I want to build stronger communities around brands in order to better connect businesses with people.
Businesses have multiple reasons to be apart of the community and have a strong brand. With loyal customers they are spending less on acquisition and retention. These customers can become brand ambassadors, word of mouth marketing is much more valuable than running ads. They will also likely see an increase in revenue from these connected customers. A large part of building and supporting communities is great customer experience and service no matter the industry. I want to help businesses so that their customers are fanatics for their brand.
Beginning at a young age I have been focused on community and a critic of businesses. I have been the leader of my friend groups since preschool. This is seen in leading my bicycle gang and sports teams. As well as planning camping trips, vacations and music festivals. I have always been the one to take charge and take care of everyone. This has helped me build strong relationships and great memories.
I have taken this leadership experience into my positions in the business school and Lassonde focused around events. Nothing is more exciting to me than planning and executing on memorable events. I have begun taking these events into businesses and look forward to doing more in this space.
Customer service has been extremely important to me as well. This is most commonly noted in my passion for restaurants. Nothing turns me off more than bad customer service, and it is most evident in the food industry where atmosphere and experience are almost more important than food quality. Customer experience can make or break a low margin business in a competitive industry. This interest in customer experience can be seen in any industry and the importance is often not as top of the line for them.
With the introduction of social media and businesses interconnection with our daily and social lives companies are separating themselves. Some are falling behind and out of mind either with a lack or poor social presence, while others are surging ahead. Traditional advertising and traditional sales are no longer cutting it and I want to help find better ways to help the companies not working enough on it now.
One of the best companies that is community building right now is a local outdoor retailer, Cotopaxi. They kicked off their brand with a large scale scavenger hunt helping them surge onto customer’s social media and this has helped them expand nationally with a marketing event that customers love and pay’s for itself simply with sign up fees. When groups look back at their fun experience Cotopaxi will be at the top of their mind. This is extremely important for future purchases and gaining traction with customer’s networks.
While this type of event and marketing fits perfectly with activity oriented businesses like outdoor retailers I believe that each market has the ability to build communities in their own way and I want to help them find out the event, campaign, and experience for them.
