Creating a New Blog

The company offers useful tools that can help you to create an informative blog, and you may add high-quality articles that provide helpful guidelines. Once you create a new article, you could integrate various links that feature relevant anchor texts. Likewise, you may install tools that can allow visitors to create many comments, and according to detailed surveys, these tools could increase a website’s traffic by more than 28 percent.

Generally, an informative blog can augment conversion rates, increase a company’s revenue and improve the reputation of the business. The blog may significantly reduce a website’s bounce rate, and the informative blog could encourage many visitors to read detailed articles. Once a visitor reviews an informative article, the guest may click several advertisements, complete the contact form or read articles that examine similar topics. Additionally, some guests may frequently share the website’s links on many social media networks. Subsequently, these extra backlinks could substantially improve a website’s rankings in the search results.

Examining the Benefits of Email Marketing

The company offers many tools that can help you to send promotional emails, and you could create emails that feature coupon codes, excellent testimonials and images that show innovative products. Each marketer may also send emails that provide numerous types of incentives. According to many reports, incentives can augment a website’s revenue by around 55 percent, and the extra incentives could increase the percentage of clients who purchase multiple products. Although, I still view SmartEngage as the best all around Email Service Provider with the best open rates.

Utilizing an Innovative Platform and Customizing High-Quality Videos

Once you create a new account, you may use tools that could help you to customize promotional videos, and you can create videos that describe the benefits of many products, offer helpful guidelines and compare several types of products. The videos could significantly increase a website’s traffic, boost conversion rates and augment a company’s revenue. The videos may considerably improve brand awareness, and many guests could share the videos, request additional videos or create detailed comments.

Improving Each Website and Optimizing the Navigation

If you utilize the innovative tools, you can customize the navigation of each website, add many types of links and improve the layout of every site. Additionally, you could easily create a site map, and the site map can help search engines to quickly index new websites.

Designing New Landing Pages That Could Increase Revenue

When you develop a landing page, you can add a description of each product, many excellent testimonials, a contact form and images that show the innovative products. Subsequently, you should also create a call to action, and the landing page may provide coupon codes that could consistently increase conversion rates.

Some landing pages contain infographics that effectively compare many products, and these infographics can examine the features of each product, the prices of specific items, the durability of many products and the design of each item. Several reports have suggested that unique infographics can augment conversion rates by more than 15 percent. Moreover, the infographics could significantly increase a website’s traffic because many users frequently search for interesting images.

Each landing page may also feature videos that evaluate the benefits of certain products, and the videos could provide detailed guidelines, compare many products and offer various types of incentives. Many reports have indicated that interesting videos can increase a website’s traffic, and if a webmaster consistently creates new videos, many visitors may regularly share the videos on multiple social media networks.

Using GrooveKart

When you are designing a new website, you can add a virtual shopping cart to the site, and clients may choose several options, provide billing information, select multiple types of shipping and evaluate the subtotal of each order. If a client does not place a new order, the system can automatically send emails that could encourage the customer to purchase the products. According to informative reports, these tools may increase conversion rates by around 21 percent.

Once customers have selected multiple products, the buyers may use credit cards, debit cards, online payment processors and electronic checks. If a business accepts numerous types of payments, many customers can frequently purchase additional products, generate new leads and provide referrals.

Make Money Using The Groove Affiliate Program

The company manages an affiliate network that can help marketers to sell many products, and when a website generates leads, the advertisers could earn substantial commissions. Once a marketer joins the affiliate network, the individual can partner with many well-known companies. The business could also provide specialized links, custom advertisements and tools that may increase sales.

When you utilize the innovative tools, you can simultaneously advertise many products, and usually, this technique could boost revenue and augment the return on investment. Once a customer purchases a product, the software program will automatically send an email that contains a notification. Sometimes, the affiliate may also receive a substantial bonus if the website generates multiple leads.

Once you join the affiliate network, you can easily compare the products, and you could evaluate the commissions, the conversion rates and the effectiveness of many marketing campaigns. When you are managing a marketing campaign, you can review detailed reports that indicate the number of visitors who clicked specific advertisements. The reports could also examine the profitability of each advertisement, the value of every sale and the relevance of many links. Moreover, you can review detailed charts that could help you to evaluate relevant trends.

A GoToWebinar Alternative?

Throughout the last eight years, many well-known companies have managed webinars that tremendously increased revenue. Generally, the webinars could generate many leads, improve the reputation of a business, educate customers and attract clients who may provide referrals. Once you create a new account, GrooveFunnels can offer many tools that could allow you to create new webinars, and you may invite many customers, answer questions, provide helpful instructions and promote many products.

Some reports have indicated that webinars can help entrepreneurs to establish business relationships, and the webinars may attract many loyal customers who could buy numerous products. If you manage a webinar, you can also compare several types of products. Once an entrepreneur compares many products, customers could swiftly make important decisions, and usually, this technique can substantially increase a company’s conversion rates.

GrooveMember vs ClickFunnels Memberhsip

The company offers advanced tools that could allow you to design a membership site, and once you customize the website, visitors may create new accounts, provide contact information, modify their profiles, share the company’s links and contact the business. When guests visit the membership site, the visitors may also evaluate their previous orders, and if a customer purchases a product, the client can examine the tracking number of the order, the status of the order, the subtotal and comparable products.

When you develop a membership site, you may add tools that can allow the users to contact other members. Some reports have indicated that these tools could considerably increase the amount of users who regularly browse the website, and the tools may encourage many members to share updates on the social media networks.

If you would like to improve the membership site, you can provide exclusive offers for members, and you may also offer incentives for users who frequently visit the website. According to many reports, these techniques can consistently increase a website’s traffic, reduce the site’s bounce rate and enhance the loyalty of many customers.

Creating Surveys and Increasing the Company’s Revenue

The company has developed advanced tools that could allow you to customize surveys, and GrooveFunnels can provide tools that could improve the design of each survey, optimize the questions and customize the experience of each visitor. When guests complete surveys, the visitors could also generate new leads, contact the business or share the surveys.

Numerous reports have suggested that surveys could significantly increase the number of customers who frequently contact a business, and many clients may ask important questions, offer detailed feedback or provide referrals. When you review the surveys, you could examine the preferences of clients, the needs of the customers, the quality of many products and the opinions of buyers.

Optimizing Communication

Once you create a new website, GrooveFunnels can offer useful tools that could enhance communication, improve customer service and optimize the satisfaction of clients. If clients can easily contact the business, the customers may frequently contact representatives who could answer questions, provide helpful suggestions, evaluate the needs of the clients and compare many products.

Utilizing a Customer Relationship Management System

While you are developing a sales funnel, you can also access a customer relationship management system, and GrooveFunnels could offer a well-designed system that can provide detailed information, evaluate the orders of many clients and examine the needs of customers. When you use a customer relationship management system, the software program could also reduce the company’s expenses, enhance the efficiency of the business and improve the experiences of many clients.

If a customer contacts the business, the entrepreneur can evaluate the client’s orders, the interests of the customer, important messages and various factors that may affect the buyer’s decisions. The entrepreneur could suggest other products that can meet the needs of the customer, and if a business owner frequently provides helpful recommendations, the technique could substantially increase sales, boost the subtotal of each order and enhance the profitability of every marketing campaign.

Once a company installs the software program, the system can help the business to retain loyal clients. If an entrepreneur uses the system, the business may evaluate relevant trends that could affect the company’s revenue, the decisions of customers, the company’s niche and the prices of many products.

Customizing a Calendar and Managing Events

The company offers a digital calendar that can help users to create comprehensive schedules. When you use the calendar, you could schedule important meetings, receive many types of notifications, evaluate upcoming webinars, add detailed notes and examine the duration of each event. Once you install the tool, you may also share the information with other users, and this technique could increase the number of customers who attend webinars.

Improving the Effectiveness of Marketing Campaigns and Increasing the Profitability of Each Website

When you customize a marketing campaign, you can evaluate the advertisements that are providing traffic, and you could also examine landing pages that may generate new leads, increase sales and attract many interested visitors. While you are managing the websites, you could evaluate the overall costs of each marketing campaign, and you can examine the return on investment.

Once you review several marketing campaigns, you could create predictive forecasts that can help you to estimate the company’s profits in the future. When you examine these detailed forecasts, you may also create many goals, and you could estimate the costs of marketing campaigns in the future.

Protecting the Website and Utilizing a Free Secure Sockets Layer Certificate

The business offers a free tool that can consistently enhance the security of each website, and the company’s software could automatically encrypt important data. The company also provides tools that can help marketers to share the secure data.

Examining Many Types of Statistics

While you are managing a website, you could frequently review extensive reports that examine the site’s traffic, the conversion rates, the behaviors of visitors and the geographic regions of guests. Typically, you can also evaluate sources that are generating traffic, and you may examine the keywords that could interest many visitors.

When you are reviewing the statistics, you can also access detailed reports that evaluate the website’s rankings in the search results, and you could examine search results that are related to specific keywords. Marketers can also research important keywords that could optimize a website’s rankings, and you could evaluate the number of users who search for specific keywords. Likewise, you can examine the relevance of each keyword in numerous geographic regions.

Utilizing Split Testing

The company provides several tools that can help marketers to use strategies that require split testing, and GrooveFunnels may offer many reports that could allow advertisers to examine the profitability of each marketing campaign. When you use split testing, you can swiftly test multiple strategies, and you may examine unique designs, distinctive landing pages, multiple types of incentives and well-designed contact forms. While you evaluate the detailed reports, you could also examine the behaviors of customers, the opinions of visitors and the interests of buyers.

Selling Many Types of Products

Once you create a new sales funnel, you can offer many products that could meet the needs of customers, and when a business provides a wide variety of products, the company can attract buyers who reside in many geographic regions. If a customer purchases specific products, the company could offer useful accessories, comparable products, extra services and innovative products that may interest many customers.

When a business provides new products, the company could create well-designed landing pages, send promotional emails and customize videos that describe the products. The business can also contact existing customers who have already purchased high-quality products, and the company may offer coupon codes, a free trial or numerous types of incentives.

Examining Frequently Asked Questions

If you would like to learn more information about GrooveFunnels, you can visit the company’s website, and you may evaluate efficient tools, detailed guidelines, frequently asked questions and an informative video. The website also features excellent testimonials that describe the software program, the advanced tools and the experiences of other marketers.

Is there a free version of ClickFunnels?

Currently, ClickFunnels does not provide a free version of the cutting-edge system, yet if you want to earn money online, you may choose a cheaper system that could quickly generate revenue. Typically, GrooveFunnels can offer various service plans, and you may choose a service plan that has a monthly price of $99. Initially, you could also utilize a free version of the system, and consequently, you can easily create multiple sales funnels before you select a monthly service plan.

The company also offers a service plan that features a monthly price of $199. Once a marketer chooses this service plan, the advertiser can utilize additional tools that could increase the profitability of each marketing campaign, enhance the efficiency of the websites and improve automation.

What Is Cheaper Than ClickFunnels?

Typically, GrooveFunnels can offer valuable services that are significantly cheaper than comparable services, and many marketers have chosen the company’s services because the advertisers can utilize the innovative system for free. Once you create a new account, you may design new landing pages, customize various domains, optimize the profitability of each sales funnel and increase each website’s conversion rates.

Is ClickFunnels Worth the Money?

Generally, GrooveFunnels can provide a system that may help thousands of individuals to generate revenue online, and the company offers a relatively inexpensive system. When marketers utilize the innovative system, the business does not require credit card information. The new marketers can swiftly create free accounts, develop new sales funnels, sell innumerable products, join the large affiliate network and design new websites.

What Is GrooveFunnels?

This company offers a comprehensive system that can allow marketers to increase sales, and when an advertiser utilizes the tools, the marketer could optimize communication, augment the values of many sales and improve automation. Generally, the business can effectively help beginners and experienced advertisers. Once a marketer creates a new account, the advertiser can immediately utilize the advanced tools.

How Much is GrooveFunnels?

Typically, GrooveFunnels can offer various service plans, and you may choose a service plan that has a monthly price of $99. The company also provides a service plan that features a monthly price of $199. Once a marketer chooses this service plan, the advertiser can utilize additional tools that could increase the profitability of each marketing campaign, enhance the efficiency of the websites and improve the satisfaction of buyers. Alternatively, the marketers could select a service plan with a monthly price of $299, and this service plan offers extra tools that may enhance automation, optimize the shopping carts and improve integration.

GrooveFunnels Pros and Cons

The company provides efficient tools that can improve usability, enhance the efficiency of webmasters and optimize innovation. The system could substantially reduce the duration of a large project, and if a marketer uses the advanced tools, the advertiser can swiftly complete important tasks, achieve major goals and create long-term plans.

The business has created tools that could significantly reduce the overall costs of many projects. Fortunately, GrooveFunnels can offer an all-in-one system that could allow advertisers to implement effective strategies, yet the company provides inexpensive service plans that can tremendously decrease the costs of marketing campaigns. Once other companies develop various marketing tools, each tool may have a high price, and many advertisers could individually buy each software program.

When experts created GrooveFunnels, the specialists added many tools that can help marketers to communicate with customers. The clients can complete surveys, attend webinars, utilize calendars, watch videos and use an interactive shopping cart. These features may substantially improve the experiences of clients, and if a business uses these tools, many customers may frequently browse the company’s website, contact the business and provide referrals.

GrooveFunnels Vs ClickFunnels

According to many experts, GrooveFunnels can provide a system that is substantially better than ClickFunnels, and typically, GrooveFunnels can offer a comprehensive system that has additional features. When marketers developed ClickFunnels, the advertisers created a system that can only help marketers to develop sales funnels. In contrast, GrooveFunnels offers a complete system that can allow advertisers to improve every aspect of a marketing campaign.

