Carolina Locomotive Steams Into Oranmore
The recent acquisition of IMS Marketing by The Locomotive Agency, a North Carolina digital marketing specialist, came as a bit of a surprise to the owner. IMS wasn’t on the market, and its location at Oranmore in rural county Galway hardly made it stand out in any corporate beauty parade. Yet, one day Locomotive’s founder Marty Martin called out of the blue with an offer to buy the company.
Owner Kevin Moran (49) incorporated Kevre Teoranta, the IMS Marketing operating company, in December 2009 after spending a decade working for multinationals on international marketing and sales channel development.
“I saw an opportunity to develop a service focused on the B2B market,” he explains. “I started as a one-man band and bolted on different services and grew the team, bit by bit over the years. We are up to about 25 people today.”
IMS Marketing can assist a specialised engineering company, for example, to prep it for entry into a new European market. This entails sussing out the opposition, translating the offering into the local language, identifying potential marketing partners, and launching a B2B digital advertising campaign.
“Clients ask us how do we get into these markets, how do we
promote ourselves better,” says Moran. “Our business model is developing those strategies and helping companies to implement them.” IMS also spearheads export initiatives in partnership with Enterprise Ireland and other state agencies.
IMS has also developed an interesting line in agile working, not to be confused, cautions Moran, with remote working. “This organisation is now built around pods or teams that work together and are dedicated to a client and a project over a period of time,” says Moran.
“Our teams are based anywhere from Donegal to Waterford or from Cork to Dublin. We assign a team of four or five people to every project. It gives the client a fully resourced team and that makes the project move far more efficiently.”
The pitch now from scubadiving enthusiast Marty Martin is that Locomotive is a one-stop shop for US firms looking to expand into new markets abroad. “With Locomotive and IMS it’s now possible for clients to achieve and activate a marketing strategy tailored to their specific business goals in whatever country they are looking to expand into,” said Martin.
Consideration for the deal was not disclosed. Kevre Teo booked a pre-tax profit of €340,000 in 2022, and ended the year with net current assets of €1.2m, including €980,000 in cash.