by Dave McLaughlin, Co-founder and CEO of Vsnap

Last week, Vsnap was named a finalist for a MITX Innovation Award in the category “Best Customer Engagement Driver”. This feels like more evidence that folks are excited about our vision of companies communicating with customers in a way that for recipients feels more human, but for businesses is still very easy. We are really honored to be included, especially because MITX had a record-breaking number of entries this year

Here’s BostInno’s list of all finalists in all categories. And below are my quick capsule summaries of the six great finalists in our category and what our companies do. I’ve taken the language from their sites and kept my own paraphrasing to a minimum. 

·      Affinova enables innovative organizations to drive better ideas to market faster. “Our technology searches the space of viable options to find the top concepts, benchmarketing them against active competition.”

·      HubSpot All-in-One Marketing Software gives you all the tools to make marketing that people will actually love. Create content that helps you get found, convert, analyze and integrate.

·      SnapApp makes it easy for brands, publishers and agencies to foster conversations across the web, social and mobile. Create interactive, rather than static, content such as surveys & polls, sweepstakes, and quizzes that can be shared on any platform.

·      TalkTo’s value proposition is this: “Text any business and get on with your day.”

·      WordStream’s vision is to help SMBs and their agencies leverage the power of search marketing for customer acquisition at lower costs.

·      Vsnap makes it easy to send short video messages as a more personal alternative to email. Users engage their recipients more deeply and drive behavior at much higher levels. Vsnap recipients take action up to 41% more than email recipients.

At a high level, I see the category dividing into two buckets. 

·     Content / Search

Broadly speaking, Affinova, HubSpot, SnapApp and WordStream are making it easier for their clients to create results via improved content and search.

 ·    Direct Communication

TalkTo and Vsnap are making it easier for businesses and customers to communicate directly with each other.

I think that’s actually a pretty interesting slice, but I want to be sure to point out that within those buckets there’s a ton of differentiation. These are awesome companies, and we’re really proud to be considered alongside them. What’s more, we’re looking forward to meeting those teams and lots of other folks at the MITX Awards shindig on June 12!

You can get your tickets here. And be aware: the early bird price expires on May 11.