Israeli startup launches all-in-one site and marketing platform for SMB-serving agencies

Although many don’t realize it at first, online maintenance and marketing is a bigger challenge for most small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) than building a Web or mobile site.

A Tel Aviv-based company called Camilyo — derived from “chameleon,” according to CEO and co-founder Gil Ilani — is launching today a new cloud-based platform with a toolbox that many SMBs might need.

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With this launch, the company — founded in 2011 — is changing its name from MobeeArt and reorienting itself from its previous Web and mobile site builder to this expanded platform.

“We realized something had changed dramatically for the good” when Camilyo started looking at this SMB space two or three years ago, Ilani told VentureBeat.

“Opportunities for SMBs had changed,” he said, with social media and other channels becoming available to small companies for getting the word out. It wasn’t “just build a website.”

The new platform includes site building and maintenance tools, but it also adds modules for creating e-commerce catalogs, offering and managing coupons, grabbing leads and tracking them in a contact manager, sending SMS text messages, setting up fan pages or apps on Facebook, generating reports, or maintaining a calendar that can automatically book appointments from the sites or fan pages.

Camilyo – Omni-channel marketing for your SMBs

Camilyo’s new platform, Ilani said, is designed for Web shops, marketing firms, or similar agencies that serve SMBs. They can add their own logos, manage the platform for their client companies, and integrate it to some degree with other systems. Clients can also be given limited-access logins.

A dashboard surfaces the metrics small companies care most about, including number of product orders or new leads, coupon claims or impressions, appointments booked from the website or Facebook page, and visitors/visits. Pages, catalogs, coupons, and the like are created using responsive design, so they configure themselves for a variety of computer, smartphone, or tablet screens.

The tiered pricing model is intended to provide a low entry point for the kinds of small agencies that serve such customers, although the tools are modest as well.

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For instance, only Facebook is currently supported as a social media channel, although Ilani said others are coming. The customer relationship management tools are essentially a kind of contact manager, while the SMS campaign manager depends on the service provider.

But for the local hairdresser or family-run restaurant, a low-priced, all-in-one offering managed by a nearby agency might be worth the tradeoff. Ilani points to such competitors as WordPress, through which one can offer such functions as website building, scheduling, or e-commerce. But he said that publishing platform made it “hard to manage volumes” of client companies, because WordPress is not set up for service agencies.

He also noted that there are “tons” of website builders, including free ones, not to mention marketing automation platforms and CRMs that are generally intended for larger businesses with dedicated staff.

But the Camilyo platform, the company said, is the first white-labeled, all-in-one platform at a suitable price point for the agencies serving SMBs.

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