Learning Additional Information

If you have any questions about the cutting-edge system, you can examine detailed guidelines, the benefits of responsive websites, frequently asked questions and many types of services. The business also offers informative videos that could help you to utilize the advanced system.

Once you visit the company’s website, you can easily contact the experienced marketers who manage the business, and you may create a new support ticket. If you contact the experts, the helpful specialists can answer many questions, describe the services, provide relevant links and increase the profitability of your marketing campaigns.

The post Best ClickFunnels Alternative | We Finally Have Our Winner appeared first on Alternative HQ | Finding The Best Alternatives To What’s Available.

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Grade.us Alternative

Grade.us gets some good press, which shouldn’t be surprising, given that they’re in the business of review management. That proves they can be effective, but it can also make it difficult for consumers to make an educated decision. This guide will cover the benefits and drawbacks of Grade.us, and introduce you to an alternative service so that you can make the most informed decision possible.

What is Grade.us?

Grade.us markets itself as “everything you need to generate, monitor, and market your customer reviews.” Regardless of whether it’s “everything you need,” it is a tool that can help business owners foster positive reviews and help them try to remove or prevent negative reviews from cropping up. That’s the aspect of Grade.us that we’ll be focusing on here.

Grade.us uses a pretty simple strategy. It gives clients a set of tools to reach out to reach out directly to their customers without much hassle, and helps to target certain kinds of customers. Clients can send emails to prompt customers to leave good reviews for their services, and they can get in contact with customers who have left negative reviews in order to try and make peace with them to mitigate the fallout.

Grade.us’ strategy isn’t flawless, though, especially in the way that it addresses negative reviews. Any small business owner will know that a dissatisfied customer can be a powerful force, and not all of them be calmed by an apologetic email, especially if that process is obviously automated. Because angry customers are much more motivated to leave a review than happy ones, businesses trying to improve their review scores are fighting an uphill battle.

Grade.us Pros and Cons

Pros

It does what it says on the tin. They provide the service they say they do, and it can be effective.

Grade.us offers a free trial.

It has multiple plans so you’re not stuck paying more than you need.

Cons

It focuses on addressing and preventing negative reviews, which isn’t effective against savvy reviewers.

The price of Grade.us has seen sudden increases in the past, with only one month’s notice beforehand, and they don’t offer refunds. There’s no guarantee it will happen again, but it’s a risk.

Since the price increase, prices have been fairly high, with their flagship package costing $400 per month, and the most expensive option costing $2500.

Why Choose a Grade.us Alternative?

Grade.us offers a way to address bad reviews, but even if it were 100% effective, that strategy would be best suited for businesses that receive a large volume of negative reviews. Grade.us could be characterized as a review vetting tool, designed to prevent negative reviews from reaching the public, or staying there for very long.

If your business does good work and mostly receives positive reviews, then by having more reviews as opposed to fewer, potential customers will be able to see natural positive trends emerging in the data. Grade.us has a complicated process, even for leaving positive reviews, which can reduce the number of total reviews that your business gets. For an honest business, more reviews are always better.

Grade.us, along with much of its competition, charges a high price for its software and services. Birdeye won’t even allow potential users to browse its pricing option until they’ve provided their phone number and email. (Its lowest priced plan is $3000 per year.) Given the services that these companies have on offer, they could probably stay afloat charging much, much less. For larger businesses and resellers, the cost might be manageable, but new startups and small businesses usually don’t have that kind of capital rattling around from the jump.

Finally, the review management business tends to have bad optics for customers. It’s not always easy for a customer or client to distinguish between black hat reputation management techniques like fake reviews or deletion of reviews and ethical methods like requesting reviews from satisfied customers.

If a business’ customers discover that it’s making use of a reputation management software, or outsourcing review management to professionals, and their methods look even a little bit shady, it could seriously hurt the same reputation that business is trying to protect. Pair that with the high price of Grade.us and the likelihood that it won’t be able to effectively prevent bad reviews, and it might be tempting to avoid review management entirely.

All the same, reputation management is a must-have for any business, especially small businesses where a single review can cause a lot of trouble. This makes it incredibly important that the methods used are transparent, and that the marketing rhetoric surrounding them doesn’t send up any red flags. Grade.us is a mixed bag in that regard. In the words of their founder emeritus, they provide “the best review management software on the planet.” He immediately follows that they’re “free of the bloat and hubris of other reputation management solutions…” The irony there would be hard not to notice.

What is the Best Grade.us Alternative?

There’s a lot of demand for review management software and services, and a lot of companies have formed to fill that void. Many of the most popular services offer solutions for very specific circumstances, from preventing bots from writing fake reviews of your business, to specializing in reputation management for healthcare services. A simple Google search for reputation management services will give you pages and pages of results to sort through, and at the time of writing, nearly all of the first page is occupied by sponsored listings.

Taking into account pricing, simplicity, ease of use, and effectiveness, we think that one of the best options for review management is SmartEngage’s Smart Review Autopilot. It’s something of a hidden gem, and it can be hard to find with a simple search, but it has a few advantages over Grade.us and its other competition. Here’s how it does things differently.

Instead of trying to control how customers review a business, Smart Review Autopilot works to get the maximum of genuine positive reviews quickly. It taps into small business owners’ own expertise and knowledge of their community customer base to figure out which customers have been most satisfied with their experience, then creates an automated pipeline that guides those customers into posting a positive review.

Smart Review Autopilot doesn’t use any strategies that could be considered immoral or dishonest, and by accessing pre-existing goodwill in customers, it can help to create positive reviews that are unique, honest, and convincing. It’s easy to assume that people reading reviews online will trust them blindly, but most folks have a sense of whether a review was written in good faith, so honesty is always the best policy.

One of Smart Review Autopilot’s biggest advantages over the competition is its ease of use. All you need to get started with it is a customer list, and with a minimal amount of setup, that list can be fed into a completely automated process which will contact customers and help them make high quality reviews. If you’re too busy to micromanage reviews, then Smart Review Autopilot can do it for you.

The SmartEngage platform markets itself as “the world’s smartest autoresponder,” and offers a slew of tools to streamline customer engagement without direct input from business owners or employees. It specializes in automation, and allows its users to build pathways for customers to follow, helping them post reviews, sign up for subscriptions, and otherwise engage positively with a website. Smart Review Autopilot is part of SmartEngage, but not the only part, and access to the whole package can help with more than just reputation management.

Finally, the pricing. It’s completely free to start with SmartEngage. The free plan has most of the same features as the higher tiers, but it will display SmartEngage branding. The basic tier costs $47 per month, which is significantly less than most of the other options, and within the realm of possibility for a small business or a startup.

Making the Switch to SmartEngage’s Smart Review Autopilot

If you’re already using Grade.us, now is the time to cancel your subscription. (You could wait until just before the next monthly payment if you wanted to get the most out of it, but you should account for the time it will take to switch.)

The first step is to cancel your Grade.us subscription. Then, all you need to do is sign up for SmartEngage and start automating customer engagement. Their website has a video that runs through the setup process for the Smart Review Autopilot from beginning to end, and you can contact their customer service if you have any trouble getting set up. After that, the only thing to do is watch positive reviews roll in.

SmartEngage Pros and Cons

Pros

Completely automated. It can work while you’re asleep.

Comes with additional SmartEngage customer experience services.

Provides ethical reputation management.

It’s a good option for small businesses.

Offers low prices, and a free option.

Cons

Can be hard to find via search, depending on the terms used.

Doesn’t directly address negative reviews.

The post Grade.us Alternative appeared first on Alternative HQ | Finding The Best Alternatives To What’s Available.

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Intercom Alternatives – 5 Great Options

If you’ve ever searched for a way to communicate with your customers, it’s likely that you’ve come across a variety of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools. One of the most popular of these is Intercom, a platform that allows real-time messaging with customers to drive engagement and grow your business.

Today’s customer doesn’t wait around. That’s why customer support over the phone or through email is yesterday’s choice. But if Intercom isn’t for you, what options do you have? Let’s find out.

📑 Intercom Alternatives Table of Contents:

What’s Wrong With Intercom? The Top 5 Intercom Alternatives For 2020      1. Drift     2. SmartEngage     3. Freshchat      3. LiveAgent      3. Crisp What Is The Best Intercom Alternative?

What’s Wrong With Intercom Anyway?

Whether you’re looking to switch away from Intercom, or you’re starting a brand-new business, there are plenty of alternatives.

With over 30,000 businesses turning to Intercom to convert leads and track customer relations, it’s certainly one of the strongest contenders on the market. But there are some complaints consumers have regarding Intercom:

It is unpredictably expensive because of its pricing model, which depends on the total number of “active users” at a fixed and variable fee.

The way Intercom determines the total number of “active users” is a little misleading, resulting in a higher number of “active users” than you might expect.

Sometimes, Intercom creates false expectations for your customers, leading them to believe your team will respond immediately even if no one is available.

There is no way to merge conversations between windows, so your customer may receive messages from multiple agents for the same question.

Intercom’s own customer support is inconsistent and unreliable.

With those prominent issues, what makes Intercom so popular? Offering not only customer contact but also marketing tools, help desk software, analytics, and lead management, Intercom is simply one of the most comprehensive CRM tools out there. Because of these advantages, it maintains its competitive edge despite its shortcomings.

Below are the five top picks—we sorted the wheat from the chaff, so that you don’t have to.

What Are The Top Intercom Alternatives for 2020)?

1) Drift (drift.com)

Drift is a close alternative when compared to Intercom itself. Its four main features include live chat, targeted messages, knowledge base, and help desk tools. They also offer a number of features Intercom doesn’t provide: an integrated calendar that allows for automatic booking, chat bots for automated responses, tools for recording sales videos, and so on.

Features

The major highlight of Drift as an alternative to Intercom is their AI. This eliminates the need for forms, thus streamlining the process for both your business and potential customers. It also allows you to provide leads with personally tailored welcome messages based on their information.

In order to get your chatbot up and running, you don’t need to know anything about coding. Drift provides a “bot builder,” which allows you to determine how user input will qualify your leads. With the help of the chatbot, Drift lets you qualify in real-time, removing the redundancy you would normally encounter with forms.

On the Standard plan, Drift’s “live view” allows your customer service team to view anyone actively browsing the site. From there, they can reach out to these prospective leads and engage them in a conversation to help you convert more potential customers into successful sales.

Packages

All of Drift’s packages are priced per month, billed annually, and there’s a free package that offers some bare-bones tools. The other tiers are ideal for different business types and build off of the features of the tier before.

Pros And Cons

Drift has both advantages and drawbacks when it comes to CRM. Some of these may determine whether or not Drift will fit your particular niche.

Pros

Features an innovative chatbot to remove the need for forms even when your team is offline

You don’t need to know coding in order to make or use your chatbot

”Live view” allows customer service representatives to see and engage directly with active viewers

Free plan provides a surprising number of tools

Responsive user interface and widget akin to Intercom’s, but with more streamlined features

Cons

One of the pricier Intercom alternatives, most businesses would desire but not necessarily be able to afford the Professional tier

Lacks comprehensive customer support features like ticketing

Intercom vs. Drift

While Intercom is on the pricier end of CRM software, and Drift’s more comprehensive packages can also be expensive, Drift does have a bit of an edge over Intercom in its Free and Standard tiers. For businesses that can afford both Intercom and Drift’s middle and higher tiers as options, Drift’s chatbot provides a big advantage in the way it streamlines lead qualification and reduces redundancy in your business model. And, if your company is moving away from Intercom, the familiarity of the UI and widget will make this transition easy.

To learn more about Drift, you can visit their website here.

Our verdict? A solid 7/10—and a suitable free Intercom alternative.

2) SmartEngage (smartengage.com)

SmarEngage is designed to be a full service engagement autoresponder that handles email marketing as well as live chat (via Facebook Messenger). Simple (but powerful), not to mention SMS Text messaging and Web Push Notifications.

Features

One of SmartEngage’s most attractive features is their multi-channel messaging approach. You have the option to resend a chat message as an email if your lead doesn’t view it, or click the action you wanted them to. This allows you to more effectively and efficiently communicate with leads to answer their questions and convert leads into sales.

By focusing on efficiency, SmartEngage’s toolset helps minimize the time investment you have to put into customer relations and communication solutions. This is achieved in part by their targeted messaging feature, which allows you to send both email and text messages to leads with tailored information based on both your business and product’s information and insight about your potential customers.

The customization options available in SmartEngage’s messaging is built on the backbone of Facebook Messenger. You can tailor targeted messages easily because lead insights are automatically collected and compiled as a potential customer browses your website. As a result, you’re able to see personal and behavior-based customer data as well as their customer journey.

Pricing

SmartEngage is a highly affordable Intercom alternative with four packages and a customizable Enterprise solution.

Pros And Cons

To determine whether or not SmartEngage is right for your business, it’s worth looking at both the pros and the cons as they pertain to your niche and business model.

Pros

Highly affordable Intercom alternative

Free trial to test before making a full transition

Very customizable targeted messaging system

Unlimited number of messages

Unlimited number of emails

Unlimited number of web push notifications

Includes SMS Text messaging

Multi-channel communication makes customer interaction efficient and effective

Supports integration with many external tools such as WordPress, Google Analytics, Zapier, and more

Cons

Messaging built on Facebook is not preferred by some

Is focused on being a cross-channel autoresponder more so than a live chat platform

Intercom vs. SmartEngage

While SmartEngage and Intercom are arguably similar in many ways, SmartEngage provides a few extra features at a fraction of the cost. Among these key features is Smart Engage’s multi-channel communication support which is completely lacking from Intercom’s set of tools. This set of CRM tools manages to provide more for less while somehow making the entire process more efficient.

