Dental industry news: Yodle acquires Lighthouse Practice Management Group

March 4, 2013

Yodle, a leader in local online marketing, has announced that it has acquired Lighthouse Practice Management Group, one of the premier providers of dental appointment reminder and relationship marketing software in the United States. As a result, Yodle will now have a strong relationship marketing complement to its customer acquisition marketing offerings, currently used by 30,000+ small business clients. This acquisition expands Yodle’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform offering, which now accounts for nearly half of the company’s revenue.

“Adding online relationship marketing to our product offerings is the natural next step for Yodle for both our clients and the business,” said Court Cunningham, CEO at Yodle. “We are one of the leading pioneers in helping small businesses acquire new customers through online marketing, and now look forward to supporting them in nurturing and growing their own customer relationships. Traditionally marketers have siloed acquisition and relationship marketing; Yodle is now breaking down that wall as a result of acquiring Lighthouse and will be the first in the industry to optimize SMB lead generation based on actual transactions.”

Yodle’s small business clients are currently acquiring new customers through the company’s integrated desktop and mobile product offering that includes websites, search advertising and a simple performance dashboard. Yodle will initially offer its newly acquired relationship marketing product to existing dental clients in addition to continuing to build the rapidly growing Lighthouse business. During 2013, Yodle will also begin providing relationship marketing to other industry verticals by drawing on Lighthouse’s expertise in the dental field.

Lighthouse’s three co-founders have a combined 60 years of experience in dental software and relationship marketing, including the original creation of PracticeWorks, one of the most widely used practice management systems. Lighthouse’s flagship product Lighthouse 360, which was introduced in 2006, is currently used by several thousand dental practices. The entire Lighthouse staff has now joined the Yodle team.

“Yodle was attracted to Lighthouse because of the company’s tremendous technical expertise and deep understanding of the needs of small businesses,” added Cunningham. “Lighthouse is also closely aligned with Yodle’s metrics-driven and results-oriented approach, and collaborative and open culture.”

Brian Smith, CEO at Lighthouse and now Yodle’s VP of Product and Marketing for Lighthouse 360, stated: “As well as continuing to provide strong value to our existing customers, joining Yodle enables us to accelerate our vision of delivering effective relationship marketing solutions to more small businesses. Yodle’s strong sales infrastructure and proven expertise in developing product offerings that have a strong ROI will help bring this to fruition.”