Cost Savings And Business Benefits Enabled By SOCi
A Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study Commissioned By SOCi, May 2025
A Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study Commissioned By SOCi, May 2025
Multilocation businesses face a unique set of marketing challenges. Maintaining brand consistency, optimizing local search, and engaging diverse audiences require significant coordination and effort. SOCi’s platform helps multilocation organizations address these complexities by using AI to unify data across geographies and automate local search, social, and reputation workflows. Consolidating tech stacks and improving operational efficiency reduces costs, while increased digital visibility and conversions contribute to sustained business growth.
SOCi is an enterprise marketing platform for localized marketing, built to help businesses manage their online presence across locations. It offers solutions for optimizing local visibility across search, social media, and review sites, making it easier for enterprise businesses to scale while maintaining a consistent and engaging digital presence.
SOCi commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study and examine the potential return on investment (ROI) enterprises may realize by deploying SOCi.1 The purpose of this study is to provide readers with a framework to evaluate the potential financial impact of SOCi on their organizations.
To better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with this investment, Forrester interviewed four decision-makers with experience using SOCi. For the purposes of this study, Forrester aggregated the interviewees’ experiences and combined the results into a single composite organization that is a multilocation enterprise with 1,000 locations in the US and an annual revenue of $1 billion.
Before implementing SOCi, some of the interviewees’ organizations lacked solutions to manage digital marketing efforts for their local stores, while others used solutions that failed to deliver a consistent digital marketing strategy. This resulted in significant manual work related to social media and local listing page management, content creation, and review management. Local stores were responsible for managing their own online pages, which the corporate marketing team had no visibility or control over. This consequently made it highly challenging to maintain a consistent branding while localizing marketing efforts.
After investing in SOCi, the interviewees’ organizations automated the management of their social media accounts, local listing pages, and the review processes for local stores. SOCi provided a centralized platform for corporate teams to gain visibility and manage local digital marketing initiatives across all locations. This significantly improved efficiency and consistency, streamlining once challenging processes into an effective strategy. As a result, the local stores focused more on content and growth strategies, which increased digital traffic, improved conversion rates, and increased profit.
Quantified benefits. Three-year, risk-adjusted present value (PV) quantified benefits for the composite organization include:
Efficiency gains from an accelerated digital presence, leading to $2.1 million in savings over three years. SOCi’s AI and automation capabilities help local stores reduce the manual workload associated with managing an online business account, executing social posts, and responding to online reviews. SOCi provides a unified platform to manage all common business online accounts, which reduces the time needed to do so by 75%. SOCi also improves efficiency on the creation and approval of social posts, and leverages AI capabilities to allow customer reviews from various sites to be addressed through the SOCi platform.
Business growth from increased digital traffic and conversions, resulting in $1.1 million in incremental profit over three years. By leveraging SOCi, the composite organization transforms its local webpages, ensuring consistent business pages and a robust social media presence. Combined with improved review response rates, this drives significant traffic to both the website and local stores, increasing conversion rates by 20%.
Business growth from improved customer loyalty, leading to $1.4 million in incremental profit over three years. SOCi delivers a comprehensive digital experience for customers, while empowering local stores to build a vibrant community. This dynamic approach boosts repurchase rates by 3%.
Unquantified benefits. Benefits that provide value for the composite organization but are not quantified for this study include:
Enhanced brand consistency. SOCi enables the composite organization’s corporate team to gain better control over the social media content posted by local stores, while allowing them the flexibility to infuse local knowledge. This ensures the enforcement of brand image and guidelines, which enhances brand consistency.
Expertise and partnership of the SOCi team. The composite organization benefits from the SOCi team’s expertise in digital marketing strategy. SOCi acts as an invaluable strategic partner, collaborating with the composite organization to enhance digital marketing outcomes.
Seamless onboarding of new social media networks. SOCi serves as a single platform fully integrated with various social media networks, which allows the composite organization to maximize the digital marketing potential by leveraging new social media networks without investing in additional resources.
Costs. Three-year, risk-adjusted PV costs for the composite organization include:
SOCi annual platform cost and services fee. The platform access fee is based on the number of locations that need localization and bundled services. Additionally, the composite organization collaborates with the SOCi team on specific digital marketing strategies. Over three years, these fees accumulate to $1.3 million to SOCi.
SOCi implementation and training costs. The composite organization incurs an implementation service fee and dedicates internal effort to the implementation process. Prior to deployment, the organization offers 2-hour training sessions to local store managers as part of the onboarding process to ensure they can fully leverage SOCi. Over three years, this costs $187,000.
SOCi internal ongoing management and maintenance costs. The composite organization designates a team member at the corporate level to manage SOCi, including maintaining communication with the SOCi team, providing guidance to local stores, and troubleshooting as necessary. Over three years, this costs $80,000.
