More and more, the zombie apocalypse is looking like people wandering the streets, driving, eating out, and doing just about everything with their faces buried in their screens. Communications have gone the way of messaging, leaving face-to-face, and even phone, conversations a novelty. We’re all guilty of it – or at least half of us are.
"Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends." - Walt Disney
Pluris Marketing celebrated its 15-year anniversary earlier this year and CEO and founder Michael Caccavale is the first to admit it’s been an awesome journey. Meeting clients’ needs has always required strong leadership, and a keen eye for what’s on trend, and what’s coming next. So I sat down with Mike to take a trip down memory lane and to talk about what lies ahead.
I like a good deal as much as the next guy, but stopping into a big box discount retailer the other day had me thinking about the dilution of the customer experience. Walking into a cluttered shopping experience where the in-store offer doesn’t match what I found online (or on their mobile site, because I’m definitely consulting that while I’m in the store) is an all-too-common occurrence in retail – and using discounts to defend a poor customer experience just doesn’t cut it anymore.
Your customer walks in to the store to purchase a widget. Two scenarios could happen:
Scenario 1
The customer walks up to the register and the associate asks if they were able to find everything they were looking for. The customer says yes, pays and leaves.
Or...
Managers in all industries know the story of the manager in the boat. He’s tasked with keeping it afloat and instead of calling the shots by staying in the middle, he’s running frantically from one side to the other to check on his crew. In doing so, he’s throwing the whole operation off-balance, and everyone ends up reacting by bailing water.
As marketers, we use web, video and mobile strategies to reach our customer base. But what if you’re the provider of one or even all these services? While most marketers are focused on leveraging these channels for consumer engagement, top cable and telecomm providers are out there selling the very platforms that marketers depend on.
More and more, consumers are bombarded with messages—from advertisements under the ice at a hockey game to mobile phone apps, or one of the thousands of other places ads are placed in today's media-rich environment. What stands out is how marketers are slowly taking up the concepts of offer optimization:
As a marketer, I am rooting for marketers of all stripes to “get it right” at every channel. When a timely and relevant offer comes in, I give quiet praise for the marketing machine that made that stroke of genius happen. And I reward the company with my dollars. It’s a graceful exchange between consumer and brand when done right and a clunky, embarrassing gesture when it misses the mark.
