Download The Convergence of Marketing, PR and Customer Service

WHITE PAPER
The Convergence of Marketing, PR
and Customer Service
by Greg Kihlström, VP of Strategy &
Kaitlin Carpenter, Marketing Associate
White Paper
Table of Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................................... 2
What this White Paper Aims to Achieve .............................................................................................................................................................. 2
What’s Happening on Social Media and Mobile Devices ........................................................................................................ 3
The New Normal .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 3
The Convergence .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 4
Many Companies are Still Living in the Past ......................................................................................................................................................... 4
The Problem .......................................................................................................................................................................... 6
From a Customer Perspective .............................................................................................................................................................................. 6
An Organizational Perspective ............................................................................................................................................................................. 6
Some Companies Doing It Right ............................................................................................................................................. 7
Zappos: Every Employee is an Ambassador ......................................................................................................................................................... 7
Dell and Starbucks: Customer Service as a Path to Innovation ............................................................................................................................ 7
Best Buy: Convergence on Twitter ....................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Home Depot: Education as Customer Service ...................................................................................................................................................... 7
Mistakes to Learn From ......................................................................................................................................................... 8
An Example........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 8
What Went Wrong ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 8
Customer Service ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 8
Public Relations ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 8
Marketing ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 8
What You Can Do Better ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 9
Best Practices ....................................................................................................................................................................... 10
Practice What You Preach .................................................................................................................................................................................. 10
Give Back ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 10
Create Value ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 10
Share Control ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Maintain Balance................................................................................................................................................................................................ 11
Be Consistent ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Break Down Internal Silos .................................................................................................................................................................................. 12
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................................................... 13
About Greg Kihlström .......................................................................................................................................................... 14
About Kaitlin Carpenter ....................................................................................................................................................... 14
About Carousel30 ................................................................................................................................................................ 15
The Convergence of Marketing, PR and Customer Service – A Carousel30 White Paper
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INTRODUCTION
A paradigm shift has been happening in the world of corporate communications for many years now. For a variety of reasons,
the convergence of marketing and public relations is well documented and much discussed. This white paper adds another
dimension to that discussion, which is equally important to any enterprise organization: customer service.
When we silo our proactive marketing messages from our real-time social media conversations, we as businesses lose. Siloing
those communications from customer feedback and complaints, we run the risk of:
•
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Sending the consumer different, conflicting messages
Losing a chance to have a genuine conversation with loyal customers who are looking for a forum to share their
thoughts and ideas
Losing the customer altogether
WHAT THIS WHITE PAPER AIMS TO ACHIEVE
There have been many other articles, books and white papers written on the history, present challenges, and future of PR
and marketing’s convergence. This white paper does not pretend to be the authoritative source on that topic.
What it does aim to achieve, however, is to place this PR/marketing convergence in context with the growing need for
organizations to take customer service, including idea generation, feedback and complaints, into account when planning
communication strategies and internal communication structure.
This white paper also aims to get a conversation started about how best to do this on both the enterprise and the small and
medium-sized business level. The best examples of this type of integration are yet to come, but the hope is that by furthering
the conversation we will see continued innovation.
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WHAT’S HAPPENING ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND MOBILE DEVICES
THE NEW NORMAL
Social media has become an essential part of how we operate, as businesses and consumers, and customers are now savvy to
our techniques. Putting an iPhone in a blender and creating a viral video isn't new. Tweeting at the airline for more
information when your flight is delayed isn't new. Getting a special discount when you like a company’s Facebook page isn’t
new. Likewise, consumers’ use of mobile devices from smartphones to tablets is nothing new either. The new normal is that
consumers want to access content, buy products and receive customer service wherever they are with whatever they’re
holding.
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From an advertising perspective, Rebecca Leib and Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter Group say:
“Gone are the days when marketers could spoon-feed pre-fab sales pitches to apathetic consumers. Welcome to the
empowered buyer: a savvy and dynamic customer, armed with information, multiple options, and devices, and
backed by an ever-expanding network of peers and references.”
This goes well beyond advertising and marketing, however. For instance, it’s not the customer’s problem if your company
uses one social media channel for PR, one Web channel for e-commerce, and a phone line for customer service. They’re going
to make it your problem that you haven’t adapted to the new normal.
