Parag Pathare
Founder & CEO
With the paradigm shift taking place in the Marketing & Advertising space, Local Businesses are in need of effective & winning Location based Digital & Social media Marketing solutions. Pune headquartered Smart Suburbs aptly fits into the picture and provides 360° Digital Marketing to their client's Biz locations via a dedicated suburban web/social & Ads Media Portals Network.

A location focused Digital Ecosystem for businesses, Smart Suburbs is a brand owned & operated by parent Company IPSense Consultancy Pvt. Ltd (IPSense.com). “Our objective is to bridge and connect local businesses, institutions & establishments with residents via dedicated suburban location portals offering Biz Directory, Events, Jobs, Articles, Surveys, Polls, Online Contests, Local News & Happenings, Discount Coupons, Online Bazaar,” informs Parag Pathare, Founder & CEO.

The Beginning
It was sometime in 1998 when Parag was struggling to find local

directory on the suburb he grew-up in Mumbai. That triggered the idea of having dedicated suburban web portal covering everything the resident needs. “Almost 70 percent of our lifespan is spent in a suburb we grow in and are emotionally attached with. Equally, for local businesses, 70 percent of foot falls come from 5 sq.km radius. This thought led to the creation of umbrella initiative called “Smart Suburbs” which offers Hyper Local Suburban Info Portals offering Directory, Events, Jobs, Free Community Engagement & Online Bazaar,” Parag says.

" Currently Smart Suburbs operates 6 suburban web portals of Pune & Mumbai out of its total plan of 45 dense Suburban Media Network"

Over the years, constant evolution of the Digital & Social Media space has helped the company to further improvise and optimise its Differentiated Suburban Info Aggregator & Digital Marketing & Ads Media Web Portals Network. “Our journey has been of Continuous Learning & Reshaping. We have taken conscious approach to carry out on ground test & experiment our model, and the response has been very encouraging,” he mentions. Currently Smart Suburbs operates 6 suburban web portals of Pune & Mumbai out of its total plan of 45 dense Suburban Media Network.

Smart Suburbs offers its flagship offering of Paid Biz Listing at Rs.3000/year. Additionally, it offers

Enterprise Local Digital Marketing services to Property, Education, Healthcare, Financial biz segments via is Online Guides, Events, Facebook /Google Adwords mgmt, Contests, Banner Ads on its Web Ads Portal Network, Coupons guide, Branded eStore on Local Marketplace, e-Commerce Store & Social Media Automation.

A Bright Future
Sensing a high growth potential in the coming years, team Smart Suburbs’ expansion plans focus on Pune & Mumbai, of which they have a portfolio of 45 generic geodomains mapping dense suburbs of these metros. “We have spent some good amount of past 12 months on the drawing board to further strengthen our core offering with marketing automation as a focus. We are again aggressively stepping into the market from Sep 2018,” he adds.

Currently, 5 LIVE suburban portals mapping Pune suburbs (Wakad.in, Pimple Saudagar.in, Baner Balewadi.com, Aundh.in and Kothrud.com) are getting upgraded to ver2 offerings. An Android App is in the pipeline for Smart Suburbs. The company aims to be cash-flow positive on these 5 suburbs by end-2018. Post which, it will resume rollout of more of Pune or Mumbai suburbs. “We are also in the midst of setting up a Mumbai office by Q4 2018 which will play the Hub for Mumbai Suburban rollouts planned from Q1-2019,” he concludes.