Direct Mail Automation Software – Cloud Ratings Category Report
Read our interactive PDF report:
Defining Direct Mail Automation Software:
Many definitions of direct mail automation software have broadened to include the sending of gifts, swag, and promotional products. Cloud Ratings Category Report focuses on the core competency of automating the creation, sending, and tracking of physical mail (like letters, postcards, and other marketing materials).
For coverage of gifting and swag management vendors, please refer to our Category Report for Gifting / Swag / Promotional Product Software.
Cloud Ratings Chart for Direct Mail Automation Software:
Over 17,000 customer ratings (inclusive of vendor-supplied NPS data) factored into our category assessment:
Chart Quadrant Summary:
(Presented Alphabetically by Quadrant)
Leaders – High Market Adoption + High Customer Ratings:
Contact Pigeon
Lob
Market Excellence – High Market Adoption:
PFL
Product Excellence – High Customer Ratings:
Cardly
PostGrid
Switch
Challenger – Market + Customer Validation:
Postalytics
Direct Mail Automation Software Vendors:
(Presented Alphabetically)
Cardly – Product Excellence
- Reviews:
- Vendor-Provided Information:
ContactPigeon – Leader
- Reviews:
- Vendor-Provided Information:
Lob – Leader
- Reviews:
- Vendor-Provided Information:
PFL – Market Excellence
- Reviews:
- Vendor-Provided Information:
- PFL Pricing – Contact Vendor
- PFL Integrations
Postalytics – Challenger
- Reviews:
- Vendor-Provided Information:
PostGrid – Product Excellence
- Reviews:
- Vendor-Provided Information:
Switch – Product Excellence
- Reviews:
- Vendor-Provided Information:
Methodology:
Cloud Ratings Category Report process combines private vendor responses to our Request For Information (RFI) with publicly visible measures of market adoption and customer satisfaction.
All vendors are presented with the opportunity to complete the RFI.
The Cloud Ratings RFI focuses on measures of:
- Customer Satisfaction: Greatest weight is given to internal Net Promoter Score (NPS) data. Why? Certain software vendors are skilled at driving (and often incentivizing) happy customers to submit reviews to popular software directories. This can lead to situations where publicly observable vendor reviews are more favorable than the “silent majority” of customers that do not submit to software review platforms. As such, Cloud Ratings’ use of private NPS data provides a more holistic view of customer experiences. To measure adoption and implementation risk, significant consideration is also given to vendor responses regarding severely negative customer outcomes and retention rates.
- Market Adoption: The RFI covers a range of traction metrics, including but not limited to revenue, revenue growth, and the current number of customers. Why? Vendors can appear to have an artificially high market share through aggressive marketing spend, public relations, and skillful solicitation of reviews to software directories. Accordingly, Cloud Ratings’ use of RFI-derived information helps provide software buyers with a more realistic view of market adoption.
Definitions:
Shaded Areas of Category Chart: Each category of software has a unique likelihood of generating business value and positive experiences for customers. Accordingly, Cloud Ratings customizes the shaded surface area for each category as a visual representation of the zones of positive customer outcomes. A category with higher risk or lower satisfaction ratings (like ERP or HR software) will have smaller Zones of Excellence and Zones of Solutions than a safer, higher satisfaction category. For Direct Mail Automation Software, a normalized customer rating score of 4.60 (on a 5.00 scale) was used in setting the Zones’ surface area.
Zone of Excellence (Light Green): This represents a category’s strongest vendors as reflected by their combination of market share and high customer satisfaction scores.
Zone of Solutions (Light Yellow): Encompasses vendors with both meaningful marketplace adoption and sufficiently high absolute customer satisfaction ratings.
Notable Vendor: This distinction highlights other vendors identified in the research process as worthy of buyer consideration. Common reasons for Notable Vendors to not be featured in the Category Chart include differing levels of product focus (a secondary feature within a broader suite) or comparatively lower market adoption metrics, especially for earlier-stage companies.
Momentum: Derived from sources like RFI-sourced vendor growth metrics and buyer search interest, the Momentum indicator compares a category’s growth rate with overall information technology (IT) spending growth.
Risk: Influenced by RFI-sourced vendor NPS and adverse outcomes data, the Risk indicator compares the risk profile of a software category to software applications generally. The distribution of strongly negative public user reviews also factors into the Risk indicator level.
Cloud Ratings Disclaimer:
Cloud Ratings research analysis and publications represent opinions – expressed at a specific moment in time – and should not be viewed as statements of fact.
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