Marketing Platform Act-On Unveils Packaged, Industry-Specific Solutions

A hotel chain uses a marketing automation system in ways similar to others in its industry, but differently from, say, a hospital.

With that in mind, marketing automation platform Act-On is today launching a set of packaged vertical solutions for five industries — healthcare, travel, finance, manufacturing and retail. The company said other industries, such as education and energy, are in the works.

These Industry Solutions — which are packaged versions of industry-customized one-offs that Act-On has previously prepared for some clients — provide pre-built content, programs and benchmarks.

“This is meat-and-potatoes stuff,” Act-On chief marketing officer Atri Chatterjee told me, adding that it addresses the kinds of things marketers need every day.

The content includes templates for emails, forms and landing pages, along with campaign examples. Chatterjee said that, for a travel industry company, this prepared-but-customizable content could include seasonal promotions, loyalty offers or followup surveys.

Programs are automated workflows, also customizable. For a hospital, for instance, they might include suggested times for sending follow-up email surveys to recent patients and reminders if the surveys aren’t returned.

Benchmarks are designed to help a marketer peg the results to industry standards.

Chatterjee noted that setting up a webinar, including messages sent to participants and other tasks, could take one person most of a day. With a pre-built webinar designed for that company’s industry, he said, the tasks could be reduced to several hours. He suggested other pre-built components might generate similar time savings.

While he acknowledged that competing platforms — such as Oracle, Marketo and Hubspot — offer some prepared content for selected industries, he added that he was unaware of any competitors that offer similar specialized workflows.

As for benchmarks, Chatterjee pointed to some email service providers, like MailChimp, that publish aggregate statistics for industries, but he said they’re not integrated into the platform as guideposts.

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.