DailyVista speaks with 3Cinteractive VP of Marketing, who discusses company’s rise, growth and marketing strategy

DailyVista prides itself on helping to connect our readers with some of the top rising companies in the U.S and Canada. What better companies to keep an eye on than those that were highlighted by Forbes on it America’s 20 Most Promising Companies list. You can access their methodology here.

In an effort to learn more about what made these upstarts special in Forbes’ eyes, DV spoke with some of the key marketing personnel for companies listed in the Top 20.

Today DailyVista brings you an interview with Jeff Michaud, the vice president of marketing for 3Cinteractive, a company that provides enterprise mobile solutions that allow a business to mobilize traditional business processes, commerce and CRM systems.

3Cinteractive, which was founded in 2005 by former MCI executives John Duffy (CEO), Mike FitzGibbon (President) and Mark Smith (COO), landed at No. 12 on Forbes’ list.

Michaud described 3Cinteractive – headquartered in Boca Raton, Fla. – as a company that lends its technology and expertise to Fortune 1000 businesses to help them leverage mobile solutions that improve business results. He said the company was excited to be recognized by Forbes and the honor has helped marketing by lending credibility.

“I think from my perspective being in a B-to-B space, a recognition like this provides us a level of credibility,” Michaud said. “That’s important to our organization. 3Cinteractive was a start-up in 2005. We’ve now grown into over 110 employees with tens of millions of dollars in revenue. So we’re not really in start-up mode anymore. We are a validated business model that’s a substantial, profitable organization. But the challenge always exists to shed that entrepreneurial outlook and skin and establish credibility as a proven entity in the B-to-B space. That’s the first thing. The second is it provides the recognition, what I like to call air cover, for our sales and business development folks. When they’re out in the marketplace and they say they’re with 3Cinteractive it gives them the air cover for someone to say to them, ‘I heard of you, I saw you in Forbes.’ It tends to shorten the sales cycle from a credibility perspective.”

3Cinteractive came to be because of the vision Duffy, FitzGibbon and Smith had for mobile technology. Michaud, who’s also been there since the founding, said the group recognized early on that mobile was going to cause a fundamental shift in the way businesses communicated with their customers and employees, and it was going to change the way a consumer interacted with a business.

“I think they saw that on a high level which made it easier to take the risk of starting a company focused around mobile technology,” Michaud said. “(CEO) John (Duffy) has always had a fundamental philosophy of acting as a tollbooth as a business. You want to create business where you see a fundamental shift between a business and consumer and you want to position yourself as a tollbooth between a business and consumer and help facilitate communications and transaction between the two. When John recognized those two things happening around mobile, he became very excited about the prospects of being able to build a sustainable company in the space.”

3Cinteractive enlists some of the country’s biggest brands as clients. ESPN, Best Buy, Tracfone and the Cleveland Clinic all use 3Cinteractive services. The company targets the Fortune 1000 companies as potential clients and is also open to other companies that are worth over $100 million.

When it comes to marketing, 3Cinteractive has been very calculated and conscience on how it spends its efforts. Michaud called the company’s approach to marketing “pragmatic,” specifically when it comes to brand awareness. In the beginning, Michaud focused on internal marketing, building the company’s culture and delivering that message to its sales people so they could in turn deliver it to prospects. He feels that allowed 3Cinteractive to build a long term sustainable business.

It’s now clear that since the company is working with the biggest brands and finding itself on the pages of Forbes, 3Cinteractive had grown up a bit. How will that change marketing?

“I would say that is one of our goals every year to try to get some kind of earned recognition on local and national levels. Certainly you get that from Forbes,” Michaud said. “Without naming names, we’ve had some Fortune 1000 companies call our front desk because of that. So it’s been outstanding for us. With that being said, we don’t focus on just pouring millions into marketing just for the sake of doing it. We try to get everything we can out of earned media, social media, earned recognition, speaking opportunities. We think those things can provide just enough, if not more, to raise awareness and credibility as a brand than advertising spend. We’re getting to a maturation point where we’re building off of that and looking to invest more in advertising and other things to take us to the next level.”

Michaud added that we will see more about 3Cinteractive from an advertising perspective in various business and technology outlets in 2012.

