Rainmaker Digital, formerly known as Copyblogger Media, has entered into a letter of intent to partner with Nimble Worldwide, a marketing agency based in Dallas, TX. Assets from both companies will be combined into a new entity with Rainmaker Digital being the majority owner. Brian Clark, CEO of Rainmaker Digital, says the partnership enables them to transform from a Software as a Service provider to Software and Services.
“People need sophisticated marketing technology, yes — but they also need done-for-them services such as design, content, and lead generation strategy,” Clark said.
“In that last year, we’ve explored several viable ways to do more for our customers and prospects as a hybrid technology and digital marketing service provider. After careful deliberation, we’ve come up with a path that allows us to expertly provide anything that a Rainmaker user needs.”
This isn’t the first time both companies have worked together. Prior to RainMail, Rainmaker’s in-house email marketing service, the company used Nimble Worldwide as its email marketing provider. Although the partnership brings in a number of new employees under Rainmaker Digital, Clark admits that they had to let some employees go.
“This deal provides instant access to an experienced team of digital marketing professionals and a network of talented contractors that ensures our service solutions are expertly crafted and delivered,” Clark said. “This grows the Rainmaker team significantly, without the pain and uncertainty of building an agency from scratch.”
“The change in business model unfortunately left four of our existing employees without positions, along with the loss of some of our own contractors. That was certainly no fun, and our operations leadership preserved every job possible despite the significant reorganization.”
Before the end of June, customers will no longer be able to purchase services à la carte. Instead, sales of the platform will be more hands on, bundled with services, and prices will significantly increase. Customers who start a free trial before the end of June will be able to use the platform at a cheaper rate and without the bundled service components.
Genesis Framework Remains a Priority
StudioPress, Synthesis, Copyblogger, Authority, and DCI are not part of the deal and remain separate entities. Clark says StudioPress sales are going strong and the Genesis Framework is still a priority.
“Our Synthesis managed WordPress hosting line will be folded into the StudioPress brand at some point, which shows how much we value StudioPress going forward,” he said.
“Genesis is still in the hands of Nathan Rice, and he’s moving it forward at a faster pace than in years past when he had to divide time to work on Rainmaker. Now that he’s free from that, I’m excited to see where he takes the framework, which will continue to be a part of Rainmaker as well.”
Does this hopefully mean that StudioPress Sites will be improved so that it fulfills its promise of making self-hosted WordPress sites as easy to build and maintain as Squarespace sites etc? Or is self-hosted WordPress too complicated for that to ever happen?