When we told you we were hard at work on a new VR, we promised we’d help you take advantage of marketing trends, like optimizing your emails for mobile devices and using social media. A third trend we identified was the convergence of different types of online marketing tools into one. These types of multi-purpose, powerful tools, like Hubspot, exist, but they target much larger companies, require people to invest significant time to learn them, and can be expensive for small businesses on tight budgets. Hubspot’s email and social media services, for example, start at $200 per month for only 100 contacts. We believe the benefits of integrated marketing should be available to smaller companies, too. And, we believe it doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive.

Bryan Adamson, Director of Product Management, explains one of our goals for the new VR:

“One of the things our current customers love about VerticalResponse is that it’s easy to use. When designing the new VR, we have to strike a balance between adding the social and mobile functionality small businesses need to continue to grow, with the simplicity that allows them to use it without investing learning time they don’t have.”

Sure, you could stick with email marketing on its own – after all, it works! But, integrated marketing works even better. Derek Overbey, VR’s Senior Social Media Manager says, “Email marketing is so prevalent because it provides a great ROI (average $44.25 return for every dollar spent – Experian via Salesforce’s blog). And email can be even more powerful when paired with social media to amplify and extend the reach of your messages.”

You could also use separate tools for email marketing, analytics, mobile email templates and social media, but who has the time to learn and juggle multiple tools? Plus, how do you make sure they’re all working together to give you better results? It simply makes more sense to have these marketing functions all available in the same place. Our VP of Product Management, Josh Feinberg, gives an example:

“Combining the ways you reach out to your customers into one spot obviously saves time, but it can also increase effectiveness. For example, we’ve found that customers who use email and social together get a 28% higher click-through rate on average for their emails. You shouldn’t have to use separate tools to get this synergy.”

With the new VR, email, mobile and social will all be in one place, right at your fingertips. And it’s coming soon. Sign up here to be one of the first to get access.

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