If you are transitioning from Intercom or another CRM suite to SmartEngage, you even have access to an onboarding agent that will migrate your data for you (for larger customer lists) and help make the transition a smooth one.

And for this reason SmartEngage is our #1 Alternative rated a 10/10 by our review staff.

To learn more about SmartEngage, you can visit their website here.

3) Freshchat (freshworks.com/live-chat-software/)

Freshchat, a platform by FreshWorks, is one of the newer CRM solutions on the market. Also one of the more affordable Intercom alternatives, Freshchat strives to provide a streamlined, minimalistic approach to CRM. With quite a few crucial features available even at a free tier, Freshchat is a competitive alternative platform.

Features

The primary focus of Freshchat is their live chat platform and how it can be used as a driven messaging and sales solution. Their interface is minimalist and very user-friendly and holds up well when compared to Intercom’s. Despite being a newer platform, it appears that Freshchat has taken cues from Intercom and built upon the CRM giant’s plethora of features.

Freshchat’s messaging interface serves to target and qualify leads effectively and with the goal of getting you a higher conversion rate, preventing the common problem of users browsing your site for mere seconds before moving on. With triggered messages, chatbots, visitor intel, multi-channel messaging, and more, they have put a real focus on how conversation with potential customers drives business and engages an individual.

In addition, there are a few live chat features Freshchat has added that are somewhat unique and go beyond what most general CRM solutions offer. With user segmentation, you can have your leads categorized by their on-site behavior as well as geographical location. You can also ensure that your potential customers get comprehensive support with features such as in-app messages, in-messenger FAQs, specified message channels to separate chats by subject, support for more than 30 languages, and a priority inbox to filter messages.

Pricing

Freshchat is another highly affordable Intercom alternative with an attractive Free tier and 30-day trial options. You can choose between being billed monthly or getting a better deal by being billed annually.

Pros And Cons

Although Freshchat has a plethora of live chat tools that make it stand out, there are a few drawbacks to the platform as well that might not make it right for your niche.

Pros

Expansive and thorough set of live chat features

Affordable and generally unrestrictive pricing packages

Free tier with 10 team members, 10,000 unique visitors per month, and unlimited contacts

Minimalist and attractive streamlined user interface

Recently added an Android mobile app so it is now available on the App Store and Google Play Store

Cons

Lacks some agent-specific functions such as leaving a note for another team member or filtering conversations by agent

Unable to merge conversations or users

May give more than one triggered message per visit

Intercom vs. Freshchat

If you are looking for a chat-focused alternative to Intercom, Freshchat is a CRM solution that takes the features Intercom has and expands upon them. The result is a comprehensive set of tools that allows you to engage with and qualify leads in a number of unique ways. It has a great user interface for both you and your potential customers, which is something that goes a long way when it comes to converting leads.

Freshchat also pulls ahead of Intercom if you’re looking for a mid-ranged CRM suite with a more than reasonable price point given its breadth of features. This makes it a great alternative solution even for small businesses.

To learn more about Freshchat, you can visit their website here.

Used correctly, live chat software can be a gamechanger, earning you more clients, customers and money. That’s why relying on a trusted name in marketing would be a good idea.

HubSpot is a good all-around choice. It offers a scalable marketing platform, one of the features of which is its live chat feature. Alongside live chat, you get everything that HubSpot is known for, from SEO tips to landing pages. And with everything integrated in one platform, analysing your data becomes that much easier.

In terms of price, HubSpot isn’t cheap. But if you’re also going to need a CRM, premade quality landing pages and email marketing tools, then HubSpot kills all those birds with just one stone.

Our verdict? The sheer range of tools HubSpot offer make them great for enterprises, and startups that plan on scaling up. Their prices are high, but you get what you pay for. 9/10.

4) LiveAgent (liveagent.com)

LiveAgent manages to simultaneously be a very simple and feature-rich CRM suite. Originally designed with support tickets in mind, LiveAgent now encompasses ticketing, live chat, knowledge base, and even customer support via phone calls. They handle their live chat system in a pretty unique way, too, which changes the customer support experience positively.

Features

The most advantageous and unique feature of LiveAgent is how they handle customer support requests. Rather than a user blindly sending a message out to your agent(s) as most CRM services do, LiveAgent searches for and connects your lead to an online agent directly. If there isn’t a representative currently available, the widget places the user in a queue until an agent becomes available, which is truly unique to LiveAgent from what I’ve seen.

LiveAgent also offers a cloud-based calling service, allowing your customer service representatives to communicate with users in a way Intercom simply doesn’t provide. This isn’t exclusive to LiveAgent in the CRM solution world but it is definitely advantageous when it comes to connecting with and converting leads.

There are also two features of LiveAgent that paint a more comprehensive real-time picture for your agents. At any time, you can view a live map of current website visitors. In addition, when someone visiting your site clicks on the chat button, your agents will be notified so they can be prepared to answer a user query as swiftly as possible.

Pricing

LiveAgent’s packages come in essentially three tiers that denote what features you receive. This straightforward pricing approach allows you to choose what package is right for your business.

Pros And Cons

LiveAgent is a great CRM service with an expansive set of tools that evolved out of a simple support ticketing solution but it does have its shortcomings. That being said, it does boast a good number of positive, effective, and unique features.

Pros

Connects leads directly to live representatives

Places leads in a queue when a representative is unavailable

Supports cloud calling center functionality

One of the most affordable live chat services

Balances and integrates features effectively

Online chat support can help with the more technical parts of the UI

Cons

Not the most attractive user interface

No chatbot or automated messaging options

Limited customization

Intercom vs. LiveAgent

LiveAgent has a good track record and is consistently rated highly by its users. For the variety of features offered and their unique live chat experience, this gives it an edge over Intercom. It also offers cloud call support, a feature Intercom simply doesn’t have at all.

Its user interface is not as streamlined as other Intercom alternatives, and even falls short of Intercom itself, but the overwhelmingly positive reviews show that this is a relatively small concern when compared with LiveAgent’s advantages.

To learn more about LiveAgent, you can visit their website here.

Drift are Intercom’s main competition. Founded back in 2015, their stated goal is to ‘is to turn the internet into a conversation.’ Rather than forcing customers or clients to slog through never-ending forms, they pioneered early (and high quality) live chat software.

They created one of the first live chat bots, which really revolutionised the industry.

Subscribing to drift is free—and if you only want to use their live chat feature, that’s free too, just like FreshChat. With that, you also get the functionality to book meetings and answer on the go through their app.

But if you want to unlock more features, like bots, you’ll have to pay. Prices currently listed range from $50 per month to $1500, with AI bots and more reserved for their Enterprise pricing scheme.

Our verdict? A trusted industry leader, Drift’s platform offers great functionality and scaling. Costs less than HubSpot, but you get less, too. 8/10.

5) Crisp (crisp.chat)

Another new CRM solution on the market is Crisp.chat, an expansive suite of tools that focuses on enhancing the live chat experience your potential customers will have. Live chat isn’t the only thing Crisp offers, though: the suite also offers analytics, automated triggers, and more.

Features

Crisp’s live chat boasts a wide variety of features in order to better engage leads and offer a memorable experience that will serve to prevent your business’s website from fading into the background along with other, more generic sites. They help capture the attention of potential customers by engaging with them via automated trigger messages. From there, Crisp’s rich user interface and breadth of customer interaction options make it easy to provide users with a unique and positive interaction.

Chatbots are an option with Crisp, as well as an integrated knowledge base, rich media sharing within the chat, and extensive integration with third party tools and social media. You have the option, if you want, to video call with customers, too, which is something not many CRM suites offer. They even have a game for customers to play while waiting to be connected with an agent.

A particularly interesting and unique feature Crisp offers is “co-browsing,” which allows your customer service representatives to temporarily take over the prospective customer’s screen, allowing them to browse together or lead the customer to the appropriate page on your site.

Pricing

Crisp is actually very affordable as an alternative, especially when one takes into account all of the innovative ways they built upon the standard Intercom created. They also have a free tier that provides you with a surprising number of features.

Pros And Cons

So far, Crisp has pulled ahead of the competition in terms of just how much they offer. That being said, it’s still important to look at this CRM solution from all angles and consider your niche.

Pros

Truly expansive chat features that provide a unique and memorable customer experience

Attractive and customizable user interface

Free tier that actually provides you with a good number of features

Includes collision detection so leads don’t get bombarded or confused by multiple agents

Company’s co-founders will sometimes answer customer support questions

Cons

Displays even outside of active office hours

Unable to merge conversations between agents or users

Intercom vs. Crisp

Crisp.chat appears to have taken note of the best parts of Intercom’s live chat feature and built upon it. The result is an intuitive and impressive CRM suite that takes on the main aims of Intercom with a healthy dose of creativity. It appears that Crisp is taking heed of popular trends such as social media and video integration and ensuring that your leads are truly engaged by enhancing the traditional live chat experience.

With all of the features available, you would expect Crisp to be at least at a similar price point of Intercom but that’s just not the case. In fact, Crisp is one of the affordable Intercom alternatives with a great free tier option which makes it ideal for small businesses as well as larger enterprises.

To learn more about Crisp, you can visit their website here.

The Bottom Line

With the number of CRM solutions available on the market, it can be difficult to know where to begin if you’re not just going with the industry giant, Intercom. But Intercom can be expensive, their customer support isn’t the best, and there are a number of other factors and features that may make you reconsider using it.

What is the Best Intercom Alternative?

After heavily evaluating the top Intercom alternatives, it was difficult to choose a single winner. Most alternatives have taken a direction Intercom offers and focused on it rather than making a direct competitor. That being said, our top pick for an Intercom alternative has to be SmartEngage due to their ability to create a truly cross-channel marketing engagement platform.

SmartEngage is expansive, affordable, and overall it has a unique approach to customer engagement and does things other CRM suites don’t. This will lead to a strong conversion rate without subjecting yourself and your business to the unpredictable pricing of Intercom.

The post Intercom Alternatives – 5 Great Options appeared first on Alternative HQ | Finding The Best Alternatives To What’s Available.

source https://alternativehq.com/intercom/ source https://astelspirals.tumblr.com/post/612935274625925120

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Trello Alternative – 5 Best Options

Here are the results of Testing 5 Alternatives for Trello

Project management tools have quickly become a key part of organising any business, structuring to-do lists and assigning tasks to staff.  These tools are also very important if you work with freelancers or have remote working options.  One of the top names is Trello but what is it and what are the best Trello alternatives.

📑 Trello Alternatives Table of Contents:

What Is Trello? What Does Trello Cost? What are the Pros and Cons of Trello?      1. Trello Pros     2. Trello Cons What are the Top 5 Trello Alternatives?      1. Asana     2. Basecamp      3. Monday     4. Teamwork      5. Clickup What About Cheaper Trello Alternatives?Are There Any Trello Alternatives That Are Free?What is the Best Trello Alternative?

What is Trello?

Trello is a Kanban-style project management tool that allows you to create boards with lists and cards within them to organise jobs.  There are a variety of features within the cards such as checklists, due dates and the ability to add people to them as well as built-in communication features.

What does Trello cost?

Trello offers a free plan that lets you have unlimited person boards and 10 boards per team.  You can have as many cards and lists as you want but there’s a 10MB limit to files. 

Many of the basic features are free to use but there are advanced features known as ‘Power-ups’ that add extra features such as calendars, custom fields and a range of integrations.  The free plan lets you have one per board, which can be different on different boards.  For more, you need to upgrade.

To upgrade, you can go for business class at $9.99 per month, per used (paid annually) to get unlimited boards and power ups as well as other features.  For companies with more than 100 users, you can go for enterprise level at $20.84 a month per user (paid annually).

Pros and cons of using Trello

Pros of Trello

Trello has quickly become one of the most popular options for project management tools, especially for fans of the Kanban-style.  Because it can be used for free, this is a great way to test the approach and it has a range of features you can use instantly. 

It works like an app so can be used on any size screen and it is easy to add members to cards, lists or boards.  It is easy to track when cards are due, and you get email notifications as well as notifications inside the software.

Cons of Trello

There are some downsides to the software.  For starters, there are limits to things like email integration while cards and tasks are stuck within one board and need to be copied or moved.  There are few options for things like freeform tags without paying for a Power-Up.

The bigger the team, the more difficult (and potential expensive) it can be to use Trello for project management.  It does miss out on some of the features that Trello alternatives offer such as Gantt charts and the ability to view the project from a high level. 

Top 5 Trello Alternatives

While there are a lot of good points about Trello, it isn’t always what everyone wants.  But the good news is that there are some excellent Trello alternatives to consider and here are five of the top ones.  Let’s look at why they might be what you need.

Asana

Asana works by creating digital workspaces that you can use on your own or with a team.  Inside these workspaces, you have projects and then you can create tasks.  There are even options for sub-tasks within the task and a range of ways to view these including as a list or a calendar.

Tasks can be assigned to someone, progress monitored and comments between people in the workspace viewed on them.  This makes it ideal for project management but also for a wide range of other tasks such as collaborating with a freelancer or organising meetings.

Asana offers a comprehensive free plan that lets you use most of the basic features but if you want to upgrade, there is a minimum number of users regardless of how many people actually need it.  It integrates with a wide range of other software including Google Calendar and Dropbox.

The main downsides are that you can’t assign a task to more than one person and there’s no time tracking within the software – you need a separate time tracker for this.

Basecamp

Basecamp is a project management tool designed primarily to be used by teams and includes a range of collaboration and communication features.  It is a visually pleasant tool to use, opting for icons rather than lists and lets users comment on files, assign tasks and also lets everyone know about user actions.

The software is easy to set up and can be used to track projects, watch deadlines and communication within a team.  You can assign priorities to projects and keep all the documents in one place.

