Marketing Automation Startup Brandcast Gets Benioff’s Blessing (and Cash)
Salesforce.com is tearing up the enterprise software market, and one startup is hoping to follow in its footsteps with some seed funding from Salesforce's influential CEO, Marc Benioff.
San Francisco, Calif.-based Brandcast provides a cloud service platform, which provides automated content management and marketing services for startups and entrepreneurs that are seeking to establish a robust Web presence.
The tech startup boasts that it lifts the burden of managing websites, online storefronts and social media channels, activities that can steal time that business owners would rather spend connecting with their current and prospective customers.
“New technology constantly expands the areas and techniques brands use to interact with customers across the Web. A mobile-ready website, social profiles, online stores and review sites are just some examples of technological factors that can make or break a business,” said the company in a statement.
Dreamcast subscribers can push content to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and Etsy. It also offers site-building tools, social media management and multi-channel reporting and monitoring.
Brandcast founder and CEO Hayes Metzger explained in a statement, “Brandcast not only creates an online destination for your brand, but also has built-in mechanisms for driving traffic to that destination.” Hinting that his company has bigger ambitions than getting mom-and-pop shops online, he added, “It's simple enough for anyone to use, yet powerful enough for huge companies to pull enterprise content management into the cloud.”
Brandcast has been in closed beta since late last year. Today the company officially unveiled an open beta. The first 1,000 sign-ups are being offered a year's free subscription, while latecomers will be placed on a waiting list.
Brandcast's Boost from Benioff
The company's approach, which blends user-friendly tools, SEO, social savvy and dash of analytics to help fledgling firms attract traffic to their sites and generate consumer engagement, found a fan in Benioff. The Salesforce CEO participated in a Series A round of financing, forking over $1.8 million of his own funds, reported The Next Web's Justin Sullivan.
Metzger, as it turns out, is a former Salesforce.com employee. However, the link to Benioff was formed when they met at a Dreamforce conference after Metzger left to help form BandPage, a maker of Facebook apps for music acts, according to the report.
Benioff's suggestion to “think bigger” led to the formation of Brandcast and some early stage capital.
Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the Quinstreet Enterprise Network. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.
Pedro Hernandez contributes to Enterprise Apps Today, and 11Press, the technology network. He was previously the managing editor of Internet.com, an IT-related website network. He has expertise in Smart Tech, CRM, and Mobile Tech, Helping Banks and Fintechs, Telcos and Automotive OEMs, and Healthcare and Identity Service Providers to Protect Mobile Apps.
