We Are Nice, We Don’t Bite!

Posted on August 28, 2011 by | 4 Comments |

I am not sure why our competitors are so afraid of us.

We are one of the last entrants into this space. We have a simple and elegant (but powerful) product that we sell at a very affordable price. We don’t believe in locking our customers into long contracts. Our customers like us. Hey, we are from Portland, Oregon, so basically we are nice people.

We don’t pay much attention to our competitors but some of them are obsessing over us (as evidenced by their visits to our website). And apparently we are starting to strike fear in some with our rapid growth and success.

One of our competitors, who shall remain nameless but is the darling of this space, is so concerned about losing repeatedly to us that they are willing to discount all the way down to match our price in order to win business. That’s really great for us, because it validates our solution as being on par with theirs, but at 25% or less of their price. And it’s great for their customers, because when they next renew, they can score a huge discount just by mentioning the coupon code “ACT-ON”.

So then we get this weird e-mail from their VP of Marketing last week. They are one of the sponsors of a party at Dreamforce ’11, and they appear to be nervous about us even showing up at this public event!

Whoa! This is very flattering!!! And don’t worry, guys! We don’t bite, and we are (mostly) housebroken.

Let me remind you that this is a monster market, less than 10% penetrated, so why are you even worried about us? This is a rising tide, and it should lift all (non-leaking) boats.

Just for the record (and because we are nice and courteous people), we would like to thank our nameless competitor for creating such a buzz up and down Sand Hill Road and University Avenue, that our recent $10M Series C round took less than 4 weeks from first meetings to multiple competing term sheets.

Returning to the question of why anyone would be afraid of us, Clint Eastwood said it best (in High Plains Drifter):
“It’s what people know about themselves inside that makes ‘em afraid.”



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  • http://www.supplyframemedia.com Wendy Guerin

    They should be afraid. Act-On is far superior to competitive platforms such as ExactTarget, Silverpop (which I’ve both used in past companies). Once word gets out from your customers on your platform’s stellar capabilities and seamless salesforce.com integration, the competitors will run even faster.

    From a very happy customer.

  • john rice

    Wow arrogance at its best.

  • Sean Essex

    Was Marketo’s letter over the top? Perhaps a bit, but I’ve certainly seen “guerilla marketing” go awry and they seem to be trying avoid that. I give Marketo credit for extending the invitation that Act-On execs. attend.

    But here’s my gripe: I attended the event looking to learn more about Marketo. It took me 60 minutes to find a single employee. It was a nice venue and great food/wine, but what’s the value of that investment if you can’t answer questions from an eager prospect?

  • http://www.BusinessMarketingSystem.net Pramodh BN

    Raghu and team,
    Congratulations. I have been watching the marketing automation software space as a prospective customer to buy something affordable that it’s been nearly 3 years that we’ve badly wanted to invest for ourselves and our clients in automating our marketing. We are an Integrated Marketing Systems consultancy firm from Bangalore, and have found that most of these service providers are at a minimum of $1000 or more, and this does not cut for businesses from India as investment.
    Though there are some players in India like leadformix and the local flavour of lyris, they are still way beyond the reach of most. This is a message to an Indian team which is spearheading one of the most exciting decades in Marketing – the technology of marketing like the IT decade of 90s and 2000. And it’s great to see a lot of Indian names on Act On. But even $500 will not cut in Indian market and hope there will be a time when it’s available for around $100.

    We are hand picking and training Indian youngsters as Digital Marketers and it would be interesting to see if we can take the solution you guys are providing as part of the syllabus at Digital Business School (www.DigitalBusinessSchool.net).

    Regards,
    Pramodh BN
    Co Founder and Chief Instructor,
    Digital Business School | Business Marketing System

About Raghu Raghavan

CEO, Act-On Software, Inc.

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