THE CONVERGENCE
What is new is how customer service, PR and marketing have
converged into one immense, transparent space. Patrick Coffee of
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MediaBistro reports that within five years, there will no longer be a
discussion about the difference between PR and marketing. These
three points of reaching and engaging customers are no longer
happening in separate rooms, in separate departments, or through
separate funnels of information. Instead, everything is happening on
social media. Customer service reps are responding to customer complaints on Twitter, advertisers are sharing special
promotions via Facebook, and media coverage is amplified to new audiences with the click of a share button.
Today more than ever before, these elements are coming together, and it has become a requirement that you incorporate
that into your digital strategy. Either you will do it proactively, or an incident will happen that will make it apparent that this
is the new normal.
Taking this a step further, it’s not even about all of this happening on social media. In a few years, social media will not be
even referred to as a distinct medium from other sources. It’s the same with devices. Tablets, smartphones and computers
will still be designators of form factors, but we will be less caught up with how we are connecting and with what anymore.
Being able to connect at any moment will be the norm. LG’s new Internet refrigerator is a testament to that, and while that is
quite a novel interface at the moment, it shows that we are moving toward a society where connection to the Internet is a
given.
MANY COMPANIES ARE STILL LIVING IN THE PAST
Take a look at how many companies are structured. Sales & Marketing are almost always separate from Customer Service.
Within Sales & Marketing, Public Relations will most likely be separate from Marketing. Online commerce might be separate
from brick and mortar commerce.
Then you get the agencies involved. Do you have a traditional agency, a digital agency, and a PR firm on retainer? Do you
further break that down into media, social media and search engine marketing? How do you ensure that your external
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Rebecca Leib & Jeremiah Owyang. Altimeter Group. The Converged Media Imperative: How Brands Must Combine Paid, Owned, and Earned Media. July 19,
2012
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Coffee, Patrick. Media Bistro PRNewser. Will Media Convergence End the ‘PR or Advertising’ Debate?
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agencies and vendors are communicating frequently enough and sharing knowledge? And more importantly, when
something is happening in real time, do you have a process in place to foster communication?
Depending on the size of your organization, there could be five internal teams, four agencies, or more, all dealing in the same
converging space that includes marketing, PR and customer service; no wonder customers aren’t always getting what they
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need. In a study by Maritz and evolve24 , of 1,300 survey respondents who are active on Twitter, only one-third received a
response when posting a complaint on Twitter. This means that 66% of customer communications and requests for a
conversation went completely unanswered and unfulfilled.
There has to be a better way to address customer needs and allow corporations to continue their various efforts to
communicate and sell products.
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Maritz Research and evolve24. Twitter Study. September 2011
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THE PROBLEM
The biggest problem for businesses right now is that all of your messages exist either side-by-side or on similarly branded
profiles in the digital space, yet few customers understand or care that different teams are responsible for different
messages. It is not their problem to figure out if something is public relations, customer service or purely promotional.
FROM A CUSTOMER PERSPECTIVE
Your customers don’t spend lot of time on your website or searching for your brand. According to The Nielsen Company,
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almost a quarter of people’s time on the Internet is spent on social networks – far more than anywhere else.
Your customers are reading about you on social media, sharing their opinions – good and bad – and influencing other
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potential customers. In fact, 62% of consumers have already engaged in a customer service transaction using social media .
Yet, according to a study by Genesys referenced in an article on Forbes.com, over half of Fortune 500 companies are not
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using social media for customer service , and as many as 27% don’t even link to their profiles on Twitter or Facebook from
their main corporate websites.
You don’t get to decide whether you merge customer service with PR and marketing with social media. You only get to
choose how well you do it.
For example, take customer complaints coming in on Twitter. How is a company supposed to manage customer service
where anyone can see their responses? Those complaints are online in the public space. Whether you handle them well or
poorly reflects your company’s image with everyone who sees it, not just the customer with the problem.
That’s where marketing and PR become entangled, and it can be difficult for all of these separate departments to manage
situations as such.
AN ORGANIZATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
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Rhonda Hurwitz recently wrote that with marketing alone, organizations suffer from three primary types of siloing :
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The Outsourcing Silo, or improperly engaging agencies to do work without integrating them with communications
and feedback channels.
The Department Silo, or tasking one separate department with running social media without proper integration and
support from the rest of the company.
The Employee Silo, or preventing or discouraging employee participation in fear that someone might say the wrong
thing.
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The Social Media Report: Q3 2011. Nielsen.
