• by Jess Nelson , November 19, 2015

Act-On Software Thursday announced the launch of Act-On Industry Solutions, a new customized email marketing automation template for the finance, healthcare, manufacturing, retail and travel industries.  

Act-On Industry Solutions features multiple campaign examples of industry-specific templates for email, forms and landing pages, as well as pre-built automated workflows and benchmark reports.

“A lot of our customers are typically small- to mid-size companies and they don’t have a lot of resources or IT services,” says Atri Chatterjee, CMO of Act-On Software. “Marketers struggle with creating content and there’s a lot of know-how and effort in marketing automation. Our customers have this pain point.”

Rather than creating content from scratch, marketers can tailor Act-On’s pre-built workflows and email designs to suit their own individual marketing needs.

A partnership with ­­­BigStockPhoto.com offers email marketers access to an online repository of photos to integrate into their messaging, and marketers can personalize content based on segmentation and what information they know about their customers.

“It’s much easier to modify and change something than create it from scratch,“ says Chatterjee. “Act-On automates that process for you. It’s not rocket science, but it’s something hugely useful that saves both time and money.”

For example, a marketer could set up an automated three-step healthcare marketing campaign after a customer visits an office. An email first thanks the customer for visiting and asks for their opinions in a survey. A follow-up survey reminder is automatically sent a week after the customer has not responded to the original message, and then after three weeks the program will recommend sending physical mail.

Act-On Software asserts that the new solution is more of an organized structure for marketers to follow rather than a strict industry standard. Although the company does provide market recommendations and tips, it is up to the marketer to ensure that their communication abides by any industry regulations, such as HIPPA compliance for the healthcare industry or personal identifiable information restrictions in the financial services industry.

“You have to make sure when you’re in communications that you follow the rules,” says Chatterjee. “Content is the responsibility of the marketer.”

A benefit to Act-On Industry Solutions is that marketers can benchmark their campaigns against peers in the same field. Benchmark reports are based on the email engagement rates of both third-party data reports and the email engagement rates of Act-On partners.

“Testing shows you what’s working and what isn’t,” says Chatterjee. “Even color placement makes a big change.”

Act-On Industry Solutions is in beta now and is expected to be available for all Act-On customers within the next 30 days. 

Today’s announcement comes a week after competitor Campaign Monitor announced Campaign Monitor for Retail.