Smaller and medium-sized businesses that crave but typically can’t afford big-time marketing automation platforms now have an alternative. Its name is Act-On, and it’s a powerful distribution platform that lets you automate and track both inbound and outbound marketing strategies.
Act-On serves up a cache of tools that streamline all the best campaign management strategies, such as lead nurturing, lead scoring, list management, customer relationship management integration, and automated programs. Unlike larger, more complex options that can often take weeks or months to set up, Act-On promises that most businesses can get the platform up and running in a single day.
The dashboard can be customized to integrate key features you intend to use, so Act-On conforms to the needs of your business instead of the other way around.
Pros
Act-On has indeed been hailed as incredibly easy to use, without the steep learning curve, information technology involvement, or special knowledge required for many similar software programs.
An attractive graphical user interface lets you easily manage and optimize all aspects of the customer experience. You’re also able to track and compare your marketing spending on various channels, letting you see which are thriving and which could use a bit of a boost.
Additional tracking capabilities apply to the activity of your leads, showcasing behaviors that include the initial point of engagement, the conversion point, the moment the sale closed, and the frequency at which first-time customers are turning into repeat business.
Cons
The software is designed for medium-sized and smaller businesses, and the pricing structure appears designed to essentially punish you if you grow beyond that scope.
Your cost for using the platform is heavily dependent on the total number of active contacts with which your site interacts, with an active contact defined as any contact in your database that gets a monthly email from the system.
Start out with 1,000 active contacts, and you’ll pay $600 per month, billed annually. But if you increase your contacts to 2,500 or 5,000, your price jumps to $750 or $900 per month, billed annually.
An annual contract is also required, with your monthly fee subject to change if your business amasses additional active contacts.