The representative interviews and financial analysis found that a composite organization experiences benefits of $4.54M over three years versus costs of $1.55M, adding up to a net present value (NPV) of $2.98M and an ROI of 192%.
Return on investment (ROI)
Benefits PV
Net present value (NPV)
Payback
| Role | Industry | Region | Number of local stores | Annual revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vice president of marketing | Retail | US | 48 | $40 million |
| Senior lead of product management and development | Telecommunications | US | 5,500+ | Not applicable |
| Vice president of marketing and media strategy | Youth activities | US | 1,000+ | $1 billion |
| Chief marketing officer | Fitness | US | 384 | Not applicable |
Forrester’s research showed that almost every buyer’s journey is influenced by online search and the brand’s online presence. For multilocation enterprises, more effort is being invested in the online digital experience for both potential and existing customers, beyond the in-store customer experience. There is a growing demand for technology solutions to help multilocation enterprises maintain their online presence, including search engine optimization (SEO), online reputation management, and social media presence management.
Before deploying SOCi, interviewees noted several common challenges within their organizations:
Lack of effective solutions for comprehensive digital marketing. The interviewees’ organizations lacked effective solutions to support digital marketing efforts for both the corporation and local stores. Some had no platform to help local stores manage their social media accounts or for the corporation to monitor SEO strategies and social media campaigns. Individual store managers managed their own business pages, leaving the corporation with no visibility or control. The chief marketing officer of the fitness organization shared: “It was a disaster. At the time, there was no platform in place. We had 60 or 70 locations and there was no systematic structure in place. So, franchisees were creating their own social pages, but were not organized or streamlined. We didn’t have corporate control or insight into them. There was no uniformity. We wanted to onboard a solution that we knew would be helpful for content distribution and also social management.”
Other organizations had solutions that delivered suboptimal outcomes. The vice president of marketing at the retail company shared: “We had some issues with our previous solution. Customer service was not that great — they just did listing and review management and it was pretty simple. At that time, we didn’t have anything for social media, and I was looking for that component, adding that social media sort of compliance and overwatch.” Organizations had the desire to have a comprehensive platform to help them manage the local stores’ and corporation’s listings, reviews, social media accounts, and content.
Low efficiency in managing business pages, and responding to online reviews, and managing social media accounts for both the corporation and local stores. The interviewees’ organizations maintained multiple social media accounts and online business pages, making it time-consuming to update business information across sites and manually manage reviews and social media content. There was a lack of consistency across different pages and accounts managed by individual stores and across all stores of the same brand. The vice president of marketing and media strategy of the youth activities organization said: “Listings is one that’s really important for us from the perspective of SEO, but it also serves another function in [offering] consistency for the customer. Before SOCi, when one of our locations wanted to update their hours — they had to update it on their website, then log into [different business management platforms separately to update the hours respectively]. [We needed a solution] to make sure it’s consistent and accurate.” Responding to online reviews was also time-consuming, and low response rates hurt the brand image. Local stores needed a solution to increase response rates with less effort.
Lack of visibility and control over social media content. It was important for local stores to build a community through their social media content, but also critical for the corporation to maintain a consistent brand image. Previously, organizations had no visibility or control over the content posted by stores on social media networks, and there was no approval process in place. The vice president of marketing from the retail organization noted: “One of the bigger things for us were guardrails and approval processes. Social media is big in our system and we didn’t have a way to manage it because everyone had their accounts and I couldn’t go in and see what people were posting. It was about brand compliance. We need to see all the posts that our franchisees do on the franchise’s pages. We need to approve everything.”
The interviewees’ organizations searched for a solution that could:
Provide a powerful digital marketing solution to stores to help local stores work more efficiently while maintaining brand consistency.
Centralize digital marketing efforts into one platform to offer corporate teams better visibility and control while streamlining coordination with local stores.
Include expert support to enhance the impact of social media efforts.
Based on the interviews, Forrester constructed a TEI framework, a composite company, and an ROI analysis that illustrates the areas financially affected. The composite organization is representative of the interviewees’ organizations, and it is used to present the aggregate financial analysis in the next section. The composite organization has the following characteristics:
Description of composite. The composite organization is a US-based, multilocation business-to-consumer (B2C) enterprise that provides sales, customer support, and service for its high-volume consumer products. With a strong brand, a large customer base, and a robust online and offline presence, the organization operates 1,000 locations across the US, generating $1 billion in annual store sales revenue. The average sales price of its products is $100.
Deployment characteristics. Prior to deploying SOCi, the composite organization lacked a comprehensive platform to support digital marketing efforts across all locations. In Year 1, the organization begins using SOCi, following a three-month implementation period. The initial rollout involved all existing stores.