Rollason, Harry. Why Social Media Makes Customer Service Better. Mashable. September 29, 2012.
Knapp, Alex. Big Companies Aren’t Using Social Media for Customer Service. Forbes.com. September 24, 2012.
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Hurwitz, Rhonda. Beyond ROI: The Need to Improve Social Media Integration. Forbes.com. September 18, 2012.
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SOME COMPANIES DOING IT RIGHT
To get a better idea of how it should work, let’s look at a few companies that are doing some interesting things using social
media and user generated content.
ZAPPOS: EVERY EMPLOYEE IS AN AMBASSADOR
Zappos is an online shoe retailer. It doesn’t have physical locations, so it depends entirely on online interactions. Zappos
doesn’t require employees to have an official company Twitter account to deal with customers or talk about the brand.
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Instead, in addition to requiring every employee to take four weeks of customer service training , Zappos encourages
employees to use social media and has a special website dedicated to employee tweets. This way, even if you are not a
Zappos customer, just a friend of Joe, who works at Zappos, you still see positive messaging about Zappos because you see
Joe’s personal account. Seeing Joe’s tweets about Zappos may in turn persuade you to become a customer.
DELL AND STARBUCKS: CUSTOMER SERVICE AS A PATH TO INNOVATION
Both Dell and Starbucks have websites where customers can submit ideas for everything from a new store location to a new
product. Dell IdeaStorm and My Starbucks Idea work as both innovation resources and hubs for customer feedback. It heads
off potential customer service issues, generates positive PR, and brings customers back to their websites again and again.
BEST BUY: CONVERGENCE ON TWITTER
Electronics retailer Best Buy has taken several key actions to fuse customer service, PR and online marketing. One of the main
steps was encouraging its 180,000 employees to take part in social media – to be responsible and simply use their best
judgment when offering advice outside of the work place.
Two years ago they introduced one Best Buy Twitter account for customer service, called @Twelpforce. Additionally, any
employee can contribute, answer customer questions and give product advice from their personal account. Now, much of its
customer service is handled via this Twitter account and is all catalogued on a special page of Best Buy’s website so you can
search through it. Having all of those questions and answers in one place is a valuable resource for future customers looking
for product or service information. It’s also great PR because true brand evangelizers are the ones giving product advice.
Best Buy also has an internal online community – the Blue Shirt Nation. It’s a social network just for Best Buy employees to
share their knowledge and experiences. Best Buy has a much lower turnover rate for employees using Blue Shirt Nation, and
those same employees become more loyal evangelizers of Best Buy, positively spreading the word about the company.
HOME DEPOT: EDUCATION AS CUSTOMER SERVICE
Home improvement store Home Depot has a similar approach. Its YouTube channel features how-to and do-it-yourself
videos, which head off many customer service and product questions before they even need to be asked. It solidifies Home
Depot’s reputation as a source of knowledge in its community and to its customers. Also, as videos are viewed and shared,
they’re doubling as marketing materials.
What could make this even better? How about taking user suggestions or even user-generated content for the most frequent
problems or questions?
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Bhargava, Rohit. 9 Ways Top Brands Use Social Media for Better Customer Service. Mashable. October 28, 2011.
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MISTAKES TO LEARN FROM
AN EXAMPLE
When you know of a company doing a great job of listening to and engaging customers, there’s another that may be doing it
better. We’ll leave full names and company names out of this, though you might have heard this story already.
In 2009, Dave C. had to check his $3,500 guitar for a flight on a major airline. The guitar was broken in flight, and when he
called the airline’s customer service department, they refused to repair or replace it. Dave took his customer service issue to
YouTube and posted a video of him singing about how that particular airline breaks guitars. The video got millions of views,
generating media coverage and creating terrible PR for the airline. At the time, it wasn’t prepared to handle customers taking
their issues to social media and paid a hard price for it.
It’s very easy for communication on social media to backfire when everything is so interconnected. Insufficient customer
service can be instantly broadcasted from one person to four million. Giving poor customer service on Twitter allows
everyone to see it, and you could easily lose customers. Customers unhappy with your Facebook page can start their own
Facebook page about – but not supporting – your company.
WHAT WENT WRONG
While we don’t know exactly what went wrong with the major airline in the example of Dave C., we can make some general
recommendations based on what we know about typical communication and organization within a company.