There is a free and a paid plan.  The free plan has some limits as to features and also the number of users while there is a flat monthly price currently $99 for the upgrade that isn’t dependent on the number of users.

While Basecamp is great for collaboration, it does tend to be very simple and this means you don’t get the range of extra features that make other tools multi-purpose and useful.

Monday

Monday is another collaboration and communication project management tool that creates an easy to follow system to track progress.  It uses a board concept that shows projects and tasks with each being able to be assigned to different team members.  People outside the company can also receive notifications and alerts.

The software is easy to configure and comes with an extensive knowledge database to help people learn it.  There is an ease of communication including asking questions and commenting on updates built into all of the projects and tasks.

One of the biggest downsides is the notification system which is quite awkward.  There’s an inbox and notification bar and finding the settings for it can be tricky.  You can also can’t share a ‘pulse’ (task) between boards so you have to create it in multiple places if you need it there.

Monday offers a free trial but there’s no free plan.  Prices start from $25 a month for the basic plan through to $119 a month for the enterprise level.

Teamwork

Teamwork is a project management system that has a range of great features based around two main modules, Projects and Desk.  The former includes a range of tools including Gantt charts, task management and time tracking while Desk allows for ease of collaboration between team members.

This tool makes it easy for people to collaborate on a project with unified inboxes and ticket assignment and statuses.  You can even email customers from within the software to keep track of everything in one place.  One thing that doesn’t work is it doesn’t integrate with Windows Internet Explorer.

It offers a free trial and Free Forever basic plan with more advanced plants starting from $11.25 a month per user for Projects and $7 a month per agent for Desk plans.  This does mean that for larger companies, the cost could add up.

ClickUp

ClickUp is a cloud-based project management tool that works for solopreneurs, small businesses and large companies alike with a balance of communication and collaboration tools with project management.  It includes the ability to assign tasks to users, comment on tasks and also use custom statuses to track work being done.

It has a similar hierarchy to Asana with Teams, Spaces and Projects then Lists, Tasks and finally Subtasks.  It can be used for events planning, project management, networking but also for things like setting priorities.  This makes it a well-rounded tool that includes features not seen on many of the other Trello alternatives.

Sometimes the range of features can be seen as a downside, but many users find you can simply focus on the ones you need.  The great options for customisation are also both a pro and con – you can spend too much time customising and not enough working!

ClickUp offers a Free Forever plan that allows 100MB storage and unlimited tasks and users.  If you want to have extra features such as goals, portfolios and custom fields, plans are $6.98 a month per user and there’s a free trial to see if these features are what you need.

What About Cheaper Trello Alternatives?

If you want to upgrade to include all the extra features in Trello, the cost is around $10 a month per user.  But there are cheaper Trello alternatives if you want extra features but want to keep the costs down.

Of the Trello alternatives, ClickUp offers a lower prices of just under $7 a month per user to get access to features such as goals and custom fields.  If you only need limited features, then the free plans on ClickUp and Asana may be enough for your needs.

Are there any Trello Alternatives that are Free?

ClickUp, Asana, Basecamp and Teamwork all offer a free plan.  This allows you to make use of the software in its basic form and see what features you need.  For many users, especially if you have no team or just a small one, then the free plans on these apps may be more than enough for what you need.  You can also use Trello’s basic features for free.

What Is the Best Trello Alternative?

If you aren’t a Trello fan but want something that helps you organise your working life, these Trello alternatives are great.  In terms of the combination of features and ability to customize, ClickUp comes out on top and their pricing structure with a free plan and per-user costs also makes it a cost-effective project management tool.

The post Trello Alternative – 5 Best Options appeared first on Alternative HQ | Finding The Best Alternatives To What’s Available.

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Chatfuel Alternative

Chatbots have been establishing themselves as an indispensable business optimization tool. They are able to solve complex customer service issues, improve tech support, create effective sales channels, and provide solutions to automate various internal and external processes. Chatfuel is a pioneer in chatbot building and customization for enterprises of all scales and industries. With all its popularity and distinctions, is it all it’s cracked up to be? In this post, we review its key features and suggest three trustworthy Chatfuel alternatives to take your business to a whole new level.

📑 Chatfuel Alternative Table of Contents:

What are Facebook Messenger Chatbots? Why Do You Need Chatbots?      a. Automated Website Support     b. Virtual Sales Assistant     c. High Engagement     d. User Segmentation Tips For Using Chatbots      1. Determine the Goal     2. Analyze Interactions with Previous Customers     3. Make Your Bot Sound Human     4. Provide Simple Interaction      5. Use Delays Between Messages     6. Don’t Pretend to Be Human     7. Provide Real Communication Also     8. Make it Simple to Unsubscribe     9. Write a Welcome Message What Is Chatfuel?The Top 3 Chatfuel Alternatives      1. MobileMonkey         a. MobileMonkey Pros & Cons     2. ManyChat         a. ManyChat Pros & Cons     3. SmartEngage         a. SmartEngage Pros & Cons Are There Any Chatfuel Alternatives That Are Free? What About Cheaper Chatfuel Alternatives? What is The Best Chatfuel Alternative?

What Are Facebook Messenger Chatbots?

Chatbot for Facebook Messenger is an application that makes it possible to autonomously maintain a dialogue with a person for solving certain marketing tasks. These can include automatic answers to popular questions or more complex actions including displaying product catalogs or sending out messages (including photos, videos, and attachments).

Communication with customers is an important aspect of any business. The success of this interaction determines whether or not a person purchases your products or services. Usually, a Facebook page administrator answers users’ questions. This gives a dialog with prospects a personal touch but takes a lot of time and effort. To free admins from routine work and use their skills to solve more challenging tasks, you can employ an AI-powered virtual conversationalist, that is, a chatbot. You are able to train and configure a bot to respond to your subscribers single-handedly. Some chatbots are so skillful at communication that users simply don’t have a clue that they actually talk to artificial intelligence instead of a real person.

Why Do You Need Chatbots?

Chatbots help businesses automate communication with users and accomplish a variety of goals ranging from efficient customer support to effortless lead generation. With this simple app, you can significantly reduce expenditure since you don’t need many employers to talk to prospects. At the same time, a bot is able to engage a real person to a chat if it is not able to handle users’ requests on its own.

Below are four tasks that chatbots can do for your business:

a. Automated Website Support

Thanks to a chatbot, you can collect frequently asked questions and add auto-answers to each of them. Thus, your support team will have more time to solve critical and complex issues. The other advantage of a FAQ chatbot is that it is available 24/7.

b. Virtual Sales Assistant

You can teach bots to ask questions and prepare answer-based personal offers. For example, a bot can talk to a client to find out what he/she is looking for and then suggest relevant products. After a client has made his/her choice, a bot is able to ask for contact information and delivery address.

c. High Engagement

Unlike email marketing campaigns, messaging via Facebook Messenger boasts unmatched user involvement. With the Open Rate and Click-Through Rate of around 90% and 60% respectively, respondents are likely to read all your messages. Your Facebook Messenger bots can provide follow-up materials and information to any user who has previously contacted your Facebook page. For example, you can use a chatbot app to send out promotional newsletters, notifications, updates, etc.

d. User Segmentation

Chatbots help segment the audience, determine its needs and recommend relevant deals. Moreover, you can prepare personalized propositions to customers based on their age, location, previous experience with your company, and other parameters.

Tips For Using Chatbots

Chatbots are pretty straightforward marketing tools yet you need to know certain hacks to maximize their potential. Here are a few useful tips to make your bot a valuable addition to your marketing team:

1. Determine the Goal

To start with, focus on the most important services you are going to provide your users with via a chatbot (customer support, sales consultant, etc.). When you see a clear goal, you can more easily come up with a list of functions a bot ought to perform.

2. Analyze Interactions with Previous Customers

Before creating a chatbot for Facebook Messenger, you need to analyze dozens of previous dialogues with your subscribers. You should be able to see what questions they usually ask, how they react, what additional data they require after receiving an answer, etc. Make sure to review the entire chain of conversation to provide a bot with comprehensive information and user behavior details.

3. Make Your Bot Sound Human

The best way to engage a person in a dialog is to create a relaxed atmosphere. That’s why chatbots should sound like a friend rather than a soulless autoresponder. To create an illusion that your bot is a real person, it’s best to dilute plain text with emoticons, images, and GIF-animation. On top of that, make sure your messages are simple, easy to understand, and on point.

4. Provide Simple Interaction

The main task of a chatbot is to save clients time and ensure fast interaction with your brand. It makes sense to use Call-to-Action elements to deliver users to specific product categories, website pages, or checkouts. Thanks to Call-to-Action, clients will receive only useful information and move faster through the marketing funnel. To speed up the interaction process, you need to ensure clients don’t have to make more than 5 clicks. Also, don’t write long texts – normally, two short sentences per message are more than enough.

5. Use Delays Between Messages

Users need time to read a message and make a decision. Therefore, do not swamp recipients with several messages at once. The best strategy is to make 3-5 second pauses between consecutive posts.

6. Don’t Pretend to be Human

If you tell your subscribers that they are served by AI, you can avoid frustration and negative feelings towards your brand caused by a bot’s limited capabilities or off the mark replies. Along with that, don’t forget to inform users when a real person takes over.

7. Provide Real Communication Also

Despite artificial intelligence technology, chatbots are not almighty. Therefore, you should envision the option to contact a rep or a support team member.

8. Make it Simple to Unsubscribe

Make sure to add an unsubscribe button or link. These options can be found in the bot settings menu.

9. Write a Welcome Message

You know what your chatbot is for but your subscribers may not be aware of it. To engage them in a conversation, create a welcome message to describe what your bot is capable of and how it can be useful.

What is Chatfuel?

Chatfuel allows building chatbots without any programming skills under your belt. According to the developers, it only takes 7 minutes to create your own conversational interface for Facebook Messanger. The platform provides a set of templates fully customizable according to your needs. If required, you can integrate Chatfuel with other services, such as Twitter, YouTube, JSON, Instagram, etc.

The app is completely free if you have no more than 1000 subscribers. The trial version, however, has a watermark, which can be removed only with a paid plan. Paid subscriptions start at $15 per month and are based on the number of users you plan to contact. Chatfuel prides itself on helping create about 360,000 bots that serve more than 17 million users worldwide.

Chatfuel is a simple and intuitive tool for building personalized interactive agents with extensive functionality. Despite the fact that this is one of the most popular Facebook Messanger apps, it is not without its flaws. In particular,

– it is difficult to build elaborate non-linear bots;

– poor support for branching, subroutines, and variable operations;

– limited and hard-to-set-up Neuro-Linguistic Programming features;

– insufficient tech support.

If you are not ready to put up with these shortcomings, you may want to look for other chatbot solutions. Below, we singled out 3 worthy alternatives to Chatfuel.

The Top 3 Chatfuel Alternatives

1. MobileMonkey

The platform makes it possible to create bots for marketing, lead generation, and customer support. With MobileMonkey, you can design bots from scratch or customize the available templates. In addition to Facebook Messanger, you are able to install the app on your website to engage, command interest, and convert visitors to customers. MobileMonkey is a breeze to use even despite the lack of bot visualization scheme feature.

The free version is available without restrictions on the number of bots and subscribers. A paid subscription starts from $19 / month for personal use and from $ 149 / month for corporate clients.

a. MobileMonkey Pros & Cons

👍Pros: *Easy to create advanced bots *Robust Functionality

👎Cons: *Plans are a bit pricey *Limited Reporting *Not many integrations *no visual builder for sequences

2. ManyChat

ManyChat is designed to create knowledge script bots. Its goal is to automate the process of communication with clients through greetings, product demonstrations, notifications, and support. The app is very similar to ChatFuel in terms of functionality but it gains the upper hand thanks to the useful Flow Builder feature. This mode lets you see your bot as a chart of interlinked messages.

ManyChat has a free version with certain restrictions, which, however, supports an unlimited number of users. Paid rates start from $10 per month.

a. ManyChat Pros & Cons

👍Pros: *Good visual editor *Simple bot builder *Lots of helpful articles

👎Cons: *Free plan is very limited *Frequently has downtime issues *Difficult to properly integrate email

3. SmartEngage

SmartEngage is the only app that utilizes the cross-platform feature to the max. It is not just a tool to create Facebook chatbots but also a solution to provide integration among the messenger, email provider, and push notifications. The software is a snap to use even if you have no programming skills at all. Thanks to the drag and drop interface, you can add text, audio-video files, galleries, and other elements to make your messages user-friendly and easy on the eye. With IF conditionals, you are able to fine-tune automated messages to reach the right person at the right time. Besides that, SmartEngage boasts integrated Lead Ads feature that allows collecting leads right from Facebook. If you have a small follower base (up to 100 subscribers) you can make use of the free plan with limited yet decent functionality. If you are going to reach out to more subscribers, paid plans start from $40 per month.

a. SmartEngage Pros & Cons

👍Pros: *Really nice Dag n’ Drop visual builder *Cross-channel communication includes email *Great reviews *Great customer support

👎Cons: *Slight learning curve *Free version is good but has limitations

Are There Any Chatfuel Alternatives That Are Free?

In fact, most of the chatbot apps have a free version. If you are a marketer on a shoestring budget, you will have plenty of options to choose from. However, you should keep in mind that these free plans are inferior to premium subscriptions in terms of functionality and the number of conversations and/or followers supported per month. Besides that, with free Facebook Messanger chatbots, every message you send to the other party will feature a branded element, for instance ‘Powered by (the name of Chatbot software)’.

