11 October 2011
In a world where companies and brands interact more and more directly with customers, finding a way to capture their attention and customize offerings to their habits is the future of marketing and communications, according to Leonel Azuela, founder of Miami-based loyalty and digital marketing firm Quaxar.
He discussed what companies can do to drive business using information they already have at WorldCity’s CEO Club on Oct. 7, as well as how Quaxar grew from a digital electronic consulting agency into its present form.
Azuela said Quaxar moved into the customer-relationship management world when he and partners realized the ability to grow as a business was limited when they worked on a project basis.
“We were dealing with profitability, billable hours and all that stuff,” he said.
Now “you go to a database and you discover things,” he said. As an example “if a customer is buying everything three months and he’s a business traveler of InterContinental Hotels and suddenly he stops coming for three months the probability of him going to the competition is high.”
With that kind of knowledge a company can then offer the wayward traveler some kind of discount in hopes of bringing him back.
Putting together an effective customer outreach program, however, has some requirements.
“How do you advise on the right level of touch points with somebody when you’re trying to reach out?” asked James Mancini, general manager for logistics giant C.H. Robinson’s Miami branch, who noted the concern about overwhelming people with emails.
“A loyalty program needs to have a soul,” Azuela said. “If people are using you only as a coupon, forget it, because you’re only going to be seen like that.”
A way to do that, he added, is on blog that offers the chance for engagement and sharing useful content.
Yet “at the end of the day you’re content is great, but who is your audience?” said EDF Communications CEO Erich de la Fuente. That’s “just as important.”
“We’re good at crafting messages,” de la Fuente said, but “we’re trying to re-design the company where we have a content editor team, then we bring in people who know how to best get the word out.”
That trend of dividing work to outside firms or revenue-sharing partners seems as though it may become more prevalent in the coming years.
“It’s impossible to have somebody doing everything perfectly, some people are really good at operating Facebook or Twitter, some are really good at creating email engines,” Azuela said. “If you go inside an iPad or computer, 80 percent of it was done by somebody else but the brand was done Apple.
“We try to implement the best players, and the best players are in platforms and services,” he added. When Quaxar pitches a potential client it does so with “a creative agency and a hardcore IT company.”
The CEO Club is one of seven event series organized by WorldCity to bring together executives on international business topics. The CEO series is sponsored by the University of Miami School of Business Administration, law firm Becker & Poliakoff and the Florida Marlins. The next session is set for Dec. 2.