FetchBack

FIDO, the Billion Dollar Mutt

by Kevin Nuest, FetchBack's Advertiser Operations Manager (and Guest Blogger)

A lot of companies like to issue press releases about the amount of money they make each year or the funding they have raised. The people at these companies worked hard and it's great to step back and reflect on their accomplishment. I get that, which is why I wanted to point out a milestone that FetchBack achieved last week.

 

 Our company culture is pretty different compared to other places. From the Account Managers, to Sales, to Development, to Accounting, to the Creative Team and so on, we are all striving for a common goal: make our client's look like Rock Stars and drive as much value for them as possible. That's why we display a counter on the wall in our office (and on our website home page) of the revenue driven for our clients.

Last week, FetchBack exceeded the $1 billion dollar mark for total revenue driven on behalf of our clients!

 Now that's something worth bragging about!

 

A Cube By Any Other Name Would Be Just A Cube…

by The Girl With the Pink Leash, FetchBack's own cultural diva 

Boring. Sterile. Noisy. Too private. Not private enough. Lack of communication. Distractions. Silos.

 It’s a tough environment, but someone has to work in it. And in the FetchBack environment the positives far outweigh the negatives. Sure, we get loud. Sure, we interrupt one another. Yes, there are distractions. And there certainly isn’t much privacy. But, what we do have is pretty darn incredible.

Start with the open environment and the ability we have to make our space our own. Move to the familial structure and our energy. Step into the shared learning opportunities and the positive motivators we provide one another. And finish it all off with our ability to remain approachable and accessible… Seems we’re doing something right.

We all work in a “cube” environment. The walls are 4 feet in height, but the barriers have been removed. We have windows and cork boards. And in this environment we’ve all had the opportunity to make our space our own; to bring little pieces of us to this office. We spend 8 hours, 5 days a week enjoying our surroundings. Look on nearly every desk and there is a personal touch somewhere. From the birthday cards received, to the photos of family and friends, to the 5Hour Energy drink or the box of Cheez-It’s. There are plants and pictures, drawings and art, food and drink, statues and stuffed animals, even a fridge every so often.

 There is a familial structure here too. There is banter and a way of communication that fosters positive relationships. There is laughter and jokes, sharing of funny stories and weekend events. There is an energy that is unbeatable. When sitting at your desk and hearing peers laughter and jokes, seeing nerf bullets shot through the office, hearing a pup bark and lingering music in the background, the positive is contagious.

 Beyond all the fun and energy there is great opportunity. There is opportunity to be a constant learner. There is opportunity to share knowledge and support one another. There is opportunity to truly work in a cohesive environment where “Teamwork really does make the dream work”. We utilize one another daily; to bounce ideas, to see a new perspective, to dig a little deeper, to think outside of the box, to challenge ourselves and to ensure what we are providing our client’s with the best support and knowledge possible. Educating and supporting one another sure beats a silo.

All of the positives make for an office full of cubes that still feels very accessible and individuals all feel quite approachable.

 Can’t beat that, now can ya?

 

Be sure to "LIKE" The Girl with the Pink Leash on Facebook and follow her musings on Twitter!

 

The Zero Moment of Truth...Be sure to get in the last word

by Austin Leonard, FetchBack National Account Executive

What does “custom” mean to you?

When somebody tells you that they have a “customized solution” for you? Do you envision a lot of work?

As the trend continues towards 1-to-1 advertising and personalized messaging, marketers are being given more data about their customers and their customers’ shopping habits every single day. While there are many large, enterprise-level solutions available through companies like Omniture and IBM, the sheer volume of data can be overwhelming. Without the ability to use this data, it is essentially rendered useless.

Perfect – you know that your customer is in California and prefers to shop at 7pm on Tuesday evenings. She’s purchased a pair of shoes and browsed blouses for the past few weeks now, so you know that she’s already a fan of your brand and is interested in adding to her wardrobe.

How do you take advantage of this knowledge? The right offer, served with the right product, at exactly the right time will close the sale, strengthening her relationship with your brand.

 Google calls this the “Zero Moment of Truth”. It’s the moment when you win the consumer over or your competitor gets the last word in and takes market share from you.

 They’ve seen your ads on TV, they’ve visited your website to see your offerings. Now they’re out in the wild again; searching on the web for reviews, opinions from their favorite celebrities and seeing what their friends are doing or wearing.

But you’re going to get that sale anyway, right? They’ve bought once, so there’s no need to spend money to advertise to this prospect. They’ve also been to your site, so they know all about what you sell and your latest products.

Or maybe you rely on email to help keep your prospects and customers informed. When’s the last time you went through your personal email inbox and selected 10-15 emails for immediate deletion without catching up with the latest sale from Best Buy or Macy’s?

 Don’t get me wrong – I’m not bashing email, I’m simply encouraging you to take advantage of the rapidly evolving marketing technology around you as part of your media mix. Display technology has the ability to tie in live geographical, time-of-day, consumer preference, and promotional pricing data automatically for every single prospect within milliseconds. Forget just showing the actual product for shoppers who get down to the product level or abandon their shopping carts – think bigger than that!

 Plug the most recent local store circular into an ad on your prospect’s favorite blog with an invitation to visit the store closest to them with a special offer to purchase that jacket that they’ve been debating on, knowing that they are in your email database and received the new fall lineup announcement last week. It’s raining there, so to brighten your prospect’s mood, the background image shows a bright sunny day on the ski slopes, rather than a white background with a product feed rotating through.

 If that sounds like a lot of work to get customizable ads like this for every single shopper, think again. With automatic creative rules and the ability to get smarter over time by automatically processing the mounds of consumer behavior data available from your site and around the web, a comprehensive retargeting solution can make all of your ads smarter and, much more importantly, much more efficient.

The customized solution then only needs to be how to maximize remarketing as part of your overall marketing strategy so that the few pennies per customer that you invest closest to the final buying decision become the smartest pennies that you spend in your entire marketing budget.

 Let the technology do the work so that all of the money that you spend building your brand doesn’t end up being negated by a well-placed competitor’s ad at the Zero Moment of Truth.