Yesterday’s release of Forrester Research, Inc.’s report: “The Forrester Wave™: Lead-to-Revenue Management Platform Vendors, Q1 2014” is, in our opinion, an amazing milestone for this company – an objective validation of our status as a true leader in marketing automation.
A “Forrester Wave™” is a meticulously researched evaluation of vendors in a software, hardware, or services market. It enables companies to make well-informed decisions without spending months conducting their own research. Vendors fall into one of four categories: Leaders, Strong Performers, Contenders, and Risky Bets.
In this report, Act-On is the only company in the leaders’ position in both of the two market areas evaluated: large enterprises and small marketing teams.
We think that this singular achievement is a consequence of our sharp focus on the mid-market.
Right from the very beginning, we set our sights on the mid-market companies with revenues under $500M. There are over 2 million such companies in North America alone, in a wide variety of industries. Even though they are not usually high-tech companies, they are adopting SaaS on a massive scale to increase their business efficiency.
In the process of serving this market, we discovered that mid-market companies might have small marketing teams – but often have big ambitions. As we evolved to satisfy their requirements, we found that we had a solution that was very well-suited to large enterprises also.
This moment is very gratifying for me personally. I think back to the time when I was starting this company, and remember all the VCs who told me that the space was crowded, that we were too late to the game, that the game was over, how were we going to break out of the pack, and so on and so forth. So I consider this to be sweet vindication, indeed!
So what is our secret sauce for success? Is it our technology? Is it the huge untapped market? In point of fact, it is our people. We have been extraordinarily fortunate in the people we have attracted and the corporate culture that they have created. Their energy, passion, dedication, and commitment have created a juggernaut, and I am humbled and honored to work with them.
Click here to read the press release about Act-On’s standing in “The Forrester Wave™: Lead-to-Revenue Management Platform Vendors, Q1 2014”