Multilocation B2C enterprise
$1 billion annual store sales
1,000 stores in the US
| Ref. | Benefit | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total | Present Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atr | Efficiency gains from an accelerated digital presence | $847,238 | $847,238 | $847,238 | $2,541,714 | $2,106,954 |
| Btr | Business growth from higher traffic and conversion | $430,976 | $430,976 | $430,976 | $1,292,928 | $1,071,774 |
| Ctr | Business growth from customer loyalty | $546,000 | $546,000 | $546,000 | $1,638,000 | $1,357,821 |
| Total benefits (risk-adjusted) | $1,824,214 | $1,824,214 | $1,824,214 | $5,472,641 | $4,536,549 |
Evidence and data. Local stores often had multiple social media accounts and online business pages to maintain. Without proper solutions, managing these accounts was time-consuming and labor-intensive. By deploying SOCi, local stores experienced a significant increase in operational efficiency.
Ensuring accurate and consistent business information across various business pages and social media accounts is critical for the customer experience, brand image, and ultimately, business revenue. Prior to using SOCi, employees at local stores spent considerable time logging into each system to update information. The vice president of marketing and media strategy from the youth activities organization shared: “It will absolutely take more time and resources if we didn’t have SOCi. The franchisees themselves had a lot less time on their hands because they needed to update and manage and log into all of these different platforms and systems.”
The automatic scheduling function enables local stores to efficiently add localized social media posts to calendars for automatic publication throughout the month across multiple networks. Interviewees highlighted this capability as a major time-saver that also supported a consistent brand presence across locations. The vice president of marketing and media strategy at the youth activities organization said: “The social media scheduling [helps with] efficiencies in terms of planning what their social media posts will look like. We do give our local stores some national content, but they do need to supplement that with some local content. This is a mixture of the brand building, but at the same time giving them the ability to add some personality, add some location-specific content to their social media profiles.” The vice president of marketing at the retail organization also shared that local stores now spend 20 minutes on social media postings by leveraging the automatic scheduling function to publish localized posts across multiple networks at once, when they needed 1 hour to do the same before implementing SOCi.
Managing social posts was another main objective for the interviewees’ organizations to deploy SOCi. In the previous environment, the interviewees’ organizations had suboptimal work processes in place to hand off social post content to local stores, and an inefficient approval process to sign off on the social posts created by local stores, which resulted in the creation of less social media posts. The utility of social media on business was discounted. The vice president of marketing at the retail organization shared that before implementing SOCi, only the selected franchise owners had social media accounts to post content due to limited capacity. The situation changed with the deployment of SOCi: “With SOCi, the quality of our posts are way up. We are giving our franchisees a solution to manage social media. We’ve been able to speed up our approval process and have brand compliance. Previously, people had to email us posts. Now, we have a simple approval process and we are able to approve [the posts] within 48 hours.”
Responding to reviews was another time-consuming task for local stores. They had to periodically check each site for new reviews and respond accordingly. With SOCi, store managers received notifications on the SOCi platform for new reviews from any connected site and they can reply directly through the SOCi platform. The vice president of marketing and media strategy from the youth activities organization noted: “It is much easier to be able to just see those reviews coming through from SOCi as opposed to checking [each account one by one]. So, you’re getting the benefit by not only logging into one platform, but you’re also getting the benefit with only having to familiarize yourself with that one platform.”
SOCi’s Genius Reviews enabled organizations to centralize reviews from multiple sites into a single inbox and receive AI-generated responses. Genius Reviews reduced the time required for local teams to reply to each review. This allowed teams to maintain full control by either approving responses with one click or making quick edits before publishing. The vice president of marketing at a retail organization stated: “Before, I looked at the reviews and I would type the responses out. It took me 5 to 10 minutes to craft something nice. Now, because we set directives and all that with the AI, I just proofread it. I might change a little bit here and there, but it takes me 30 seconds or less to [respond to] a review.”
Providing a powerful platform to local stores also resulted in efficiency savings at the corporate level. Interviewees mentioned that they required a smaller marketing team after adopting SOCi. The vice president of marketing at the retail organization said: “We would need to have at least two people working full time if we’re doing everything natively. Now, our brand manager and I would probably spend maybe a fifth of the time doing it. So, from spending 80 hours a week to only 20 hours, probably 10 hours a week.”
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
Local stores maintain an average of four common business pages and social media accounts. Before using SOCi, store managers updated business information on each social media account every two weeks, spending 30 minutes per account. In total, each store manager spent 48 hours annually maintaining these accounts.
With SOCi, four social media accounts can be consolidated into one account, saving store managers 75% of the time needed to maintain the accounts.
With SOCi Social, each local store saves 8 hours per year by automatically scheduling posts to publish throughout the month across multiple networks at once, and saves another 8 hours on the posts’ approval process.
