Infusionsoft is upping its game in social media marketing with the purchase of GroSocial and plans to integrate the platform with its small-business offerings.
Chandler-based Infusionsoft, which received a $54 million venture investment from Goldman Sachs in late December, announced the purchase of Salt Lake City-based GroSocial Tuesday. Financial terms were not disclosed.
“GroSocial is helping small businesses get real results from their social media marketing efforts,” said Clate Mask, co-founder and CEO of Infusionsoft in a statement. “The company has proven its commitment to customer success with an amazing product that drives social media leads for tens of thousands of growing small businesses. Their team is talented and passionate, and the company is a clear winner and the ideal choice for us in the social media marketing space.”
The move will give Infusionsoft a platform that allows small businesses a more streamlined and automated entrance into social media marketing. It comes as 82 percent of its clients have a presence on social networks.
“GroSocial will help them capture and do more with the leads they generate from social media so it becomes an active and important piece of their customer lifecycle,” said Greg Head, chief marketing officer at Infusionsoft.
Infusionsoft will keep GroSocial’s Salt Lake City office open and its 19-person staff intact. The company’s co-founder, Zach Mangum, will oversee the team and be joined by co-founder Kevin Kirkland.
GroSocial was founded in 2010, and last year it was able to secure about $1 million in venture funding to continue growing. It has about 30,000 users.
“We see a huge opportunity to change the way small businesses get results from a social media platform,” Mangum said.
The platform will join with Infusionsoft’s that has more than 12,000 small-business customers. The addition of GroSocial will boost Infusionsoft’s employee count to more than 370.
The company plans to integrate GroSocial’s Web-based program into its customer relations management software, but to also leave it as a stand-alone product available for about $30 per month.
As more businesses have begun moving toward social media, Infusionsoft sees opportunities among the millions of companies that have yet to fully embrace the trend, Head said.
“Small businesses are very time and resource constrained, but have the need to capture leads through social media platforms,” he said. “In order to do this, they have to go beyond just having a social presence to engaging with leads and capturing them.”
Social media gives smaller businesses a chance to compete on more equal footing for marketing against larger companies, Head said.
The purchase was Infusionsoft’s second. It also bought CustomerHub, an online membership site, in November 2011.
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