When it comes to free Chatfuel subscription, you will get basic functionality and support of up to 1000 users. The following chatbot builders are also available with free plans:

SmartEngage allows creating an unlimited number of conversation within a subscription base of up to 100 people;

With ManyChat free plan, you can contact the unlimited number of users but its functionality leaves much to be desired;

MobileMonkey sets no contact limits in its free plan but the available functions are limited. Plus, your messages will feature MobileMonkey branding;

ActiveChat permits you to create two bots and send maximum 1000 messages a month to 500 users;

With Flow Xo free subscriptions, you can create 5 chatbots and send up to 500 messages a month.

What About Cheaper Chatfuel Alternatives?

Chatfuel is a budget-friendly app that starts from $15 per month for the Pro version. Although this subscription option provides full functionality and an unlimited number of messages, all your interactions with users happen only within Facebook Messenger. However, your target audience spreads far beyond Facebook, so you may need to add more tools to your marketing arsenal to embrace users on other platforms. Besides extra cost, you will have to rack your brain to establish interaction with disparate applications or even hire a programmer. If you look at Chatfuel from an integration perspective, its price is no longer reasonable.

Instead of purchasing several apps for various lines of work, you can get a single solution that delivers all necessary functions. For as low as $40 per month, you can benefit from multiplatform lead magnets, push notifications, Facebook lead Ads, Email automated newsletters, and many other useful features. Provided how many tools SmartEngage accommodates, it is a cheaper alternative not only to Chatfuel but also the majority of marketing apps that perform a single function.

What is The Best Chatfuel Alternative?

Chatfuel is a sought-after chatbot constructor with ample functionality and intuitive interface but it has its downsides. In this day and age, when companies require integration among various business processes, Chatfuel is simply missing this opportunity. Instead of focusing on Facebook Messenger exclusively, you can have cross-platform interaction provided by SmartEngage. Its powerful features enable you to embrace a wider audience via Facebook, Email newsletter, and push notifications. The bottom line is that SmartEngage is the best Chatfuel alternative for marketers who want to have it all.

Let us know what you think about SmartEngage below 👇

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ClickFunnels Alternatives – Ultimate Guide

Business owners and entrepreneurs across a range of sectors will be familiar with ClickFunnels and what it can help with when it comes to your online digital marketing. When you are running a business or launching a new product; it is vital that you have a well-focused sales funnel in order for you to succeed. Tools such as ClickFunnels and ClickFunnels alternatives can help with this effortlessly.

📑 ClickFunnels Alternatives Table of Contents:

What Is ClickFunnels? Why Choose A ClickFunnels Alternative? The Top 3 ClickFunnels Alternatives For 2019      1. Convertri     2. Leadpages     3. 10 Minute Funnels Are There Any ClickFunnels Alternatives That Are Free?What About Cheaper ClickFunnels Alternatives?What Is The Best ClickFunnels Alternative? Convertri Pros & Cons Comparison Chart

What is ClickFunnels?

credit: clickfunnels.com

ClickFunnels is an online platform that allows business owners to easily set up a series of web pages that are known as funnels. These pages have a specific and obvious call to action for the website visitor and are often essential for an online marketing strategy. Whatever goal you have for your web visitors, ClickFunnels can help to achieve this, and in turn, secure you more business and return customers.

Whether your goal is to get visitors to enter their email address and sign up to your newsletter, or purchase a product directly on your website, ClickFunnels will design web pages to encourage this. These web pages will be very simple and straightforward, with a limited amount of information so as not to overload the visitor, followed by a specific call to action.

In many cases, there is more than one action that you want your customers to make on your website, and this is where the sales funnel comes in. ClickFunnels can create different funnel types that are designed specifically to your business and your goals. Developing these various online funnels is really easy, and no design skills are needed, as the process is a simple drag and drop. There is also a range of templates already built that you can begin using straight away, as well as various other digital features.

Why Choose a ClickFunnels Alternative?

ClickFunnels is an excellent tool for creating an easy website and online sales funnel, but it certainly isn’t the only service of its kind or even the best for that matter. ClickFunnels is a well-known option, but there is a wealth of other alternatives that offer the same great features of ClickFunnels and more.

One of the biggest drawbacks of ClickFunnels is the hefty price tag that comes with it. A simple ClickFunnels account with no added extras costs $97 a month, but the plan they really try to push you into costs a whopping $297 per month. If your budget is not excessive, then the cost could easily to be too much to swallow. As well as being expensive, ClickFunnels can often be too much for small businesses that don’t need all the features on offer.

So, if you’re looking for the benefits of ClickFunnels but without the price tag, what should you look for?

The Top 3 ClickFunnels Alternatives For 2019

There is a vast array of ClickFunnels alternatives available to businesses of all shapes and sizes, each with their own features, benefits and drawbacks. The Top 3 ClickFunnels alternatives for 2019 are:

Convertri

credit: convertri logo

Many business owners, entrepreneurs and marketers are choosing Convertri for their website building and online sales funnels, and it is clear to see why. They focus on offering faster sales funnels and an easy to use system that can be mastered by anyone. Convertri provides a few features that are above and beyond those of ClickFunnels, making it an excellent alternative. Some of Convertri’s key features include:

Speed

Speed is one of the most important aspects of any website and having a good site speed can increase conversion rates and help with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). One of Convertri’s biggest benefits is its high-speed pages on both desktop and mobile devices. The accelerated pages offer some of the fastest landing pages on the web, which in turn leads to increased sales and conversions and more satisfied customers.

Intuitive Funnel Planner

One of the most significant benefits Convertri has over ClickFunnels is its Funnel Planner tool. This is a great visual tool for designing an entire sales funnel easily, helping you plan out everything from opt-ins to checkouts. There is no limit to linear flows or need to draw up your sales funnel on a whiteboard before you begin building. The easy click and drag arrows allow you to connect pages within your sales funnel effortlessly.

Drag and Drop Page Builder

Convertri prides themselves on having a super easy page builder that can be mastered by anyone within minutes. The page editor gives you complete freedom to create any page design you can think of, without the constraints of columns and rows. The drag and drop page builder is sleek and simple to use and allows you to place any element, anywhere on the page. Compared to the block builder style on ClickFunnels and many other sales funnel builders.

Price

The price of a product is one of the key deciding factors when choosing a sales funnel tool. While you should look at a sales funnel as an investment into your business that will generate a return, there is no need to be paying over the odds. ClickFunnels is known for being a pricey product, and Convertri offers a more reasonable price range that depends on the number of impressions your site receives. Convertri also provides the chance to use the sales funnel tool on a free trial, so you can try before you buy.

The annual cost for the same features on ClickFunnels will set you back $1164. However, Convertri will cost just $297 for more features over the same period! 

Leadpages

credit: leadpages logo

Leadpages is another strong contender in the landing page solutions market and was one of the first solutions available to businesses. As they have been around so long, Leadpages have had the chance to upgrade, reform and fine-tune their product, making it a popular choice for many.

It has slightly more focus on landing pages than sales funnels compared with both ClickFunnels and Convertri, but there is still the function to create funnels within Leadpages. Leadpages key features include:

Templates

Leadpages has a fairly extensive template library available for users to choose from, making it quick and easy to build simple landing pages from pre-made designs. There are over 130 different templates to choose from, and then also the choice to purchase other templates online should you wish.

If there are no templates to suit your website, you can create your own in the page editor.

Advanced and Basic Editors

Leadpages offer two different landing page editors suited to users with different website creation experience. There is a basic edition designed to suit those with little or no knowledge in building and creating web pages, and then an advanced edition which offers more customisation and freedom to edit the page as you please.

Price

There are three different pricing options to choose from with Leadpages. Standard, Pro and Advanced options are available, and the prices vary depending on which you prefer. The basic option is a fairly cheap choice ($25 a month for Standard, $48 a month for Pro and $199 a month for Advanced) compared with many other sales funnel and landing page builders, making it a popular option for small businesses.

10 Minute Funnels

For those looking for an easy website builder and sales funnel creator, 10 Minute Funnels is a popular option as it is designed specifically for that purpose. As the name suggests, it focuses on a quick and easy process for creating sales funnels and landing pages. 10 Minute Funnels main features include:

Unlimited Sales Funnel Builder

10 Minute Funnels offer a sales funnel builder that means you can create a complete sales funnel in just a matter of minutes. There is no limit on the number of different pages you can create in your website or funnel, and their sales funnel builder allows you to link up all your upsells, downsells, thank you pages, opt-in pages and webinar pages effortlessly.

Drag and Drop Builder

When you choose 10 Minute Funnels, there is no need for any technical skills or website building experience. The easy to use drag and drop page builder is simple and instantly integrates your pages with no hassle. The builder is slightly limited compared with that of Convertri, as there is less freedom to design the page exactly as you wish.

Price

Unlike many other sales funnel builders, 10 Minute Funnels doesn’t offer a free trial. However, you can try their system for 14 days for just $1. After this trial, you can choose from either their Premium or Enterprise plans, which vary in price. The overall cost of 10 Minute Funnels is more than some of the other alternatives available, but the number of features can make it worthwhile.

Are There Any ClickFunnels Alternatives That Are Free?

Any alternative to ClickFunnels will have some pricing associated with it, and it is important to remember that a sales funnel and landing page building tool is an investment for your business.

Making an easy process for your customers to purchase your products and services will increase conversion and ultimately make your business more revenue over time, so a sales funnel tool is almost always worth paying out for.

The majority of ClickFunnels alternatives, such as Convertri or Leadpages, offer some form of free trial period. This means you can try out the features of the tool and get to grips with how it works before committing to using it for your website visitors.

What About Cheaper ClickFunnels Alternatives?

ClickFunnels is one of the more expensive options for sales funnel building tools, partly because of its popularity and well-known name. There are a number of alternatives available that are cheaper than ClickFunnels and offer the same, or sometimes even better, features and services.

What Is The Best ClickFunnels Alternative?

There are a vast number of ClickFunnels alternatives available to business owners and entrepreneurs, and with all aspects considered, Convertri comes out on top. Convertri’s primary focus is high-speed web pages that will increase conversion and are simple to create, and they achieve this perfectly.

One of the key advantages is the true free form drag and drop page builder which allows you to place elements anywhere you like, unlike the block builder styles used on ClickFunnels and many other alternatives. Convertri is also one of the cheaper options to ClickFunnels, while still offering an excellent return on your investment through high-converting, fast sales funnels.

In summary, ClickFunnels is a useful tool for businesses and entrepreneurs looking for an easy to use sales funnel and landing page builder. However, there are some more impressive alternatives to consider.

If you are looking for a straightforward, flexible and high-speed option for sales funnels and landing pages, that won’t break the bank but still offer an excellent conversion rate, then Convertri is for you. We recommend making it even more powerful by pairing it with SmartEngage which you can read more about in our Aweber Alternative article here.

As most ClickFunnels alternatives, including Convertri, provide a free trial period, you can try out various tools to see which works best for you and your business.

Get Your Free 14-Day Trial Now

How does Convertri stack up side by side? See for yourself below

Convertri Pros & Cons Comparison Chart

Get Your Free 14-Day Trial Now

The post ClickFunnels Alternatives – Ultimate Guide appeared first on Alternative HQ | Finding The Best Alternatives To What’s Available.

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Aweber Alternative

Is there a better auto-responder worth looking at?

Launched two decades ago, Aweber is one of the most well-known and much-respected names at the table of email marketing solutions. With this powerful tool at your disposal, you can manage email databases and forward customized HTML newsletters in a swift and professional manner. Thanks to its simplicity, excellent customer support, and impressive email deliverability, Aweber is widely utilized by a plethora of beginners and seasoned digital marketers alike. Not only that, but this autoresponder features comprehensive analytics and reporting tools to enable tracking subscribers’ actions and gauging marketing campaign metrics.

📑 Aweber Alternative Table of Contents:

What is wrong with Aweber? Aweber Cons SmartEngage Review and Features      1. Cross-Channel Sequences     2. Lead Magnets     3. Subscriber Profiles     4. Email Marketing     5. Facebook Chatbots     6. Web Push Notifications What About Integrations?How is SmartEngage’s Customer Support?How Much Does SmartEngage Cost? SmartEngage Bottom Line & Pros/Cons

On the other hand, Aweber is not without drawbacks. The inability to meet users’ demand for new all-around functions and underwhelming updates have significantly undermined its position in the market. Perhaps you, too, have realized that the current functionality is just not quite able to satisfy your digital marketing needs. If you are seeking an Aweber alternative, this post reveals a powerful autoresponder that covers all the bases.

What is Wrong with Aweber?

If you are a novice in digital marketing and you don’t have to solve complex marketing tasks, Aweber might still be a solid option. However, if you want to keep every aspect of your campaigns under control and wish to easily fine-tune email templates at your discretion, you will definitely demand more than Aweber can offer. Along with insufficient functionality, the email provider suffers from other drawbacks that might hinder your ability to maximize your marketing potential.

Aweber Cons:

Aweber is not the cheapest email provider around, especially if you manage a large database.

Many of its templates have outdated designs.

Automatic triggers are limited only to a subscription to a list or tag application.

You are not able to utilize the built-in drag-and-drop email constructor for the RSS to email templates.

Many users have reported about a bug in the edit panel that makes it shift around the screen when tweaking newsletter templates.

You are not able to add or remove multiple segments simultaneously while editing newsletters.

The delivery is a bit slow, especially for certain advanced themes. You may even run into crashes.

Aweber charges for unsubscribed users and duplicate subscribers found on multiple lists.

As you can see, there are a multitude of reasons to switch from Aweber to something more modern, versatile, and multifunctional. Don’t settle for less when you can have everything Aweber offers and much more into the bargain. Without further ado, we introduce the best alternative to Aweber in 2019 – SmartEngage.

