This week, we announced the acquisition of GroSocial, an all-in-one social media marketing platform tailored for small businesses and agencies. As you can imagine, this is a huge step for us in making it easier for you to attract traffic, generate leads and close more sales for your business. As we welcome GroSocial into the Infusionsoft family, I think you would be interested in this Q&A I had with their CEO and co-founder, Zach Mangum.
If you haven’t heard yet, we acquired GroSocial last week, which is a powerful social media marketing solution designed for small businesses. Watch the product video to see a preview of what it can do. For more details, read the press release.
Q&A with Zach Mangum, CEO and Co-founder of GroSocial
Joseph Manna (JM): First off, congratulations and welcome to the Infusionsoft family! I know you must be excited for joining us. Can you tell me more about how GroSocial helps small businesses succeed?
Zach Mangum (ZM): Thanks, Joseph! We couldn’t be more excited about the marriage between GroSocial and Infusionsoft and can’t wait for what the future holds as we work together to create the best, most powerful all-in-one sales and marketing platform on the planet.
At GroSocial, we’re laser-focused on finding ways to help small businesses be more productive. Over the past few years, Facebook has emerged as an incredibly effective marketing platform for small businesses. We recognized this fairly early on and slaved away developing tools that would help small businesses take advantage of Facebook by running contests, promotions, sweepstakes, and other fun marketing campaigns that aid in generating uniquely targeted leads and maximizing exposure.
JM: GroSocial was quite successful well before this acquisition. Why did you choose to join the Infusionsoft family?
ZM: Man, this was a big decision for us. We were fortunate to have been growing at a rapid rate and were very comfortable with the idea of continuing to independently grow the business. However, when we met the team at Infusionsoft, got a taste of the company’s culture and got a glimpse of where Infusionsoft was going in the next few years, we wanted to be a part of it all.
JM: What’s in the future for GroSocial? In other words, what’s on the horizon for GroSocial?
ZM: So many cool things! For starters, the product integration work we’re doing with Infusionsoft is awesome. Customers are going to love it. We’ve added a few simple integrations, but come March, it’s gonna get even more awesome.
Later this year, we’re planning on adding algorithmic-based marketing recommendations to the platform that will assist small businesses answer the question, “What should I do today with my Facebook and Twitter?” along with deeper insights with respect to the leads users capture with GroSocial.
JM: What an example of GroSocial in action that people can look at? Is there a favorite customer story that comes to mind?
ZM: We now have over 30,000 users of our software, so there are a bunch of great examples out there. One of my favorite customer stories is a Utah-based credit union called Mountain America Credit Union. They were one of our very first customers. When we started working with them, they had somewhere around 1,000 fans on Facebook. Since then, they’ve used GroSocial to create countless promotions and other creative lead generation initiatives to boost their email list, add new fans, and increase exposure. They’re now sitting at over 80,000 fans (just a couple years later) and now have more fans than any other credit union on Facebook.
JM: GroSocial doesn’t only integrate with Infusionsoft, right? Can you tell us more about what services play nicely with GroSocial?
ZM: Correct. Our business development team is awesome. Over the course of the past 12-18 months, our team has been able to forge partnerships with great companies with awesome products that GroSocial integrates with beautifully. These partners include companies like Eventbrite, SurveyMonkey, PayPal, Wufoo, HubSpot and several others.
JM: What is your favorite feature within GroSocial? And Infusionsoft?
ZM: My favorite feature within GroSocial is probably our newest feature — our “Promo Plus” widget. It’s incredibly smart, simple, and innovative. It’s a way for a small business to create a promotion on their Facebook page that incentivizes their page visitors to take certain actions for them such as liking their Facebook page, following them on Instagram, Twitter, or Foursquare, entering an email address, and almost limitless other actions. Pretty cool stuff.
With Infusionsoft, it’s hard to know where to start! It’s such a massive product that is capable of doing so many different things. I’ve come to love the sophistication of the email marketing features within Infusionsoft, though. Being a social media marketing guy, I’m a little partial to marketing-oriented features and, one thing many folks don’t realize is that email marketing and social media marketing go together incredibly well.
Coupling these two features of each product is a pretty powerful combination.
JM: Here’s a big question that I know high-growth entrepreneurs would love to know about … how did you prepare GroSocial for acquisition? There are a lot of great products and services out there, how did you attract a suitor like Infusionsoft?
ZM: Great question. My experience was that if you’ve built a great product and have a great team, opportunities will find you. A big part of why this acquisition happened is due to the team we have at GroSocial. From business development to product development, we’ve been able to attract some of the best and brightest people out there. I think that it’s safe to say that Infusionsoft’s interest in GroSocial was mainly driven by two things: (1) we’ve built a great product and (2) the product was built and is managed by an even better team. Infusionsoft wanted both—and I think they made the right move in not accepting one without the other. For the startup founders out there, I’d intensely focus on those two things. If you do, and successfully create a great product and assemble a world-class team, the rest will fall into place.
JM: Is there anyone you’d like to acknowledge or thank for making this deal possible?
ZM: Absolutely. First and foremost, my co-founders Kevin Kirkland and Chris Wright and our incredible team; all of our shareholders—especially our board of directors; Hal Halladay, Jeff Mask, Richard Tripp, Marc Chesley, Clate Mask, and the entire executive team at Infusionsoft; our attorney, Jared Richards; and last but not least my wife and the spouses of everyone that worked tirelessly on bringing GroSocial and Infusionsoft together.
JM: You’re obviously a social guy, how can people connect with you across social media?
ZM: The best way is via Twitter @zachmangum.
JM: And lastly, what is your favorite cereal?
ZM: Cap’n Crunch, hands down!
Thank you, Zach, for taking the time to answer these questions. We’re looking forward to all the great opportunities and new innovations ahead from the GroSocial team.
I had some time to use around in GroSocial this week and I have to tell you that I’m genuinely impressed by the features packed into the product. Don’t let the $30 monthly price fool you. It has some serious horsepower, customization and important features needed for today’s marketers. As I shared on Facebook, “[GroSocial] is like adding a supercharger to a Camaro Z28. Infusionsoft is already a powerful sales and marketing service for small businesses, but now with social media marketing deeply integrated, you can leave your competitors in your rear-view mirror.” Even if you don’t use Infusionsoft, I recommend you take GroSocial for a free test-drive.
Infusionsoft Users: Receive a free Campaign Template if you sign up for a free 30-day trial of GroSocial. Use this link to get started and receive the bonus.
Read more about this post, Q&A with GroSocial CEO Zach Mangum on The Infusionsoft Blog.