Each store receives an average of 45 reviews annually across different sites, with a 50% review response rate. It took 10 minutes to respond to each review.
With SOCi Genius Reviews, store managers save 90% of the time responding to reviews.
The average hourly fully burdened rate of a store manager is $34, with a productivity recapture rate of 50%.
Risks. The expected financial impact is subject to risks and variations based on several factors that may reduce or slow the recognition of this benefit, including:
The number of accounts integrated into SOCi.
The previous cadence of business pages and social media accounts maintenance.
The review response rate and the internal review response policy.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $2,106,954.
Time reduction on responding to reviews with SOCi Genius Reviews
Time savings per store with SOCi Social
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A1 | Local stores | Composite | 1,000 | 1,000 | 1,000 | |
| A2 | Time spent on maintaining each store’s online business pages per year prior to SOCi (hours) | Composite | 48 | 48 | 48 | |
| A3 | Percentage of time saved with SOCi Listing | Interviews | 75% | 75% | 75% | |
| A4 | Subtotal: Time saved for business pages maintenance (hours) | A1*A2*A3 | 36,000 | 36,000 | 36,000 | |
| A5 | Time saved on social post scheduling and distribution automation per store annually (hours) | Interviews | 8 | 8 | 8 | |
| A6 | Time saved for corporate-to-local store communication on social post alignment and approval per store annually (hours) | Interviews | 8 | 8 | 8 | |
| A7 | Subtotal: Time saved on social post execution (hours) | (A5+A6)*A1 | 16,000 | 16,000 | 16,000 | |
| A8 | Online reviews received per store annually | Composite | 45 | 45 | 45 | |
| A9 | Review response rate | Interviews | 50% | 50% | 50% | |
| A10 | Time spent on review response prior to SOCi (minutes) | Interviews | 10 | 10 | 10 | |
| A11 | Percentage of time reduced with SOCi Genius Reviews | Interviews | 90% | 90% | 90% | |
| A12 | Subtotal: Time saved for respongding to online reviews (hours) | A1*A8*A9*(A10/60 minutes)*A11 | 3,375 | 3,375 | 3,375 | |
| A13 | Fully burdened hourly rate for store managers | Composite | $34 | $34 | $34 | |
| A14 | Productivity recapture rate | TEI methodology | 50% | 50% | 50% | |
| At | Efficiency gains from an accelerated digital presence | (A4+A7+A12)*A13 *A14 | $941,375 | $941,375 | $941,375 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↓10% | |||||
| Atr | Efficiency Gains From An Accelerated Digital Presence (risk-adjusted) | $847,238 | $847,238 | $847,238 | ||
| Three-year total: $2,541,713 | Three-year present value: $2,106,954 | |||||
Evidence and data. According to the interviewees, increasing both online and offline traffic is critical for multilocation businesses. By deploying SOCi and managing digital marketing efforts, these organizations aimed to generate more online traffic and convert them into in-store sales. Enhanced business pages, improved SEO tactics, higher review response rates, and other functionalities provided by SOCi led to positive outcomes.
From the perspective of the corporation, SOCi helped increase the digital traffic and converted that to foot traffic in-store. Increased digital traffic was driven by consistent social media messages and displaying accurate business information online. With SOCi’s deployment, interviewees experienced improved search engine rankings. The vice president of marketing at the youth activities organization noted: “I think there are three main components about how you strategize for SEO. Firstly, on page. How’s your content structure? Secondly, is on-site. What is the architecture of the site? Thirdly, off-site, which would include SOCi. Ever since we launched our SEO strategy with SOCi, some of our biggest websites have seen over 40% increase in organic traffic. I’d say maybe 20% to 30% is probably attributable to SOCi.”
SOCi enabled organizations to develop online communities through local stores. Social media content, local store pages, and responses to reviews powered by SOCi created a consistent brand image. The vice president of marketing at the retail organization shared: “I would say that probably gave us 20% to 30% lift in sales made by customers who have gone through and seen us online or have met the store owners. Customers were lowering their walls of protection because they almost feel like they know the people in the local stores, especially when the customers see faces [of the stores’ employees] on social media videos, and [then] they see them in person.”
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
Across all the business pages and social media accounts, the composite organization has 10 million digital clicks in digital traffic annually, for all 1,000 local stores. With the deployment of SOCi, digital traffic increases by 8%.
On average, 2% of the digital traffic converts to in-store sales. After the deployment of SOCi, the composite organization experiences a 20% increase in the conversion rate.
The average profit per sale for the composite organization is $9.10.
Risks. The expected financial impact is subject to risks and variations based on several factors that may reduce or slow the recognition of this benefit, including:
The original digital traffic and conversion rate of the organization.
The previous social media strategy and the SEO strategies.
The adoption rate of SOCi.
The organization’s profit margin.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 20%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $1.1 million.
