Multi-location marketing company SOCi has announced that it raised $120 million in debt and equity financing. The company will use the capital infusion to support and propel several orbiting and existing initiatives, including product development, mergers and acquisitions, and international expansion.
Backing up for those unfamiliar, SOCi specializes in helping multi-location brands like Ace Hardware and Jersey Mikes herd cats. By cats, we don’t mean just the locations themselves but myriad marketing and operational variables – everything from maintaining cohesive brand messaging to empowering local flair.
The latter continues to be a key differentiator for SOCi, and includes things like having location-specific personality in Instagram feeds. And as the local marketing mix continues to expand, it includes the entire cocktail of promotional channels – everything from TikTok to SEO and listings management in Google.
Automation Engine
All the above has been part of the formula – perpetually evolving in its execution – since SOCi launched in 2012. More recently, the company has followed the market’s demand signals toward AI. This takes shape in its new Chat GPT-powered functions that help multi-location marketers be more effective.
For example, the first in SOCi’s new line of “Genius” products integrates with its core platform and helps marketers automate and streamline daily activities (the cat-herding noted above). We’re talking about things like responding to reviews, and other functions that utilize Chat GPT’s conversational AI chops.
This is otherwise onerous for brands… some of whom do localized marketing in a centralized way, while others empower decentralized franchisees to do the legwork. The latter infuses the local flair noted, but can present quality-control challenges. That’s where Conversational AI can help, among other things.
“Our newest integration with OpenAI for review response is just the tip of the iceberg as we look to utilize AI across SOCi’s entire toolset. SOCi CMO Monica Ho told Localogy Insider. “Our goal is to further develop a recommendation and automation engine that will deliver data-driven recommendations on marketing tasks for businesses, together with the option to automate the task.”
Time-Saving Measures
Where else could AI factor into SOCi’s toolset? That’s the fun part. Speculating, AI integrations could involve several other time-saving measures within SOCi core platform. For example, SOCi provides a rich database of brand images, messaging, and other assets to empower multi-location marketers.
AI has the potential to streamline these functions with prescriptive tactics for marketers, such as suggesting social post copy. This gets to the recommendation engine that Ho references. Taking it a step further, time-savings can result from AI that not only recommends marketing moves but executes them.
Meanwhile, these moves – and the new funding round – join several other notable milestones for SOCi. After acquiring Brandify in 2021, SOCi more recently reported a 149% year-over-year increase in annual recurring revenue and grew its client list to more than 700 multi-location brands across verticals.
For more on SOCi’s trajectory, don’t miss L23, where Ho will join us on stage to discuss social media marketing. As for the new funding, it was led by JMI equity with participation from Vertical Venture Partners, Blossom Street Ventures, and Renew Group. This brings SOCi’s lifetime total to $240 million.
