Act-On Success Story

Unique and exciting trade show booths and exhibits for an array of B2B and B2C customers all over the world. The company’s superior customer service and pricing model sets it apart from the competition. Unlike most exhibit houses, Absolute Exhibits doesn’t surprise customers with a bill for extra items after an event or show. Customers know exactly what they are paying for when signing a contract.

Catherine Hess is the senior marketing manager at Absolute Exhibits, and part of a two-person marketing team charged with driving leads for sales in a competitive environment. Despite its competitive advantages, Absolute Exhibits was finding it difficult to personalize the customer journey, generate leads, and pass on these opportunities to its sales team for further action.

Our campaigns have gotten more personal, gained better insight into who’s really coming to our site, what they view, where traffic is comes from, seeing higher close rates as well.

Catherine Hess

Senior Marketing Manager

Challenge

Absolute Exhibits was using an antiquated marketing automation platform that didn’t have the necessary features to keep up with the company’s active and busy marketing calendar. 

In order to attract more business, the company’s two-person team required an automation tool that would allow them to efficiently and effectively do everything from email, social media and content marketing. Catherine knew the company needed to invest in a more advanced marketing automation platform if it wanted to enhance its marketing efforts and produce better results.

Although Catherine had used Act-On before and enjoyed her experience, she and her colleagues considered other marketing automation platforms such as Pardot and Marketo for price comparison. 

Solution

However, she noticed that none of these other marketing automation platforms offered the same quality of service and ease of use as Act-On. “I felt that their interfaces were a little more clunky, and just weren’t as intuitive,” says Catherine.

It was only a few days before Catherine and her colleagues at Absolute Exhibits were able to implement Act-On and start using it to its full potential. “We got right on the entire list of all the things you need to do, and send over everything to your support team, and it flowed rather nicely.”

Since then, the company has taken full advantage of all the platform’s capabilities. It’s currently using Act-On to run email campaigns, segment its audiences and perform lead nurturing, manage its active social media publishing schedule, and track web visitors. 

Catherine is also using Act-On to create landing pages for the sales team so that they can share it with their prospects and connections via various channels such as social media. 

Results

Absolute Exhibits has seen very quick and impressive results ever since implementing Act-On. Although summer has historically been a slow time for business and led to seasonal layoffs, the drastic increase in leads this year signaled an end to that trend.  

She also notes that the company’s sales team reports an 84.5 percent increase in revenue since implementing Act-On. Catherine has also noticed increased engagement, including better open and click thru rates, and improved lead generation and conversions. 

“Our campaigns have gotten more personal. We’ve gained better insight into who’s really coming to our website, what they’re viewing, and where traffic is coming from, and we’re seeing higher close rates as well.”

Catherine notes that much of this success is due to the fact that Act-On provides better metrics to make informed decisions, the ability to perform segmentation and personalize email campaigns. 

I think it’s really allowed us to target groups in a better way. Our customers feel like we’re speaking to them directly and their needs at a specific show. Act-On has allowed us to really take them on a different journey.

With Act-On, I like the ability to drag and drop and create landing pages for our campaigns, and I love the metrics that we get as well.

Catherine Hess

Senior Marketing Manager

Highlights

Our customers feel like we’re speaking to them directly and their needs at a specific show. Act-On has allowed us to really take them on a different journey.

Catherine Hess

Senior Marketing Manager

This summer we actually had to hire more people because we were so successful.

Catherine Hess

Senior Marketing Manager