Increase in conversion rate
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B1 | Annual digital traffic prior to using SOCi | Composite | 10,000,000 | 10,000,000 | 10,000,000 | |
| B2 | Percentage increase of digital traffic with SOCi Listing and Social | Interviews | 8% | 8% | 8% | |
| B3 | Total traffic with SOCi | B1*(1+B2) | 10,800,000 | 10,800,000 | 10,800,000 | |
| B4 | Conversion rate prior to using SOCi | Composite | 2% | 2% | 2% | |
| B5 | Percentage increase in conversion rate with SOCi | Interviews | 20% | 20% | 20% | |
| B6 | Conversion rate with SOCi | B4*(1+B5) | 2.4% | 2.4% | 2.4% | |
| B7 | Incremental sales volume with SOCi | B3*B6-B1*B4 | 59,200 | 59,200 | 59,200 | |
| B8 | Average profit per sale | Composite | $9.10 | $9.10 | $9.10 | |
| Bt | Business growth from higher traffic and conversion | B7*B8 | $538,720 | $538,720 | $538,720 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↓20% | |||||
| Btr | Business growth from higher traffic and conversion (risk-adjusted) | $430,976 | $430,976 | $430,976 | ||
| Three-year total: $1,292,928 | Three-year present value: $1,071,774 | |||||
Evidence and data. Various factors influence the customers’ repurchase behaviour, with brand reputation being a significant variable. Interviewees believed that leveraging SOCi improved their organization’s online reputation among customers, ultimately leading to a higher repurchase rate.
Customers who leave reviews online, be it positive or negative, are valuable to the business as they demonstrate a willingness to interact with the brand. Properly customized responses to customer reviews convey to customers that their voices are heard and valued. With SOCi Genius Reviews, the interviewees noted that their organization not only experienced an improvement in efficiency in review response operations, but also saw an increase in response rates. The vice president of marketing at the retail organization reported that using SOCi increased response rates from 50% to 100%. The senior lead product management and development at the telecommunications organization also shared: “SOCi gives us the capability to listen and respond [to customers]. That does help our reputation. Customers think, “This company is responding, this company cares”.”
Authentic social media content also positively impacts brand reputation, which improves repurchase rates. The interviewees’ organizations created social media content for local stores to post and encouraged local stores to customize their own content. SOCi helps teams build shared social media calendars for centralized posts and provides trend analysis and suggestions for creating localized posts that can be automatically scheduled to publish throughout the month across multiple networks at once. This translates to a positive online brand image, making customers feel more connected with local stores. The vice president of marketing at the retail company commented: “Responding to reviews, creating the social media content, being involved in a community, that’s all huge. I would assume that probably improved our customer retention by a quarter.”
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
Prior to using SOCi, the composite organization’s in-store revenue was $1 billion.
The average repurchase rate before using SOCi is 25% across all locations. With the deployment of SOCi, the repurchase rate increases by 3%.
The net profit margin is 9.1%.
Risks. The expected financial impact is subject to risks and variations based on several factors that may reduce or slow the recognition of this benefit, including:
The organization’s annual in-store revenue and previous repurchase rate.
The modules offered by SOCi that the organization chooses to deploy.
The general digital marketing strategy and the adoption rates of SOCi.
The organization’s profit margin.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 20%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $1,357,821.
Incremental profit from increased customer loyalty with SOCi
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C1 | Annual revenue before using SOCi | Composite | $1,000,000,000 | $1,000,000,000 | $1,000,000,000 | |
| C2 | Repurchase rate before using SOCi | Interviews | 25% | 25% | 25% | |
| C3 | Percentage increase of repurchase rate with SOCi | Interviews | 3% | 3% | 3% | |
| C4 | Net profit margin | Composite | 9.1% | 9.1% | 9.1% | |
| Ct | Business growth from customer loyalty | C1*C2*C3*C4 | $682,500 | $682,500 | $682,500 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↓20% | |||||
| Ctr | Business growth from customer loyalty (risk-adjusted) | $546,000 | $546,000 | $546,000 | ||
| Three-year total: $1,638,000 | Three-year present value: $1,357,821 | |||||
Interviewees mentioned the following additional benefits that their organizations experienced but were not able to quantify:
Enhancing brand consistency. Interviewees noted that they highly valued brand consistency. Before using SOCi, interviewees noted that it was challenging to maintain a consistent brand image across all locations due to varied interpretations of brand guidelines. With SOCi, corporations could distribute the same message to all locations and enforce approval procedures. The vice president of marketing and media strategy at the youth activities organization shared: “We do have the ability to roll out our national social media content to all of our locations. [Managers of each store’s social media accounts] can go in and add their own as well. But, when you think about brand building, you get consistency in messaging, consistency in look and feel, and consistency in the logo being used. From a corporate perspective, we do want to make sure that there’s consistency in there.”
