Toronto-based marketing software maker Influitive announced today that it has acquired Triggerfox, the Toronto-based startup behind a customer relations management mobile app and the company’s second such acquisition in a month, after its recent acquisition of time management app developer Ironark Software.
“Why would a business-to-business company with customers like HP Enterprise, Iron Mountain and Salesforce acquire not just one, but two, mobile-only startups?” Influitive founder and CEO Mark Organ wrote in a March 22 blog post discussing the acquisition. “[Because they] have the talent and technology we need to extend advocate marketing into the sales domain and expand our mobile capabilities.”
In a statement, Triggerfox Founder and CEO Frank Falcone called Influitive’s efforts to expand its mobile capabilities “ambitious and exciting,” and said that he and his colleagues were thrilled to join its team.
“Advocate marketing,” which is based on the premise that buyers will trust peers, personal research, and product reviews more than traditional advertising, refers to a growing segment of digital marketing in which the goal is to reach potential buyers through advocates – trusted peers – rather than ads.
Numerous companies, including HootSuite, HP, Dell, Forrester, and LinkedIn, have engaged in advocate marketing by using Influitive’s signature B2B software, AdvocateHub, to build “advocate communities,” which provide members with recognition and status in exchange for promoting their brand’s interests and reputation in organic ways.
By adding the employees of Triggerfox to its roster, Influitive has gained a team of product management experts who can develop software that will help sales representatives build and manage those communities in the mobile arena, Organ wrote.
“As buyers rely less on sales reps and more on knowledgeable peers to make buying decisions, those sales reps need to place social proof [such as reviews] from happy customers throughout the buyer’s journey,” he wrote. “We need to make it easy for sales reps to tap into their advocate community at the moments when that social proof is needed most.”
In his blog post, Organ noted that mobile use of AdvocateHub has nearly doubled since April 2014.
“It won’t be long before we do almost everything in our professional lives on our mobile devices,” he wrote. “Influitive will not wait for mobile usage of B2B enterprise technology to become pervasive before we make significant investments in building exceptional mobile-first products – for our customers and, more importantly, for their advocates.”