Surefire Social Rebrands, Acquires Franchise Marketing Firm in Hyperlocal Push

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Virginia-based marketing technology firm Surefire Social has announced this morning that it is rebranding as Surefire Local, as it looks to more strongly emphasize its hyperlocal focus. The new name is just one of many changes at the company, which recently purchased the local marketing automation vendor Promio and is continuing to add more capabilities to serve the franchise market.

“We deliberately kept the Surefire piece of our name because most of our customers just call us Surefire, [but] we really like the ‘modifier’ Local because that is what we are laser focused on,” says Shashi Bellamkonda, Surefire’s chief marketing officer.

The acquisition of Promio, and integration of the company’s technology into Surefire’s SurePulse marketing operating system, means existing customers will get access to upgraded search engine marketing and lead management technology across Google, Bing, and Facebook. The acquisition of Promio also provides Surefire with additional relationships with eight franchise brands, as the company looks to expand that area of its business.

“Promio has a similar go to market strategy as Surefire. Focusing on national brand relationships with permission based selling into the local network. So, they fit our marketing and customer acquisition model perfectly,” Bellamkonda says. “Acquiring the Promio technology really completes the marketing channel functionality in our tech stack so we can now focus on actionable reporting using business intelligence.”

In addition to managing their customer acquisition, loyalty, and reputation management campaigns, businesses using the SurePulse marketing operating system will be able to manage directory listings and publish online. All physical and digital campaigns can now be executed from a single platform, with advanced analytics for understanding return on investment.

“We believe with the acquisition of Promio, we now provide the best marketing operating system, services and coaching support for local businesses. Key to our value proposition is providing meaning to the local marketing data we collect and visualize to make it actionable,” Bellamkonda says.

Bellamkonda believes these upgrades will lead to real cost savings for the franchisors and manufacturers that Surefire works with, as the company is better able to provide perspective of the performance of digital marketing and ROI. Essentially, Surefire is trying to solve the challenge for businesses wondering how much money they should invest and what the ROI on their investments will be.

“By providing data by campaign and customer—one time and lifetime value—and integrating with accounting and CRM systems we visualize these vital metrics. In fact, we built a simple integration with Quickbooks online that enables us to tie to many SMB’s accounting systems with just a few clicks,” he says.

Aggregating multiple single point solutions — like website, analytics, call tracking, social tracking, reputation management, and listings management — is too overwhelming and costly for most local businesses, and Bellamkonda is confident that Surefire’s coordinated strategy with automated digital customer acquisition advertising deployment will be more efficient for businesses that need to work across multiple channels.

Recent data seems to support that assertion, as research shows that marketers are increasingly relying on automation tools to create repeat buyers, onboard new customers, and generate new leads.

“Coordinated and integrated marketing is much more than a dashboard. Like other categories that bring together best of breed applications and channels, this is a growing technology trend that is now a reality in local,” he says. “Surefire Local combined with Promio creates a marketing operating system. Hubspot was a first to create a proprietary platform for SMBs, but local is very different.”

Stephanie Miles is a senior editor at Street Fight.

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Stephanie Miles is a journalist who covers personal finance, technology, and real estate. As Street Fight’s senior editor, she is particularly interested in how local merchants and national brands are utilizing hyperlocal technology to reach consumers. She has written for FHM, the Daily News, Working World, Gawker, Cityfile, and Recessionwire.