Applying CORE Directives

I have started noticing interactive marketing nearly everywhere since reading The Future of Interactive Marketing by Shar VanBoskirk and Emily Riley. The article is centered around "The CORE Directives" which are to customize, optimize, respond, and empower. 


As part of the conclusion, the authors included a simply quiz to determine where to launch the CORE strategy in the reader's business.  While these principles are aimed to advise major advertising firms and their interactive marketing departments, I decided to take this opportunity to apply it to one of my current jobs at my university (which shall remain nameless).


Because this is an on-campus job, I work in a smaller office with a very centralized audience and smaller budget than any of the companies discussed in the article. We are always looking for new ways to improve and change our marketing strategies, however, so this seemed like a great place to start.


While it was difficult to apply some of the questions to my office, my answers scored our CORE maturity model at "Experimenters." The article next provides a strategy road map for each level of maturity. First we were advised to customize experiences, and the most important action listed, in my opinion, was to "tailor customer interactions across platforms." I like the idea of catering individual experiences while still maintaining brand uniformity: the customer recognizes our brand, but finds that their interaction is entirely relevant to their needs.


Next, it suggested we optimize customer contacts, and, more specifically,  "apply dynamic content." Because our office has accounts with such media platforms as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc., we should take this opportunity to provide rich media programming for our followers, so our contact with them is dynamic and powerful.


Third, we should eliminate barriers including "streamlining agency and vendor resources." Our office has already been discussing a need to design a more efficient system for creating and distributing publications, processing invoices, and organizing events.


Finally, we are to empower innovation by "building tools to enable idea sharing." Because we only meet once a week, this could be incredibly useful for our office to enable a continuous conversation and more rapid idea development.


Even though these strategies are designed for much larger companies, the principles apply to even the most basic organization that acknowledges the importance of interactive marketing.