Our Choice for Overall Best Autoresponder

SmartEngage Review and Features

SmartEngage is more than an autoresponder. In fact, it is a unique solution to deliver your messages across multiple platforms including email, Facebook chat bots, and push notifications. Thanks to the cross-channel embrace, most clients see a phenomenal 80% boost in subscription lists. Reaching your target audience and gaining new leads has never been easier with SmartEngage and its automated solutions.

So what does SmartEngage have in store that puts it in a league of its own? The following review highlights its main features and benefits.

Cross-Channel Sequences

SmartEngage makes it possible to create custom rules and sequences based on triggers and user’s actions. You can customize them as your heart desires. Once you have fine-tuned your sequences, you can sit back and relax because SmartEngage will take care of the marketing aspect of your business on its own.

Thanks to extensive yet easy-to-use “If/Or” triggers and conditionals, you are able to toggle the settings and choose which messages to send, when, and to which users. With SmartEngage, you are capable of managing email newsletters, Facebook Messenger and Push notifications from a single control panel.

Not only does SmartEngage benefit you in establishing inter-channel interaction but also helps keep track of purchases made by your clients. In addition, it will calculate the Lifetime value (LTV) of each particular customer.

Three platforms-in-one;

“If” and “Then” conditionals and behavior triggers;

Purchase tracking;

LTV for every client.

Lead Magnets

SmartEngage delivers Lead Magnets to aid you in building a subscriber database in a jiffy and effortless fashion. You can incorporate call to action elements for landing pages, email newsletters, push notifications, as well as Facebook messengers. That said, SmartEngage harvests information without forcing subscribers to fill in too many fields. Whether you employ Mobile Mailer or Facebook Lead Ad, the application will automatically capture users name, last name, and a verified email address. As soon as this contact information is received, SmartEngage will independently add a subscriber’s email to the list and provide it with a pre-selected tag.

The software is as easy and effective when it comes to Facebook comment reply automation. All you have to do is specify a post the autoresponder should be applied to, and SmartEngage will reply on your behalf to each comment left by users. Moreover, after that, users engaged in the conversation will be added to the subscriber list.

Opt-in Forms;

Mobile Mailer technology;

Facebook Lead Ads;

Facebook Comment Autoreply;

Automated subscriber lists.

Subscriber Profiles

Not only does SmartEngage collect users’ contact information but also permits digital marketers to obtain data revealing the value of each subscriber. Profiles compiled based on social media accounts contain data regarding the number of users’ followers. It helps to define influencer subscribers and customize your newsletters for them accordingly. If an email address is received from other sources, SmartEngage will automatically complement the profile with a user’s first and last name to make newsletters more personalized.

Along with that, you can track the interaction of recipients with your emails. SmartEngage provides statistics concerning delivered, viewed, and clicked e-mails, opened landing pages, and other indicators.

Subscription profiles retrieved via email newsletters, Facebook messenger, and push notifications;

Stats on every user;

Automatic social intelligence;

Subscribers’ journeys.

Email Marketing

SmartEngage allows resolving various tasks within the frames of email marketing. While at the first stage it obtains contact information from users, it further verifies its worthiness. By employing the SmartClean algorithm, you can screen out useless emails, i.e. which contain typos, have signs of spam traps, bots, or role accounts.

No email service provider is effective if it’s incapable of delivering your messages to recipients or if they end up in the spam box. Fortunately, SmartEngage was able to avoid mistakes made by its counterparts. It takes pride in unparalleled deliverability and inbox rate. The software lends convenient statistics that display the number of sent emails, the share and the number of received ones, the percentage of open newsletters, Click to open rate, as well as average earning including earning per click and per open.

If your subscribers have not opened your messages for some time, you can try to grab their attention once again by sending a newsletter with an alternative subject line. If this does not help either, SmartEngage will try to command recipients’ interest by sending your message through another platform.

A/B testing;

Smart broadcasts;

Smart Clean technology;

Event-triggered automated emails;

Extensive Reports and Analytics;

Drag-and-Drop Editor;

Responsive Templates.

Facebook Chatbots

Live communication with potential customers requires a lot of time and resources. SmartEngage provides a simple solution to establish contact with Facebook users without the need to send messages manually. The aforementioned sequences, triggers, and custom fields turn segmentation and lead nurturing into a walk in the park.

As for the bot construction and configuration, SmartEngage has one of the most intuitive, easy to use, and convenient interfaces we have ever seen. You do not have to resort to professional programmers to give your bot a commanding and natural behavior. With the drag-and-drop editor, you can add text, images, galleries, cards, video and audio files and much more in mere seconds.

Segmentation;

Canned response

Geo targeting

Third party integration

Drag-and-Drop chatbot editor

Push Notifications

Push Notifications has been among the most influential digital marketing trends for a while but only a handful of marketing tools allow employing them to the max. Whenever you add a new post, update products, or arrange a sale, you can let your users know about it courtesy of push notifications.

On top of that, SmartEngage permits forwarding messages when your visitors open certain pages or manifest particular behavior.

Event-triggered push notifications;

Behavior-based triggers;

Integrations

As an experienced marketer, you probably use a bunch of software to keep the business running and monitor your performance. With SmartEngage on board, you are able to reduce the number of third-party apps to a minimum. However, you might still want to continue using some of the tools and if so, it is vital to integrate those with SmartEngage. Currently, you can team up SmartEngage with Zapier, Kajabi, Stripe, PayPal, Sales Force, Shopify, and many others. Please note that this function is not available with the free membership.

Customer Support

Since SmartEngage packs an unbelievable number of features, it may seem overwhelming at first glance. Fortunately, the first impressions can be deceptive. Developers have provided detailed step-by-step Video Tutorials, Knowledge Base, and FAQs so you can quickly comprehend all the available features and easily pull off digital marketing. If something remains unclear or you run into an issue, a competent online support is in place. You may also make use of phone support if you require immediate assistance or just enjoy the “personal touch”.

Price

Another good thing about SmartEngage is that you can test it out absolutely at no charge. You can do it in two ways. First of all, it provides a Free subscription plan suitable for private entrepreneurs and small businesses that handle subscription databases of up to 100 emails. With this plan, you will get the most useful functions such as Facebook messenger bots, advanced automation, push notifications, conversion and LTV tracking. The downside is that this package doesn’t include full functionality. You will miss out the 3rd party integration, mobile mailer, Facebook lead ads, page comments, etc.

The other way to familiarize with SmartEngage is to make use of its 14-day trial period that is available through the Basic and Pro tariffs. If you opt for this option, you’ll benefit from every single bell and whistle SmartEngage has under the hood.

If you are ready for a commitment, SmartEngage will be your all-in-one marketing tool for as low as $40 per month. All available plans are as follows:

Basic (up to 2500 subscribers) –    $40/ month (charged annually);

$47/ month (charged monthly).

Pro (up to 5500 subscribers)    –    $83 / month (charged annually);

$97 month (charged monthly)

If your subscription list exceeds 5500 emails, you can ask for a custom quote and get a service that meets your needs to a T.

Bottom Line

SmartEngage is more than another autoresponder tool. It is revolutionary software that accommodates an email service provider, push notifications, and Facebook chat bot under one roof. SmartEngage boasts powerful functionality that makes the lives of digital marketers easier. Having it under your fingertips, you can set up intelligent triggers and conditions in order to automatically send predefined messages and simplify the process of interaction with your clients. With SmartEngage, you will notice a boost of subscribers in no time.

👍Pros: *Outstanding value for money *Cross-channel autoresponder *Great reviews *Built in Lead Magnets for email, Facebook, and push *Outstanding inbox rate *Smart Clean technology handles worthless emails *Facebook Ads integration for Lead Ads or Messenger bots *Beautiful reports and tracking

👎Cons: *Slight learning curve

Join SmartEngage Free Trial

The post Aweber Alternative appeared first on Alternative HQ | Finding The Best Alternatives To What’s Available.

source https://alternativehq.com/aweber/ source https://astelspirals.tumblr.com/post/185235562960

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Teachable Alternative – 5 Best Ones

Creating recurring revenue for your business is key to growth and one of the best ways to do that is with an online course.  This means you can constantly offer the course while also helping people solve a problem.  That’s why the e-learning industry has grown so much.  One of the top platforms to host a course is Teachable but what does it do and are there Teachable alternatives to consider?

📑 Teachable Alternatives Table of Contents:

Why e-learning is a key part of growing a business What you want from an online course platform What is Teachable? What does Teachable cost? Pros and cons of using Teachable The Top 5 Teachable Alternatives for 2019      1. Thinkific     2. Zippy Courses     3. Podia     4. Teachery     5. Everlesson What About Cheaper Teachable Alternatives?Are there any Teachable Alternatives that are Free?What Is The Best Teachable Alternative?

Why e-learning is a key part of growing a business

One of the big growth areas in the last decade has been the world of online learning and digital courses.  In 2015, the e-learning market was worth around $165 billion, and it is expected to be worth $240 billion by 2023.  This also comes at a time when college education costs are increasing, making it harder for people to be able to afford to go to college.

And the brilliant thing about creating an e-course is that you don’t need to be a qualified teacher to be able to create one.  People have created courses on anything from watercolor painting to affiliate marketing or even how to use a bespoke piece of software utilized within a business.  That means if you have knowledge that other people want, there’s no reason that you can’t make a course.  What you do need is an online course platform.

What you want from an online course platform

When we talk about Teachable and Teachable alternatives, we are talking about online course platforms.  These are specialist types of software that host your course and allow you to collect payments by connecting with payment processors such as PayPal and Stripe.

There are some features you want to look for when you are comparing the different platforms.  First you want it to be private and secure so that students need to log into their account to access the content they have paid for.  Showing progress through the course and having an outline is useful and the ability for students to leave comments on each lesson that the course owner can view and respond to is also helpful.

What is Teachable?

If you research online course platforms, you will quickly run into Teachable.  It is currently one of the top platforms for people to host their courses.  Teachable lets you host video files as well as add text, process payments and even create sales pages for your course.  The platform was launched in 2014 and there are over 15 million students currently enrolled in courses on it.  Creators using it have made over $259 million in sales.

Teachable is a course platform with some extra features but it doesn’t handle things like hosting your website or email marketing.  So, it is a specialist online course platform.  You don’t need to know how to code to use it or even have a website if you don’t want one.

What does Teachable cost?

Teachable has a variety of different cost levels depending on the features that you want.  The three basic tiers are:

Basic – $29 a month

Professional – $79 a month

Business – $399 a month

However, this isn’t the only cost involved.  If you take the basic plan, there is also a 5% transaction fee on every payment.  There are no transaction fees on the other two levels.  So, if you are selling a higher priced course, it might be worth opting for the middle tier – for example, $1000 course with 5% transaction fee would be $50 plus the monthly cost of $29 equaling $79.  If you sell more than one course, the fees would mean that the Professional tier would work out best.

Pros and cons of using Teachable

The Pros

One of the reasons that many people opt for Teachable to host their online course is because it is very easy to use.  There’s no need to learn to code, no need for a website of your own and once you have set up an account, it is easy to upload your content.  This means once you have done the preparation work to create your content, you can get things into action in no time – and start making money.

Another benefit to Teachable (and also the Teachable alternatives we will discuss next) is that you can bundle up your products.  So if you have two courses, an eBook and a free mini course, you can put them all on the same platform.  Users can login, buy more items and easily see everything you do.

The third benefit is that the platform has built-in analytics that allows you to monitor what is happening.  You can see things like a lecture breakdown, video engagement and even quiz scores if you include quizzes in your lessons.  This helps to see if people are using the content and what is the most popular way of consuming it if you have options available.

The Cons

One of the biggest issues is that Teachable suffers from its own success.  Like many mega platforms, they have issues with downtime and caching problems.  This can mean that customers cannot access their courses and increase complaints to you, which you are largely powerless to do anything about.

Another factor that some users don’t like is that there are only so many options when it comes to designing how your school on Teachable looks.  This means that you can easily end up with a platform that looks like everyone else which can be a little confusing for students.

Finally, while the basic plan is a good feature, the additional fees for each transaction eat into the profit you make from your course.  So you either have to increase your prices to cover this or take a slight hit in your profit margins.  While this might not be too much of an issue for bigger companies, for solopreneurs and smaller companies, this could be a pain.

Pros & Cons Highlights for Teachable

👍Pros: *Ease of use *No coding needed *Can create bundles for multiple courses *In depth analytics and tracking of student course progress

👎Cons: *Some issues with site speed being slow *Limited template options to choose from *Quite expensive compared to others

The Top 5 Teachable Alternatives for 2019

So that’s Teachable, currently one of the most popular online course platforms.  But they are not the only option available if you want to create an online course.  Let’s look at the top 5 Teachable alternatives for 2019.

Thinkific

Thinkific is actually older than Teachable by two years but has been overtaken by the newer platform in terms of the number of people using it and talking about it.  However, when you look at Teachable alternatives, it is one of the most often mentioned and for good reason.

Thinkific has a range of different pricing options with different features included:

Free – $0 a month, limited to 3 products

Basic – $49 a month, no limits

Pro – $99 a month, no limits + 2 site admin accounts

Premier – $499 a month, no limits + 5 admin accounts

There is also a transaction fee for the use of Stripe or PayPal which is normally 2.9% + $0.30 for each transaction but this can vary between different countries.

Thinkific is very similar in terms of the features offered to Teachable and the course is hosted entirely on their platform, so you don’t have to have your own website.  It is also easy to use and there is an extensive knowledge base to help you make the most of the features.

Zippy Courses

Zippy Courses has gained a name as a Teachable alternative if you are looking for a professional classroom environment that you can customize courses to suit your needs.  It is an all-in-one tool that covers both the selling and teaching of online courses.