Expertise and partnership of the SOCi team. Beyond the platform, interviewees emphasized their appreciation for the expertise provided by the SOCi team in streamlining digital marketing efforts. The senior lead product management and development at the telecommunications organization shared that the reason they chose SOCi over their previous vendor was the expertise SOCi provided to them on SEO strategies. He said: “One thing they bring to the table that is huge for me from an SEO standpoint is that they’re SEO experts. The experts that they have on the team that we can talk to, that we can work with. They make recommendations for SEO improvements.”
Seamless onboarding of new social media networks. SOCi simplifies the onboarding of new social media networks without requiring additional team members or increasing the workload for local stores. The vice president of marketing and media strategy at the youth activities organization shared: “We’ve expanded with [[a leading, free business profile tool] last year. SOCi gave me the ability to create posts on the platform — we are helping to make franchisees a little bit more aware of it, and we’re even using it more from a corporate perspective as well with a tentpole campaign. So that’s one platform that I’d say we’ve expanded out into to create more content for. Eventually, it will translate to more revenue. I think right now the benefits of doing so with the low number of resources available just makes it seem like a no brainer to do it.”
The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement SOCi and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:
SOCI’s reporting and analytics capabilities provide the possibility of in-depth analysis of campaign outcome and improvement. Traditionally, the interviewees’ organizations struggled to quantify the results of their digital marketing campaigns and identify areas for improvement. SOCi offers robust reporting and analytics capabilities which provide data that was previously unavailable and enable organizations to internalize and act on this information. The chief marketing officer at the fitness organization shared the data they could achieve with SOCi: “We can look at post volume, review volume, and review ratings by franchisee or by cohort. We can look at the complaints by trend, and how often the local stores engaged with [their audience] on different platforms, what they are posting and how their content compared to [the content by] our top performing locations. We also do a lot of review reporting, right, so sometimes we’ll do internal pushes to drive reviews and we’ll measure the efficacy of that using SOCi dashboards.” The senior lead of product management and development at the telecommunications organization also shared: “SOCi has a nice user interface, and you see the data you’re looking for. They’re actually working on improving their reporting with our feedback. So, I’ll tell them what I like or what I could use and then they either try to build it or they see if other customers can also benefit from it.”
SOCi’s AI capabilities can help organizations adopt and scale local marketing for the first time. Most interviewees had no prior experience with AI before implementing SOCi. Through features like AI-generated tailored responses to reviews and social media posts, localized content calendar creation, automated listing, and page SEO enhancements, SOCi can enable teams to accomplish more with the same amount of resources or fewer. For many, SOCi served as a foundation for expanding AI use across other parts of the business. The senior lead of product management and development at the telecommunications organization shared their plan with SOCi: “We may expand to utilize a lot of their AI solutions to see what it brings from an SEO standpoint. Number one, how it can help, and then the other piece is possibly their AI capabilities for helping bring more personalized responses to the reviews. I think those two things at the moment would be key.”
Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Total Economic Impact Approach).
| Ref. | Cost | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total | Present Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dtr | SOCi platform and services fee | $0 | $517,500 | $517,500 | $517,500 | $1,552,500 | $1,286,946 |
| Etr | Implementation and training costs | $112,170 | $29,920 | $29,920 | $29,920 | $201,930 | $186,577 |
| Ftr | Ongoing management and maintenance costs | $0 | $32,137 | $32,137 | $32,137 | $96,411 | $79,919 |
| Total costs (risk-adjusted) | $112,170 | $579,557 | $579,557 | $579,557 | $1,850,841 | $1,553,442 |
Evidence and data. SOCi operates on a subscription model with pricing based on the platform access, product bundling, and contract duration. Additionally, the interviewees’ organizations collaborated with SOCi on digital marketing strategy development and specific digital marketing initiatives, and purchased professional services from SOCi as needed.
Pricing may vary. Contact SOCi for additional details.
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
It deploys the SOCi platform with the following products: SOCi Genius Reviews, SOCi Listings, SOCi Pages, SOCi Social, and SOCi Surveys.
It pays $450,000 per year to SOCi for all locations to access the platform and to collaborate with SOCi teams on certain marketing initiatives.
Risks. The expected financial impact is subject to risks and variation based on several factors that may increase this cost, including:
SOCi’s pricing strategy.
The number of locations with access to the SOCi platform.
The professional services required by the organization.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $1,286,946.
