Acquisition aims to bolster ‘digital transitioning’ business

The New Haven-based advertising and branding firm Digital Surgeons has acquired a Westport-based marketing strategy company.

Terms of the deal between Profitable Channels and Digital Surgeons were not released Wednesday. The deal sets the stage for what could be a watershed year for Digital Surgeons in 2017 as the company moves into a new headquarters and quickens the pace of its digital transformation or transitioning business.

The term refers to the process of helping client companies shift the marketing and promotion of their business and products from more traditional channels such as print and broadcast advertising to digital, social and mobile channels.

“Digital transitioning is one of the hottest topics in business today,” said David Salinas, chief executive officer and co-founder of Digital Surgeons. “Marketing is changing. If you can’t transform fast enough, your business is finished.”

Stephen Diorio, founder of Profitable Channels, will lead Digital Surgeons’ digital transformation practice. Diorio said transformation in the digital realm “is about connecting the dots” for client companies as they attempt to market their products and services.

Diorio founded Profitable Channels 15 years ago and has worked with companies including CBS, Intuit, Ricoh and SunTrust Bank.

Salinas said the two companies have worked together on projects for clients.

“It was a very good cultural match for us,” he said.

Diorio said by merging the two companies, clients will benefit because they will be able to find digital strategy and execution expertise in the same place.

“You don’t have time to put a plan together and then find somebody to implement it,” he said. “You almost have to do both simultaneously.”

Marketing to millennials requires a different process than it did to previous generations, according to Diorio.

“Nobody wants to hear about products anymore,” he said. “What they care about is communicating experiences, storytelling, authenticity and credibility. If you are not authentic and you’re not credible, they are not going to vote with their clicks.”

Forty percent of a typical digital conversion budget goes toward creating the content used to market a client’s products and services, Diorio said.

With the merger complete, Digital Surgeons has some “very aggressive goals,” he said.

“We’re building an agency model for the future focused on design, speed and agility,” Diorio said. “We’re at a transition point.”

Part of that transition involves moving across James Street from Digital Surgeons’ current location to a new home in the former CT Transit bus garage.

Work on converting the bus garage into a modern, hightech facility started over summer. Digital Surgeons expects to move into its new digs during the first half of next year, Salinas said.

Salinas said though the acquisition of Profitable Channels was a first for Digital Surgeons, it may not be the last. “We’re looking at different opportunities, either growing internally or through acquisitions,” he said.