Jan. 12, 2021

Two well-known Sioux Falls marketing firms have now become one.

Digital agency Click Rain acquired visual content firm Lemonly, creating a 53-person organization that will operate as sister companies, with each retaining its name.

“More than anything, we can offer a more full suite of services to the clients we’re already in partnership with, and we become a more impactful brand on a larger stage,” Click Rain CEO Natalie Eisenberg said.

“They have a national reach with a very specific digital service, and we have a more regional presence with a little broader digital service, so it will be great to be able to offer more to all those clients.”

Together, the two companies will offer a wide range of services, including:

• Web design and development.
• Marketing and media strategy.
• Creative and visual storytelling.
• Location marketing management.

Lemonly was co-founded by Amy Colgan and John Meyer in 2011. Colgan will stay on with the company, and Meyer – Lemonly’s CEO – will serve in that role and sit on the combined executive team through this year.

“I’m ready for the next thing. I’m ready for the reset button and to try it again – a new business in a new industry,” Meyer said.

“I was doing my due diligence, and we were speaking to national agencies and talked to a big software company out of Phoenix, and Amy and I kept coming back to that it was important the team was a fit and the people would be in a great place. Click Rain has a great culture, and we have a great culture, and we have a lot of mutual respect, and that made it easier.”

Despite the pandemic, both organizations experienced double-digit year-over-year growth, he said.

“We as agencies don’t compete in the same space. We’re better together because it’s more about expansion and growth and new opportunities.”

Lemonly’s clients have included Major League Baseball, Netflix, the Green Bay Packers, Disney, Marriott and the United Nations.

Click Rain works extensively with Avera Health, Pizza Ranch, Regency Hotel Management and Wells Enterprises, maker of Blue Bunny, among others. The firm was founded by Mayor Paul TenHaken in 2008. He has since exited, and it’s now owned by four partners.

“One area we have competed as companies is for talent,” Eisenberg said. “So being able to have these two companies full of incredible talent will create a major powerhouse and make us super competitive.”

Lemonly also had wanted to do more local work, “and that’s where I think Click Rain has done an amazing job in this region,” Meyer added.

The firms also shifted their teams to remote work during the pandemic and have been slow to return. Both said they’re excited to determine together what a future office could look like. Their leases happen to expire around the same time this year – Lemonly is at 230 S. Main Ave. and Click Rain is at 300 N. Phillips Ave.

“We hope to pave the way on what new workspaces could look like,” Eisenberg said.

That likely won’t be 55 desks and 55 chairs, Meyer added.

“But something that makes sense for people to work in,” he said “And, philosophically, we’re aligned in how we feel about our teams and people, and designing it will be exciting.”

While Meyer anticipates another eventual entrepreneurial venture, “there’s no plan in place,” he said.

“And Click Rain gives me a great opportunity to give me a year to figure that out and ensure this team is taken care of. I would expect it to be in Sioux Falls. We just have a great community here. … I have that crazy mindset starting with an empty sheet of paper is exciting to me.”

The organizations have created a landing page to explain the combined company. To see it, click here.