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D1 | SOCi platform and services fee | Composite | $450,000 | $450,000 | $450,000 | ||
| Dt | SOCi platform and services fee | D1 | $0 | $450,000 | $450,000 | $450,000 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↑15% | ||||||
| Dtr | SOCi platform and services fee (risk-adjusted) | $0 | $517,500 | $517,500 | $517,500 | ||
| Three-year total: $1,552,500 | Three-year present value: $1,286,946 | ||||||
Evidence and data. The implementation of SOCi largely depended on the organization’s existing set up and the number of locations involved. Interviewees generally described the implementation process as smooth and efficient.
Some interviewees’ organizations transitioned from other platforms to SOCi. The senior lead of product management and development from the telecommunications organization shared: “It was a seamless transition moving from other platforms to SOCi. There were no issues with the servers, with indexing in [a search engine], which is a big deal from the SEO standpoint. Our pages didn’t get lost anywhere.”
Other interviewees’ organizations implemented SOCi from scratch, with internal team members collaborating with the SOCi team to do so. The vice president of marketing and media strategy at the youth activities organization recalled: “We had somebody oversee the project. From a marketing perspective, there were marketing aspects that needed to be included in there, like imagery, branding, logos. We also had one person consolidate everything into an adjustable file that SOCi can take. I’d say probably 50% to 60% at the beginning and then phase out after the launch.”
The interviewees’ organizations hosted onboarding training for local store managers to ensure they could easily leverage SOCi in daily management. Training sessions typically lasted 1 to 2 hours and were held periodically to onboard new store managers.
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
It pays a professional services fee of $20,000 to SOCi for implementation services.
The average implementation period is three months, involving two team members who dedicate 30% of their effort to the project. The average fully burdened annual salary per employee on the implementation team is $93,150.
During the onboarding of SOCi, all store managers have to participate in a 2-hour training session. Each year, 400 new store managers undergo training, including those from newly opened locations and those due to natural turnover in existing stores.
Risks. The expected financial impact is subject to risks and variation based on several factors that may higher this cost, including:
The existing platform used by the company.
The internal implementation effort and the number of the local stores.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $186,577.
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| E1 | Implementation service fees | Composite | $20,000 | ||||
| E2 | Length of implementation (months) | Interviews | 3 | ||||
| E3 | Marketing team members involved | Interviews | 2 | ||||
| E4 | Percentage of effort dedicated to implementation by marketers | Interviews | 30% | ||||
| E5 | Fully burdened annual salary of marketers | Composite | $93,150 | ||||
| E6 | Subtotal: Implementation effort | E2/12months*E3* E4*E5 | $13,973 | ||||
| E7 | Staff who required onboarding training to use SOCi | Composite | 1,000 | 400 | 400 | 400 | |
| E8 | Time needed for onboarding per user (hours) | Interviews | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |
| E9 | Average fully burdened hourly salary of end users | Composite | $34 | $34 | $34 | $34 | |
| E10 | Subtotal: Training cost | E7*E8*E9 | $68,000 | $27,200 | $27,200 | $27,200 | |
| Et | Implementation and training costs | E1+E6+E10 | $101,973 | $27,200 | $27,200 | $27,200 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↑10% | ||||||
| Etr | Implementation and training costs (risk-adjusted) | $112,170 | $29,920 | $29,920 | $29,920 | ||
| Three-year total: $201,930 | Three-year present value: $186,577 | ||||||
Evidence and data. Interviewees reported that it was necessary to have a dedicated team member within the corporation to manage SOCi on a daily basis. Local stores used SOCi almost every day, and if issues arose, the corporation would assist in resolving them. Additionally, the interviewees’ organizations appointed a designated member to work with SOCi on initiatives and ongoing solution management. The vice president of marketing and media strategy at the youth activities organization shared: “We do have somebody that manages SOCi now. I’d say SOCi probably takes 25% to 30% of their time. They also address troubleshooting tickets from the franchisees.”
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
It has one designated team member who dedicates 30% of their effort to managing SOCi.
Risks. The expected financial impact is subject to risks and variation based on several factors that may higher this cost, including:
The number of local stores that implemented SOCi.
The specific use cases of SOCi.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $79,919.
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F1 | FTE involved in ongoing management | Composite | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
| F2 | Percentage of effort dedicated to managing SOCi | Interviews | 30% | 30% | 30% | ||
| F3 | Fully burdened annual salary | Composite | $93,150 | $93,150 | $93,150 | ||
| Ft | Ongoing management and maintenance costs | F1*F2*F3 | $27,945 | $27,945 | $27,945 | ||
| Risk adjustment | ↑15% | ||||||
| Ftr | Ongoing management and maintenance costs (risk-adjusted) | $0 | $32,137 | $32,137 | $32,137 | ||
| Three-year total: $96,410 | Three-year present value: $79,919 | ||||||
| Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total | Present Value | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total costs | ($112,170) | ($579,557) | ($579,557) | ($579,557) | ($1,850,841) | ($1,553,442) |
| Total benefits | $0 | $1,824,214 | $1,824,214 | $1,824,214 | $5,472,641 | $4,536,549 |
| Net benefits | ($112,170) | $1,244,657 | $1,244,657 | $1,244,657 | $3,621,800 | $2,983,107 |
| ROI | 192% | |||||
| Payback period (months) | <6 |
The financial results calculated in the Benefits and Costs sections can be used to determine the ROI, NPV, and payback period for the composite organization’s investment. Forrester assumes a yearly discount rate of 10% for this analysis.