It has a simpler pricing structure with a higher cost than Thinkific and Teachable.  There is a Standard Plan that is $99 a month and a Professional plan at $199 a month.  Neither have any transaction fees or limits to the number of courses and the lower has 1 admin account while the higher plan has 10 admin accounts.  Plans do have different file storage and email limits per month.

They do also offer a $1 seven-day trial so you can see the different features in action.

Podia

If you want to do more than sell courses, such as move into membership sites or offer digital downloads, then Podia is worth considering.  It has a simple interface and is much easier to use than other multi-purpose platforms so if you are new to the world of e-learning, it is easy to master. 

The pricing structure for Podia is listed as ‘starts from’ and this is $39 a month.  There are no transaction fees and no free plan but there is a free 14-day trial. 

Teachery

Teachery is another Teachable alternative that offers similar features to the similarly named competitor.  This platform is ideal if you don’t like the constant shifting from one plan to another, figuring out transaction fees and commissions. 

Their pricing structure is very simple – $49 a month or if you want to pay annually, the cost is $470 a year, saving 20% on the monthly figure.  This is for unlimited courses and students as well as an affiliate program and integrations with email providers.  The biggest selling point is that there are no transaction fees.

Everlesson

Everlesson may be one of the newer online course platforms but already has over one million students enrolled, and 12,000 courses created – making course creators some $10 million.  It works a little differently from the other platforms by offering features such as setting up goals for students to help them engage and succeed.  It also offers the ability to create different types of courses such as a one-time course as well as your standard style of ongoing lessons.

There are three tiers available and none of them have any transaction fees:

Starter – $67 a month, 10 sites

Advanced – $97 a month, 15 sites

Ultimate – $127 a month, 30 sites

There is also a completely free 7-day trial where you can test out the system, make sure it works for you then select the right plan to continue using it.

👍Pros: *Our Winner when compared overall (see bottom of this post) *Most Bang For Your Buck *Great reviews *Very simple to use. *Includes many templates to choose from *Goal setting is one of our favorite features

👎Cons: *Slight learning curve *Free trial could be longer

What about cheaper Teachable Alternatives?

When you first start making courses, keeping costs down is always a big factor.  And while the benefits of the best online course platforms make them hands down the best place to host your course, people still look for something cheaper.

There are platforms that you can add your course to that don’t have the monthly fees that online course platforms have – Udemy and Skillshare are two of the best known.  However, the biggest issue with them is that they limit the price you can charge for your course, usually to no more than $50 and they take an administrative fee from this.  So if you have a course you want to retail for more than $50, these might not be the right options.

Are there any Teachable Alternatives that are Free?

We all love to get something for nothing but when it comes to online course platforms, there are no Teachable Alternatives that are entirely free.  Obviously, they offer a wide range of products and services and have to make some money!

That said, there are some good ways to test the different platforms without paying anything.  Everlesson have a 7-day free trial where you can test all of the platforms features to see if they are what you need without paying anything.  If you happened to decide against it, you can simply stop after the trial.  Likewise, Zippy Courses offer a $1 7-day trial and some platforms offer a 14-day money back guarantee so you can change your mind in the first two weeks and get any payment back.

What is The Best Teachable Alternative?

Finding the right platform is all about what works best for your business.  If you have a single course and don’t mind paying some transaction fees, then the free plan from Teachery might be worth considering.  However, most course creators will want to have more than one product and that’s why other options work better.

Everlesson is one of the newer platforms available but the addition of elements such as goal setting make it a strong candidate as a Teachable alternative.  It has a range of plans to accommodate your needs and plenty of integrations – plus all the complicated backend stuff if you like to fine tune your platform.  And while Teachable remains top of the popularity contest, this platform is one of the top alternatives with none of those transaction fees involved.

The post Teachable Alternative – 5 Best Ones appeared first on Alternative HQ | Finding The Best Alternatives To What’s Available.

source https://alternativehq.com/teachable/ source https://astelspirals.tumblr.com/post/185084346020

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Knowem Alternative

Protecting one’s brand name has become of paramount importance over the last few years. More popularly known as reputation management, the idea is that a business or person protects their brand image by creating a network of social websites themed in the image they wish to portray. In other words, register your brand name on these social properties before someone else does in order to “game” the system and create negative content about you or your business.

That’s where certain services have been created in effort to show you where you can register your brand name on various social sites. This is something where you don’t ‘want to delay on because it’s strictly a first come, first serve situation where you will certainly want to reserve your brand name on these sites before someone else does in an attempt to be misleading, or outright malicious.

This article will discuss the popular service KnowEM for this process, but provide some alternatives as well; and more importantly a new clear winner that we feel is head and shoulders above these other services now.

Lets get started…

📑 KnowEM Alternatives Table of Contents:

What Is KnowEM? The Top 3 KnowEM Alternatives for 2019      1. Namech_k     2. DandyID     3. Claim.io Are There Any Knowem Alternatives That Are Free?What About Cheaper Knowem Alternatives?What Is The Best Knowem Alternative?      Winner:  YourBrand.ai Knowem Pros & Cons YourBrand Pros & Cons

What is KnowEM?

Knowem.comhttps://knowem.com/ logo

KnowEM is a search engine that helps business and brands look up their brand name across various social media type websites. Specifically, this search engine enables a user to be able to check brand and username availability across over 500 different social networks. This useful tool can help you find whether the name you want has already been taken, whether your current company or business branding is being used by someone else, and it can even help you find any fan accounts that associate themselves with your brand.

KnowEM labels itself as a “trademark protection service”, as well as a brand marketing platform. It can also be used as a social network, so it has a lot of good features from the start. The website is very clean-looking and user-friendly. Anyone should be able to easily navigate KnowEM. A quick search of your brand’s name is completely free. You can search the most popular social networking sites without any hassle and find out if someone is using the name you want or the name you’re already using. KnowEM’s main sale point is asking the user if they’ve tried claiming their brand name on each social site themselves – hundreds of sites to register to. Instead of spending your own time doing this, KnowEM offers their services in different packages, depending on your needs. KnowEM’s most inexpensive package is one for personal branding. With this, they will create your profile for you on the 25 most popular social sites. This isn’t for business branding, but for personal pages with a decent audience; and it costs just under $70. Alternatively, their Corporate Complete package allows you to completely rule your branding on 300 different sites for $649. They have two other packages in the $200 – $400 range.

The Top 3 KnowEM Alternatives for 2019:

Now that you know the basics of KnowEM and their price range, we’ll start looking at a few different alternatives. We’ve grouped together DandyID and Claim.io as one service, because they work with each other and DandyID advertises Claim.io on its homepage. In the following sections, you’ll find our top alternative that’s free Namech_k, our top alternative that is cheaper than KnowEM, DandyID and Claim.io, and the best alternative, which we’ll reveal at the very end of this piece.

Are There Any KnowEM Alternatives That Are Free?

Namech_k

Namech_k is a free service that allows you to check username availability on social networking sites. Unlike KnowEM’s options, Namech_k only looks at 122 of the most popular and most used social sites, and the service does not offer any additional services or brand monitoring. This site is purely for quick-checking your wanted/chosen username across other websites that are typically used by those in touch with social media and social networking. It is, essentially, the most basic form of brand control possible. The site is a little strange, and due to the layout and coloring, it looks a little like a no-domain site at first, or some kind of pop-up. The site works well but seems a bit off-putting. However, it’s extremely easy to use Namech_k, and the site explains your results in a way that anyone could understand. Of course, it’s a free service, so there’s a donate button on the page and there are ads, too. But considering that it lets you check not only username availability across 122 social sites, but also domain name availability, it’s certainly worth checking out if you just want to know if your name is available on other websites.

What About Cheaper KnowEM Alternatives?

DandyID

DandyID is a different kind of social networking service. Once you’ve signed up to DandyID, you will have a globally recognized profile that you’ll only need to fill out once. DandyID are aware of just how tedious signing up for new social profiles across various websites can be, which is why they set out to make it easier for you. This profile is accessible from any social networking site on their list and will automatically appear when you’re signing up to a new website. If any of your details change, you can just update them on DandyID, and every one of your social pages will update too – as long as they’re DandyID-enabled, that is. DandyID is a single point that connects over 300 different websites and services that you can sign up to; including the most popular social media sites out there. Their goal is to make it simpler for you to manage your online identity. There are several DandyID tools and plug-ins available for users, and you can upgrade from a free user with limited services to a pro user, too. The main difference between DandyID and sites like KnowEM and Namech_k, is that instead of allowing you to search for a username and/or claim it across different platforms, DandyID allows you to make signing up to social sites quicker. For the best results, you should use DandyID with another name-checker-type website before you get started with sharing out your brand identity.

Claim.io

Claim is advertised by DandyID. This site allows you to claim the name you use online across 300 different social media sites. By doing this, you will own a concrete social identity, and you can fight against brand name hijacking. To use Claim, you will need to choose one of their packages and sign up. Once you’ve done that, you can leave the rest up to their team, who will register your brand name on between 100 and 300 different sites that host the most popular social networking services. Your username and URL will be completely yours, and they can even embed your logo and personal links into each of your accounts, where possible. Prices for Claim start from $189 for 100 social site profiles. The most advantageous feature of Claim is that you can choose one user name, as well as three alternative user names; just in case your usual one is taken, but you don’t mind having a number or an extra letter etc. added to the end.

What Is The Best KnowEM Alternative?

YourBrand.AI

Yourbrand.ai is by far the best KnowEM alternative available this year. You can search hundreds of social sites for your brand’s name or your username for free. No, you haven’t misread that – it’s completely free. You will have to log-in to get access to the full set of features that the website offers, but there are a number of things you can do without logging in. Your Brand is an extremely professional-looking website; which is already strange considering that it’s a free service. Free websites are usually laden with advertisements and donate buttons and awkward pop-ups, but you won’t experience any of this with Your Brand. The website is user-friendly, and it’s obvious how to use it without looking for any kind of “How it works” guide. Just pop your username or brand name in the search box on the homepage and watch the magic of Your Brand as it finds out exactly which social networking sites are already using your name.

It won’t take long for Your Brand to gather your results even considering that it looks at hundreds of websites from its simple search, you can imagine the sheer number of sites that Your Brand compiles for an advanced search. Your Brand doesn’t just look at social networking sites, either, it also looks at other popular websites; such as eBay, Steam, and Instructables, to name a few. As if that wasn’t enough, if you hover over the name of any website in Your Brand’s search function, it will tell you what the site’s name is and what it is typically used for or known for. This is such a helpful function when you’re trying to decide which websites to sign up to and clicking on the name of the website will take you straight to that website’s homepage.  We highly recommend Your Brand if you’re looking for a way to control your brand while you’re socializing online.

Knowem Pros & Cons

👍Pros: *Still offers a lot of value *Has done for you packages (although very expensive)

👎Cons: *Outdated and slow User Interface *Doesn’t allow you to search all available social sites without paying *Not using the most updated list of available social sites

YourBrand Pros & Cons

👍Pros: *Largest database of social sites to search from *Completely Free to Search once you register a free account *Fast and Highly Accurate searches *Very simple to use. Just search and click *Very reasonable Done For You Packages

👎Cons: *None at this time

The post Knowem Alternative appeared first on Alternative HQ | Finding The Best Alternatives To What’s Available.

source https://alternativehq.com/knowem/ source https://astelspirals.tumblr.com/post/184296727015

[becauselemon]

Backlinks Indexer Alternatives – Final Showdown

There are tens of thousands of Google searches being made every second – adding up to more than 3.5 billion searches every day. Whether you’re running an ecommerce site, building a portfolio, or advertising a nonprofit organization, the more visitors your site receives, the better it is for business.

There are several tricks and techniques you should be implementing to maximize traffic flow to your site – one of which is including backlinks throughout your content.

📑 Backlinks Indexer Alternatives Table of Contents:

What Are Backlinks? Why Do You Need Backlinks? Tips For Building First Level Backlinks What Is Backlinks Indexer? The Top 5 Backlinks Indexer Alternatives for 2019      1. Indexification     2. OneHourIndexing     3. PingFarm     4. Lindexed     5. Linklicious Are There Any Backlinks Indexer Alternatives That Are Free?What About Cheaper Backlinks Indexer Alternatives?What Is The Best Backlinks Indexer Alternative? Backlinks Indexer Pros & Cons

What Are Backlinks?

image credit: moz.com

Backlinks are simply links between two different websites: one site will link to another, and the second site will link back to the first – it is a mutually beneficial arrangement. To be valuable to one another, the links need to direct to relevant sites that have a clear connection with yours – for example, if you’re selling men’s jewelry online, it would make sense to include links to male fashion and lifestyle bloggers. These are not competitor companies, but they work in the same fields.

Backlinks can be used anywhere within your site’s content, whether it’s the text on your homepage, About Us page, blog posts, FAQs or even product descriptions.

Why Do You Need Backlinks?

Backlinks are a highly useful part of SEO – that is, an invaluable tool for attracting more traffic to your website, in turn boosting the exposure of your business and generating leads. This is because backlinks signify a level of trust and assurance between businesses. Both sites involved in backlinking benefit from the links, as they improve your credibility to both the human visitors to your site, and the search engines that are ranking it.

When implemented correctly, backlinks are interpreted by search engines as an indicator of high-quality content that their users will value, and so will rank your site higher in their list of search results. The higher you appear in Google’s list of results, the more visitors you will get to your site.

Building backlinks is a competitive and time-consuming pursuit, especially when you’re just starting out and your site is new. It requires careful research, analysis of your competitors and outreach to potential backlink partners.

It can be tempting to cram in the backlinks as just one of many checkpoints within your SEO strategy, but achieving a high ranking isn’t necessarily that straightforward. Read on to learn how to implement backlinks successfully, and the online tools available that can help you do it.

