Gianfranco Cuzziol’s fascination is the cross-channel journey of today’s consumer. He works with clients to help them leverage the points of impact along that consumer journey. He’s been described as a “conversation manager”.
Gianfranco, who spoke several times at i-SCOOP’s Fusion Marketing Experience events about email marketing, eCRM and content marketing came to the realization not long ago that despite what many others may say, it’s not about the conversation, it’s about the conversion – it’s just that perhaps a little bit of conversation helps.
“We only want to do email marketing” – it’s not enough
The main thing that Gianfranco believes in is that we need to do what’s best for the customer at the end of the day. It’s not about being channel specific, it’s about doing what works for your brand your business and your customers.
He hates it when a client tells him they “want to do something with social marketing” or even when they say “we only want to do email marketing” – What you need to do is what’s right for you.
Social marketing isn’t the answer to everything and neither is email marketing or display or mobile or even your storefront.
We’re living in a brave new world where everyone and everything is connected. The silos are falling as people multi-task on multiple channels and this means there are more touch points to connect with consumers. There are now a variety of different stages and touch points making up the decision process for consumers.
eCRM: putting customer first regardless of the channels
It’s a much faster world today. You can do almost anything with a click and access almost any kind of information with that click in about 30 seconds, wherever you may be. The desire to connect is not new, only the technology — this desire is something which is inherent in our nature.
eCRM is not a technology or software. What it really should be about is a philosophy which puts the customer at the centre of everything we do, also in email marketing.
To do that, there must be a two way exchange of value. All of this must of course be balanced with the knowledge that at the end of the day, it’s a business and it is about the conversion.
Gianfranco points out that it’s unfortunate that badly implemented and managed eCRM overshadows the good implementations of eCRM. If you’re doing eCRM right, you are providing value to your customers, enriching their lives and putting them at the centre of your universe.
Also read: The new reality of eCRM