These risk-adjusted ROI, NPV, and payback period values are determined by applying risk-adjustment factors to the unadjusted results in each Benefit and Cost section.
The initial investment column contains costs incurred at “time 0” or at the beginning of Year 1 that are not discounted. All other cash flows are discounted using the discount rate at the end of the year. PV calculations are calculated for each total cost and benefit estimate. NPV calculations in the summary tables are the sum of the initial investment and the discounted cash flows in each year. Sums and present value calculations of the Total Benefits, Total Costs, and Cash Flow tables may not exactly add up, as some rounding may occur.
From the information provided in the interviews, Forrester constructed a Total Economic Impact™ framework for those organizations considering an investment in SOCi.
The objective of the framework is to identify the cost, benefit, flexibility, and risk factors that affect the investment decision. Forrester took a multistep approach to evaluate the impact that SOCi can have on an organization.
Interviewed SOCi stakeholders and Forrester analysts to gather data relative to SOCi.
Interviewed four decision-makers at organizations using SOCi to obtain data about costs, benefits, and risks.
Designed a composite organization based on characteristics of the interviewees’ organizations.
Constructed a financial model representative of the interviews using the TEI methodology and risk-adjusted the financial model based on issues and concerns of the interviewees.
Employed four fundamental elements of TEI in modeling the investment impact: benefits, costs, flexibility, and risks. Given the increasing sophistication of ROI analyses related to IT investments, Forrester’s TEI methodology provides a complete picture of the total economic impact of purchase decisions. Please see Appendix A for additional information on the TEI methodology.
Benefits represent the value the solution delivers to the business. The TEI methodology places equal weight on the measure of benefits and costs, allowing for a full examination of the solution’s effect on the entire organization.
Costs comprise all expenses necessary to deliver the proposed value, or benefits, of the solution. The methodology captures implementation and ongoing costs associated with the solution.
Flexibility represents the strategic value that can be obtained for some future additional investment building on top of the initial investment already made. The ability to capture that benefit has a PV that can be estimated.
Risks measure the uncertainty of benefit and cost estimates given: 1) the likelihood that estimates will meet original projections and 2) the likelihood that estimates will be tracked over time. TEI risk factors are based on “triangular distribution.”
The present or current value of (discounted) cost and benefit estimates given at an interest rate (the discount rate). The PV of costs and benefits feed into the total NPV of cash flows.
The present or current value of (discounted) future net cash flows given an interest rate (the discount rate). A positive project NPV normally indicates that the investment should be made unless other projects have higher NPVs.
A project’s expected return in percentage terms. ROI is calculated by dividing net benefits (benefits less costs) by costs.
The interest rate used in cash flow analysis to take into account the time value of money. Organizations typically use discount rates between 8% and 16%.
The breakeven point for an investment. This is the point in time at which net benefits (benefits minus costs) equal initial investment or cost.
Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists solution providers in communicating their value proposition to clients. The TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of business and technology initiatives to both senior management and other key stakeholders.
1 Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists solution providers in communicating their value proposition to clients. The TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of business and technology initiatives to both senior management and other key stakeholders.
2 Source: The Search Engine Optimization Solutions Landscape, Q1 2025, Forrester Research, Inc., January 29, 2025.
Readers should be aware of the following:
This study is commissioned by SOCi and delivered by Forrester Consulting. It is not meant to be used as a competitive analysis.
Forrester makes no assumptions as to the potential ROI that other organizations will receive. Forrester strongly advises that readers use their own estimates within the framework provided in the study to determine the appropriateness of an investment in SOCi. For any interactive functionality, the intent is for the questions to solicit inputs specific to a prospect's business. Forrester believes that this analysis is representative of what companies may achieve with SOCi based on the inputs provided and any assumptions made. Forrester does not endorse SOCi or its offerings. Although great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy and completeness of this model, SOCi and Forrester Research are unable to accept any legal responsibility for any actions taken on the basis of the information contained herein. The interactive tool is provided ‘AS IS,’ and Forrester and SOCi make no warranties of any kind.
SOCi reviewed and provided feedback to Forrester, but Forrester maintains editorial control over the study and its findings and does not accept changes to the study that contradict Forrester’s findings or obscure the meaning of the study.
SOCi provided the customer names for the interviews but did not participate in the interviews.
Chengcheng Dong
May 2025
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