Customer Service
Let’s just assume that a “customer service” department was in charge of handling Dave C.’s compliant. In reality, it is
more complicated than that, but just go with it for the purpose of keeping the story brief. Bags get lost often
enough, and sometimes contents get damaged as well. Hopefully not too often, but it happens, and there are
processes and procedures in place at any airline to deal with this. I’m sure they were doing what was standard
operating procedure at that time to assess the damage and determine responsibility.
But I can almost guarantee that this customer service department was not monitoring YouTube, Facebook, Twitter
or any other channels to see what people with lost or damaged baggage were saying about the company. They were
most likely hard at work doing what they were tasked with doing: handling other customer service complaints.
Public Relations
In this scenario, a public relations team is primarily tasked with pushing out messages and dealing with issues when
they become a crisis. In this situation, it’s quite possible that this event, while significant in Dave C.’s life, did not
register as a public relations crisis with the airline, and thus might have either been ignored or flagged as low
priority.
Marketing
This leaves us with a marketing department, most likely, a digital marketing department that’s separated from both
public relations and customer service. It’s their job to monitor social media for conversations (good and bad) about
the company, so it’s likely that the marketing team was the first to watch the video.
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So what happens next? Does this officially “count” as a PR disaster? Probably not. Does this qualify as a customer service
issue? Definitely. Marketing contacts customer service, which is already working on the issue and probably doesn’t want to
explain to the marketing department that they messed up. The problem grows because there is a vacuum between what the
distinct roles of Customer Service, PR and Marketing were.
WHAT YOU CAN DO BETTER
Now imagine if the same department (or cross-departmental team) was tasked with responding to customers and making
sure those online complaints got translated into offline actions. This is no small organizational feat. With larger and older the
company, this could be perhaps a monumental undertaking, but the benefits are truly worth it.
Sixty percent of people around the world have said that they expect brands to respond to their customer service-related
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social media comments when only 1/3 actually get responses. As you can see, there’s a huge gap in expectations. It’s time
for all companies to begin looking at how the new normal in consumer communications affects them. For startups, this is a
lesson that has to be implemented from the start.
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Mickens, Daniel. 60% of Consumers Expect Brands to Respond on Social Media. MAshable. July 18, 2012.
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BEST PRACTICES
Many of the mistakes, oversights and missed opportunities stem from lack of coordination between internal teams and
departments, and what is needed is a new generation of companies and leaders that begin to transform their organizations
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into more “social-minded organizations.” In an excellent white paper that touches on this subject, Oracle explains the
problem:
Because conversations and activities that take place on the social Web cut across organizational lines, companies
often run into problems with the internal ownership of social initiatives. Social-minded organizations, however, put
customers first and organizational boundaries second—which means combining efforts across departments
(particularly marketing, support and IT).
Below are seven best practices to successfully fuse customer service, PR and marketing in the social space, ensuring they’re
all equally effective.
PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH
You can’t expect customers to come to your company as a resource if you’re not authentic and putting your
company 100% into the conversation. If you ask for customer feedback, be prepared to use that feedback to change
your company for the better. The Dell IdeaStorm website works because Dell actually uses the best ideas. If they
didn’t, customers would have no incentive to visit the site and participate. Ultimately, you will get as much out of
social media as you put into it.
GIVE BACK
Your customers are willing to “follow” you or “like” your page so that they can post photos of themselves in your
restaurant or “check-in” on their mobile device when they’re in your store. With that said, you too need to be willing
to put yourself out there. Follow your customers back and respond to their posts and comments. Don’t just send a
post out into space every week and forget about your company blog until the next week. Your followers spend time
on you, so you need spend time on them.
CREATE VALUE
Public relations and marketing don’t occur in a vacuum. You get positive customer feedback and generate media
coverage, and ultimately conversions, because you’re giving people something that they value. It can be as simple as
special offers to your Facebook fans, answering questions on Twitter, or offering tips on a blog. It just needs to be
something your particular audience will value.
When the Best Buy Twelpforce answers customers’ questions, they’re filed in a searchable database, a valuable
resource for future customers with questions, and all of these actions help to build trust with consumers with the
aim of generating a conversion.
On the flip side, if they are doing such a good job with customer service, why is Best Buy still suffering some
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revenue/income issues ? There are obviously many factors at play, especially if we’re looking at one company in
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Oracle. Is Social Media Transforming Your Business? March 2012.