Tips For Building First Level Backlinks

A successful website is one that gets a consistent flow of traffic. More traffic means more leads, resulting in more sales / engagement / awareness. Whatever type of site you’re running, backlinks are an essential part of boosting your visibility and reaching your desired audience. Before you start using a backlink indexing tool, you need to have your own backlinks in place – these are known as first level backlinks.

If you have a new website and want to boost your SEO game, here are a few tips for securing high quality backlinks in 2019:

1 – Do your research: do extensive research of your competitors and see what types of backlinks they have in place.

2 – Make a list of outreach contacts: choose people who are linked to your site’s area and will benefit from the link themselves.

3 – Pitch yourself: an effective pitch is everything when it comes to securing backlink partners. Craft a powerful email explaining to them exactly what they will gain from the collaboration.

4 – Ensure the content is relevant: the link needs to be placed within content that’s relevant. It might sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how many backlinks are requested for text that’s not even vaguely connected to the secondary site’s content.

What Is Backlinks Indexer?

image credit: BacklinksIndexer.com

As a site owner, simply inserting backlinks manually doesn’t guarantee search engines will give you credit. After a lot of time and effort spent researching and sending outreach emails, it can be disheartening to see little or no change in your rankings. Backlinks Indexer, as the name suggests, is a paid-for tool designed specifically to improve the power of your existing backlinks by indexing them. Indexing means getting search engines to take notice of your site and give it credibility.

Backlinks Indexer is one of a number of tools that make it easier to position and analyze the results of backlinks to your site by ensuring that they are indexed by Google. This is achieved by building second level backlinks to the sites where you have your first level backlinks. All you need to get started is a list of URLs that you wish to index (i.e. URLs of sites where your existing backlinks are located), and Backlinks Indexer will do the rest.

Backlinks Indexer has a network of thousands of sites which it uses to boost the power of your first level backlinks, forcing Google to give your site a higher ranking in its list of results.

There are different packages of Backlinks Indexer available, depending on your budget and how many backlinks you wish to generate. Backlinks Indexer offers three package types:

$27 per month – 3000 URLs processed

$57 per month – 7500 URLs processed

$97 per month – 15000 URLs processed

image credit: BacklinksIndexer.com

The tool is one of the most popular of its kind, but some customers may be put off by the fact that there is no free version available (even though they do have a free trial), or simply want to shop around a bit before they commit. That’s why we’ve compiled this list of the best Backlinks Indexer alternatives – read on!

The Top 5 Backlinks Indexer Alternatives for 2019

Here are five of the best 2019 alternatives to Backlinks Indexer that you can use for boosting your backlinks.

Indexification

Priced similarly to Backlinks Indexer, Indexification takes a list of URLs and forces Google to at least trawl each of your links. By inviting search engines to visit your site’s links, Indexification makes your site appear more credible and valuable to searchers, increasing the chance of your links being indexed and your site being noticed. The current signup fee for Indexification is $17.97 per month, slightly more than the cheapest package for Backlinks Indexer.

OneHourIndexing

This tool professes to use ‘secret methods’ rather than the typical techniques (such pinging, link building and RSS content distribution), to achieve the backlink indexing. The speed at which the indexing takes place is impressive, but there is a higher price tag for this luxury. The minimum amount you can spend is $17, which gets you 1000 links processed per day for a month, with up $97 for 30000 links per day processed for a month.

PingFarm

This is a free backlinks indexing service, and for that reason it is one of the popular alternatives for site owners on a tight budget. The tool works by pinging search engines with a notification that your site has been updated, making it more likely that Google will see your backlinks as valuable. Pinging your site is not a guaranteed system for improving your credibility, but as Pingfarm is a zero-cost option, it continues to be popular.

Lindexed

Very similar to how Backlinks Indexer works, you simply paste your list of backlink URLs into Lindexed, and they will force Google to take notice. They use classic techniques to index your links, but they also have the exclusive feature called ‘PingCloud’ which sends pings from your site to servers all around the world. Search engines can interpret these pings as human, which means they will credit your site with a higher ranking. Lindexed starts at $14.97 per month.

Linklicious

Another popular indexer for backlinking, Linklicious forces Google to notice your backlinks and give you credit for them. It works the same way as Backlinks Indexer, but costs $57 per month.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the many different types of indexing tool available. But with so many different options to choose from, it can be tricky as an online marketer to know where to begin. If you’re heard a lot about Backlinks Indexer but want to see what other companies have to offer, continue reading as this may help you make up your mind.

Are There Any Backlinks Indexer Alternatives That Are Free?

There are a few free alternatives to Backlinks Indexer. We have mentioned PingFarm above; others include Instant Backlink Indexer Indexkings and Free SEO Indexer. For internet marketers looking to try out a decent indexing tool without spending any cash, these are a good place to start.

However, every one of these tools has their limits. For instance, Instant Backlink Indexer only allows you to paste a maximum of 5 URLs. If you only want to index a handful of backlinks, this will work fine, as will your Google account. However, if you need fast indexing of a high number of backlinks, a paid for indexer will make your life a whole lot easier.

What About Cheaper Backlinks Indexer Alternatives?

Backlinks Indexer and its competitors offer very similar pricing plans, beginning with an introductory offer during the first month, before reaching a standard higher price for subsequent months. Backlinks Indexer has three tiers of subscription, beginning at $27 per month.

If we’re looking at the flat monthly fee, Backlinks Indexer is competitively priced. Link Juice Maximizer, for example, also charges $27 per month for its cheapest package and Nuclear-Link-Indexer charges $10 per month for 500 fewer URLs. There are other competitors who charge per batch of URLs, rather than via a monthly subscription, such as Indexbear.

The question of whether alternatives to Backlinks Indexer are cheaper is actually not as straightforward as it may seem, because users must take into account the overall price per link. When using both the cheapest the most expensive package available for each service, Backlinks Indexer comes out top on value for money.

When using the basic plan, Backlinks Indexer costs you $0.099 per link; when using the most expensive plan, it costs you $0.0067 per link. This works out as cheaper than or equal to many of its competitors, including Backlink Indexing, Indexbear, Nuclear-Link-Indexer and LinkJuiceMaximizer.

When looking at price per link alone, one indexing tool comes out top: Linklicious, which boasts the low price of $0.0000363. However, there are other factors to consider besides the cost per link when choosing a great indexer.

What is The Best Backlinks Indexer Alternative?

There are several things worth nothing about Backlinks Indexer before we come to a conclusion about its competitors. One essential element is the success rate of the indexing process. Indexing backlinks is not an exact science, and each backlink indexing tool has varying levels of success. When subjected to a 15 day period of testing, it was revealed that Backlinks Indexer came out top by an enormous distance.

Over 15 days, Backlinks Indexer successfully indexed 374 out of 384 URLs, giving an impressive rate of 97.4%. In comparison, the next best index tool for rating, SenukeX Xindexer, managed to index just 146 out of 384 URLS, giving a rate of just 38.02%. That’s a whopping difference of 59.38%, with Backlink Indexer massively in the lead.

Comparison of all top indexing services

As a result of this indexing success rate, the price per URL drops significantly for Backlinks Indexer. Over the 15 day period, when compared to six competitors, Backlinks Indexer cost the user the lowest price per URL, at just $0.0074.

It’s important to note, therefore, that backlink indexers shouldn’t be taken at face value (i.e. by the initial price plan or the promise of accepting thousands of URLs), as the majority of them cannot deliver successful indexing in a reasonable time frame. The whole point of an indexing tool is to save you time and effort and successfully index your backlinks to improve your site’s visibility – not cost you money and give you little back after 2+ weeks!

All in all, there are many credible alternatives to Backlinks Indexer, but for us, there is only one clear winner – Backlinks Indexer itself. It’s reliable, easy to use, and has an impressively high success rate at indexing your backlinks automatically. Customer reviews praise the measurable increase in their sites’ traffic and the consistent growth they have experienced since they started using the tool.

Backlinks Indexer Pros & Cons

👍Pros: *Still comes out as #1 When compared against the “new guys” *Most Bang For Your Buck – Proven Rank Boosts *Great reviews *Very simple to use. Just copy and paste URLs *In Business since 2011 *It Just Works

👎Cons: *Can be expensive if you don’t have enough links to index *Not all types of websites allowed (must be family friendly links)

If you’re willing to pay the reasonable fee, you can save yourself time and start enjoying a real boost in site traffic with Backlinks Indexer. Sign up today and give it a go!

The post Backlinks Indexer Alternatives – Final Showdown appeared first on Alternative HQ | Finding The Best Alternatives To What’s Available.

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Sape Links Network Alternative

When it comes to SEO, you can boost your website’s rank position in two ways: improve your website so that it is valuable and appealing to users (so-called onsite SEO) or increase its authority with links from external sources (off-site SEO). Ideally, you should combine both methods. It is not hard to figure out how to enhance your website – just post relevant and useful content, make the website visually pleasing and convenient to visitors and you should be good. The question is how to make other websites link to your digital platform. In fact, there are many ways to do so and Sape Links Network is one of them. But is it all it’s cracked up to be?Maybe you should look for a Sape Links Network alternative? Let’s take a closer look at the service and other options you may want to give a shot.

📑 Sape Links Network Alternative Table of Contents:

What is Sape Links Network? Is There a Sape Links Network Alternative For 2019? Are there any Sape Links Network Alternatives That are Free? What about cheaper Sape Links Network Alternatives? What is The Best Sape Links Network Alternative?

What is Sape Links Network

Sape Links Network is a marketplace for SEO experts and webmasters where you can sell or buy backlinks. The service is a useful source of high-quality (at least, this is what is promised) links that cover all the bases (in our case, niches). As of today, the network is comprised of about 700 000 websites, all eager to post your link in a footer, sidebar, or the top of their home pages.

Sounds great on paper, doesn’t it? There is a catch, though. Most of the websites on Sape Links Network are from non-English countries. This comes as no surprise given the fact that the service was originally launched in Russia. They do have websites in English but their number is far from the advertised ‘700 000’. Plus, you will have to pay extra if you desire to fetch a link exclusively from English-speaking platforms.

One more thing, the service allows for up to 10 outbound links from each website. In our opinion, 10 is a little bit too much. Such a heavy outbound linking may result in a red flag raised by the search engines. If Google decides that a website is spammy, a reference obtained from it will lose all its value.

Is There a Sape Links Network Alternative for 2019?

The said above may push you to look for a Sape Links Network alternative. We have no doubt that you will find a plethora of link building services but are they worth it? If you seek safety, tangible results, and the ability to manage your link building tactics as you please, there is only one worthy service – RealSiteLinks.com.

Why is it better? RealSiteLinks meticulously checks all websites before adding them to their database. It is done to sift out PBNs, low authority, and spammy websites. The service accepts only real websites from real website owners that are indexed in Google and have low OBL (outbound links). Unlike Sape Links Network, RealSiteLinks permits only three links on every website meaning your source won’t get spammy.

Opting for RealSiteLinks, you can select which sites to use for external linking, how many, and for how long. The service provides metrics and categories so that you can effortlessly choose a relevant niche and website quality that meets your requirements. Contrary to Sape Links Network, you are able to acquire every link individually instead of purchasing a package of at least 25 references of the same quality. Thus, you can make use of diverse sources and even drip feed your backlinks so that the whole process of link building looks natural in Google’s eyes.

Are there any Sape Links Network Alternatives That are Free?

Strictly saying, there are a few alternatives that are conditionally free. For example, you can create a profile of your business on one of web directories and link a chosen anchor to your website. As you may have already guessed, this method is very time consuming since you need to sign up, verify your email, and create content for your profile. However, the biggest drawback of this method is that it doesn’t really work in 2019. Such directories have lost their value and some of them are deemed as ‘junky’. With a link from such a questionable source, you will achieve the opposite result – instead of boosting your ranking in Google, you are likely to get a penalty.

Guest posting is another popular way to obtain a backlink but it is not deprived of shortcomings. You will have to manually contact blog owners and ask if they will accept a post from you on a free basis. If you reach out to a hundred bloggers you will likely to only find a few that agree to feature your link. Needless to say, this strategy is not effective time-wise. Moreover, you will have to hire someone or spend even more time on writing content for a blog.

Another strategy you can use to get a free reference is broken link building. You will have to rake through the Internet hunting down websites with broken links. Then you will need to contact a website owner, point out that there is a broken link, and suggest replacing it with a working link to your website. Does this method work? Yes, it does but is it fast and easy? Not at all.

The bottom line is that there are free Sape Links Network alternatives but they are practically useless if you are short on patience or want to achieve substantial results in little to no time.

What about cheaper Sape Links Network Alternatives?

Sape Links Network’s packages start from $77 per month for 25 homepage links from DA/PA and TF/CF 10+ sites. This doesn’t sound particularly expensive but you can get backlinks even cheaper than that. RealSiteLinks, for instance, doesn’t impose any plans with a fixed number of links meaning you can buy as many as you want within your budget. The prices start from $3 per link so 25 links will cost $75. This is about the same as Sape Links Network charges for the Silver package. But what if you want to purchase only 10, or 30, or, let’s say, 70 links? With RealSiteLinks, the number of links you rent may vary as you please while the competitor obliges you to buy 25, 50, 100 or 200 links. Thus, RealSiteLinks is a much more flexible and cost-conscious Sape Links Network alternative.

What is The Best Sape Links Network Alternative?

If you seek a way to acquire high-quality external links from websites you can trust, RealSiteLinks is a commendable service. Not only does it transcend Sape Links Network in terms of safety, quality of websites provided, and ease of use, but also it allows adjusting the number of external sources you utilize. It is also a cheaper alternative to Sape Links Network, which is highly beneficial for SEO experts on a shoestring budget.

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