NetCommunity v. Online Express

Michaela Walker

I am looking into switching from NetCommunity to Online Express. I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on which program is better? I would be using it for email, membership, donations and event registrations. The goal is to have the most user-friendly process possible. 

Sunshine Reinken Watson

Online Express is mobile friendly, and that was the key selling point for our organization. It is more user friendly with more customization than NetCommunity for email donation forms (you drop the code into your own website).

Gemma Atkinson

Michaela Walker:

I am looking into switching from NetCommunity to Online Express. I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on which program is better? I would be using it for email, membership, donations and event registrations. The goal is to have the most user-friendly process possible. 

Hi Michaela,

I have in the same boat as you were last year by the looks of it but i am looking to switch from OLX to Netcommunity. I am curious to hear if you have changed and which program you prefer?


Thanks

Gemma 

Heather MacKenzie

NetCommunity has greater functionality as a standalone than Online Express.  At the moment, OLX is more mobile friendly.  We just switched to OLX, and I'm finding the form creation to have less available customization than NetCommunity does, but they are very similar besides that.  We have yet to send our first email out in OLX. 

Carrie Aranda

We switched from Net Community to Online Express about a year ago.  The main issue we had with Net Community was the learning curve.  There were very few people on our staff who understood Net Community and they were more technical than relationship driven.  We have discovered that there is way more functionality in Net Community, the ease of use with Online Express makes it a better choice for us.  The main thing that I like about Online Express is the ability to embed a form on a web page.  It has allowed us to have better donation pages because our web person can create the page, I create the form in Online Express and she embeds the form on the pretty or informative page.  It saves donor an extra click because they don't have to go to a dedicated donation page.  Plus, mobile optimization for both forms and emails was the other big issue.  Our newsletter open rate went from less than 10% to over 20% (and still climbing) with the switch.  I don't know for sure, but I think it is because of the mobile optimization through Online Express.

Sandra Peterson

I have found the online form customization to be lacking in OLX.

Darrin Fitzgerald

Sunshine Watson:

Online Express is mobile friendly, and that was the key selling point for our organization. It is more user friendly with more customization than NetCommunity for email donation forms (you drop the code into your own website).

We are doing the same, Using OLX for our donations and BBNC for our volunteers and email send outs.The reason for OLX is using the Java Script in the website

Bob Wiebe

One thing we have found lacking in Online Express is the ability to control who gets unsubscribed, e.g. if you have two e newsletters delivered by OLX, and a constituent wants one but unsubscribes to the other, that constituent is unsubscribed for the other newsletter and all  other e mails. Does Net Community allow for that constituent to be unsubscribed for one newsletter, but subscribed for others?

Heather MacKenzie

Bob Wiebe:

One thing we have found lacking in Online Express is the ability to control who gets unsubscribed, e.g. if you have two e newsletters delivered by OLX, and a constituent wants one but unsubscribes to the other, that constituent is unsubscribed for the other newsletter and all  other e mails. Does Net Community allow for that constituent to be unsubscribed for one newsletter, but subscribed for others?

We hadn't yet started to dig into the consent options and NetCommunity before we were switched over to OLX, but I am pretty sure that would be your best bet for doing that segmenting.  Check it out and let us know.