Crum, Chris. Best Buy Earnings: Net Income Down 90%. Web Pro News, August 2012
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particular. While Best Buy is doing many things right, we cannot say that good customer service is the only influence
in customer purchasing, nor is it the only thing that affects the profitability and long-term strategy of a large retail
operation.
SHARE CONTROL
Don’t be afraid of letting customers take initiative. There are two ways to do this: encourage them to network and
influence others, and let them help you generate ideas and content.
Some of the best marketing campaigns allow users to submit their own content. Take the Doritos Super Bowl
commercial contest for example. Doritos trusts that its customers will create ads that are as good as or better than
what Doritos could produce; every year their customers meet their expectations of great commercials.
Regarding customer service, this type of control has been shared for quite some time. Online forums or message
boards allow customers to help each other and participate in a cooperative dialogue. Companies like Apple and
Adobe keep a close eye on these forums; the value that they provide customers and the time they can save
customers are significant. Learning to better incorporate social network activity into a customer support channel
helps you adapt to the changing way that consumers are wanting (and trying) to connect with the brands and
companies they trust.
In this article, Rohit Bhargava uses the example McKenzie Eakin, LIVE community programs manager for Xbox, to
illustrate the value of customer service on social media:
Unique customers engaged with Xbox on Twitter x The percent of people who say they would have called
instead of tweeting x Average cost per call = $$ saved in call center costs.
It’s a simple formula, but it works.
MAINTAIN BALANCE
As you use social media for your customer service, PR and marketing, use a content strategy to balance those
separate initiatives in the same space and ensure they all remain effective. Make sure you’re continually evaluating
how you use social media, whether you’re effectively addressing your customer service, PR and marketing goals, and
if you’re not, evaluate what you can change to be more effective in the future.
Levels of communication might fluctuate as each discipline has varying priorities varying by the day or week. For
instance, a new product launch might bring (hopefully) a lot of good press or (hopefully not) a lot of customer
service complaints or tech support, thus you’ll have to coordinate your content strategy and editorial calendar to
both anticipate and address the distinct needs of each.
BE CONSISTENT
One of the worst things a company can do is be inconsistent. This doesn’t mean you can’t try new ideas, but don’t
start initiatives you’re not going to follow through with. If you start a corporate blog, don’t stop posting after a few
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weeks. If you create a Twitter feed, make sure someone keeps it active. Once your customers expect something
from you, you can’t let them down.
A content strategy helps you balance your social media channels between marketing messaging, public relations and
customer service. Work across departments and divisions to create a realistic content plan that includes an editorial
calendar for marketing campaigns, while being flexible enough for last-minute public relations releases.
Also, if you have a Twitter presence that you link to from some channels, make your linking consistently across your
portfolio of Web presences. This makes it easy for customers to know where and how you prefer to be contacted.
BREAK DOWN INTERNAL SILOS
Your social media strategy will never be as effective if it’s coming from three different departments, with three
different strategies and three different messages. It’s time to unify your communications channels so that your
customers engage with you where they are and get the response they need from you when they need it.
When a customer visits your website, they need to see unified branding and messaging across it and your social
media platforms, too. And you won’t have unified messaging if your social media is coming from one person who
isn’t actively involved with your customer service, your public relations, and your marketing departments.
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As Sarah Skerik of PR Newswire puts it:
All groups with the organization who are creating content for public consumption need to be hand-in-glove.
Coordinating efforts can create search engine lift and a calendar of consistent messaging that delivers a
cumulative effect. The alternative – i.e. unrelated, scattershot efforts – are at the least inefficient, and at
worst, confusing to the audience.
Is there a clear chain of command for who should respond if a customer service issue comes up on Twitter? Social
media happens fast, and you need to have someone authorized to reimburse Dave C. for his guitar before his
YouTube video gets four million views. Is your marketing department producing good content that could go on
Facebook or a blog? Would more of your employees be talking about the company on social media if you gave them
the green light and some basic guidelines, like Best Buy and Zappos did?
These things will happen when you break down those silos, and work together within your company to address customers’
needs in the places they already are.
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Skerik, Sarah. PR Newswire Beyond PR. Is Content Marketing a New Public Relations Discipline? August 22, 2012.
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CONCLUSION
While we have been dealing with the convergence of marketing and public relations through social media for a while now,
the addition of customer service further complicates this evolution and requires even more internal cooperation for the
enterprise organization. There are plenty of examples of companies doing it well, but there’s still room to innovate and grow.
For those companies who are still catching up, there has never been more pressure to do so.
While this involves organizational change, the potential reorganization of internal communication and feedback channels
along with a reevaluation of external agency communication, the underlying principle is quite simple: Go to where your
customers are. They’re always connected, whether it’s social media, mobile devices, a laptop or a desktop at work.
Boundaries of devices or channels are a thing of the past. You can now consider your customers always connected. That’s
where they hear about your company. That’s where they complain about your company. And that’s where they engage with
your company.
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ABOUT GREG KIHLSTRÖM
Greg is the founder of Carousel30 and a strategist and creative director who has received numerous awards and honors from
the Webby Awards, ADDYs, American Marketing Association, iMedia Connection, Summit Creative Awards, and others after
over 14 years of experience in the advertising industry. He has been published in best-selling books by Rockport Publishers
and Crescent Hill Books and industry related magazines such as Communication Arts and Graphis, has exhibited work in
galleries around the country, and has been featured on prestigious industry and design related websites.
Greg has been featured in Advertising Age, Website Magazine, Web Designer Magazine, The Washington Post and Voice of
America and has participated as a judge in renowned design competitions around the country. Greg frequently speaks at
industry events on a global basis and has led panel discussions at such events as Internet Week New York, Internet Summit,
Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit, Digital Capital Week and the Virginia Tech Conference on Social Media and Tourism in
Italy. He is a regular contributing writer to iMedia Connection, a leading online publication for the digital marketing
community. While at Carousel30, he has worked along with many top brands, on a number of campaigns, including AOL,
AARP, Ben & Jerry's, Geico Direct, Miller Lite, MTV, Starbucks, The Nature Conservancy, TV One and Washington Wizards.
He is on the board of directors of the DC Ad Club — the premier organization in Washington, D.C. for the advertising industry,
where is also serving as a mentor in the Club's Career Catalyst program and has served on the ADDYs and Communications
Committees for the past two years. He serves on The Trust for the National Mall's Communications Advisory Committee
along with a group of marketing experts from agencies around the country. He is also an active member in the American
Marketing Association, the International Academy of Visual Arts, and the Art Directors Club of Washington, DC.
ABOUT KAITLIN CARPENTER
Making sure the daily grind only refers to her coffee, Kaitlin brings an open mind and a desire to never stop learning and
incorporating new ideas into her work at Carousel30. With a focus on social media communications, she assists with planning
and operating digital marketing and communications campaigns for a variety of clients, including social media tactics, digital
public relations and online media buying. Before joining Carousel30, Kaitlin worked on several student initiatives at her
university, such as a public relations campaign for Community Family Life Services, interned on Capitol Hill, and spent a year
volunteering at an English language school for adults. Kaitlin received her Bachelor of Arts in Public Communication at the
American University School of Communication after completing an Honors senior thesis on social media communication.
Kaitlin has worked on numerous campaigns with Carousel30, such as social media trainings and campaign operations for the
Trust for the National Mall, whose website traffic has grown from twenty-five to more than one hundred thousand visitors
per year. She operated social media and website updating for the U.S. Forest Service's International Year of Forests campaign
in 2011 and strategized and implemented a multi-medium advertising campaign for The Nature Conservancy's Don't Move
Firewood campaign. Kaitlin also consistently contributes to the planning and tactics management of The Washington Center's
social media and online advertising campaigns.
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ABOUT CAROUSEL30
Carousel30 is a digital agency that focuses on building audience engagement and conversions for top brands. Our diverse
team translates business objectives into digital strategies that incorporate websites, mobile apps, social media marketing,
email marketing, display advertising and other efforts.
Since our founding in 2003, we have had the opportunity to work with and help grow our clients’ business, while leading the
digital marketing industry as it continues to mature. We've worked with top brands around the world, including Toyota, AOL,
Geico, CQ Roll Call, The Nature Conservancy, United Nations, National Audubon Society, AARP, MTV and more. We
consistently provide clients with engaged audiences and tailored experiences that connect them to the people, brands,
causes and products they love.
As a full-service agency, our offerings include:
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Digital Strategy
User Experience
Creative
Technology
Digital Marketing
Carousel30 is headquartered in historic Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, with additional offices in Princeton and Raleigh.
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