3Cinteractive has worked with Boca Raton-based bfw Advertising since its beginning. Michaud called bfw a great partner that has helped that company from the beginning when it didn’t have a full marketing department. He added that at this time he doesn’t foresee the need to add addition agency help with the talent 3Cinteractive has brought on board.

Michaud sees a bright future for 3Cinteractive and the enterprise mobility solutions industry in general, citing that IBM predicts mobility solution will reach $250 globally by 2015.

“We have a phrase around here: Business is like electricity. It takes the path of least resistance,” Michaud said. “We think mobile is following that. To play on that, if you think to the first 10-15 years after electricity was discovered and what all the uses were for it, you couldn’t imagine the things we’re doing with it today. We look at mobile technology and the sheer power of the technology. The fact that it’s the fastest growing industry probably in the history of the world, we think it’s limitless. We ran an ad campaign once that said if you can think it up, we can make it mobile. There’s a lot of truth to that.”

Recently, the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association (SFIMA) held a one-day summit on, “Reaching Your Audience in a Three-Screen World”.  SFIMA brought in top speakers representing the three screens - mobile, TV and Internet - and asked them to give advice on best utilizing each medium to reach a desired audience.

Jeff Michaud, 3Ci’s VP of Marketing, was asked to speak about mobile. Jeff’s presentation covered best practices for implementing a highly effective, integrated mobile strategy.

Lisa McCarthy, Director of Marketing and PR from SFN Group co-presented with Jeff. SFN Group is the fifth largest employer in the North America employing over 170,000 people annually. They provide recruiting, staffing and workforce solutions to many of the largest companies in the U.S. and Canada.

SFN Group is on the bleeding edge of mobile integration in the staffing industry. Utilizing 3Ci’s mobile platform, SFN Group has deployed mobile across their business with great success both improving operational efficiencies and providing a better, more effective communication channel with their consumers.

In this clip Jeff describes what 3Ci does and why our clients choose us. Check it out!

This is the fourth installment of a series of weekly blog posts written by Jenny Walsh, intern and office mate of John Duffy, 3Cinteractive’s Founder and CEO . This series takes a look at the inner workings of 3Ci and mobile marketing from a fresh perspective.

The 3Ci semi-annual bowling night took place last week. It was a blast, partly because I easily beat everyone at bowling. Yes, Mike FitzGibbon, I’m talking to you. It was also fun to relax and really get to know people from the office. I met some of the engineers from Uruguay and Spain that were in town, and was able to pick their brains about what to expect from engineering school. I finally had someone on my side about selecting engineering as a career, but they did warn me it is not an easy road. I was able to talk to people I don’t really see a lot during the day and get their advice as I head off to college. Advice ranged from when not to schedule my classes (Friday mornings) to what courses helped them the most in their careers. I loved all the advice and hearing about everyone’s college experiences — some crazier then others.

Besides sharpening our bowling skills I asked Duff what, as a company, was the thinking behind doing something like a bowling night. Duff said it was about enjoying the ride and the importance of culture in a company. He said it was vital to have people that like each other and work together because the quickest way to fail is having a lack of teamwork where egos get in way of the ultimate goal. Jeff Michaud chimed in and said, “It’s about the name on the front of the jersey, not the back.” I really understand what he means after getting to see the 3Ci team at work. It’s easy to understand why the great culture here is a major component of what makes 3Ci successful and also why Duff would be so interested in protecting that and ensuring it continues.

eMarketing Mobile: Tapping Into Mobile’s Power and Reach

The mobile phone that nearly every American carries with them every day—and the common text message technology that you use to communicate with your family, friends, and peers—is causing disruptive changes in this post-DTC age of pharma and healthcare. Just as the Internet changed the way business communicates and distributes information and the way the public consumes it, so the widespread adoption of mobile device technology and text messaging has stimulated a similar monumental shift in consumer behavior.

If you have children, you probably already know that text messaging is not something that “only kids do.” If you don’t have children, consider the fact that the fastest-growing age demographic of SMS (a commonly used acronym for text messaging) users in the U.S. is 50 to 64 year olds (Pew Internet & American Life Project Survey, December 2007). Additionally, a 2009 Limbo report showed that 50% of SMS users in the U.S. are 35 and older. For 25 and older, that number jumps to 75%. The bottom line: all of your end consumers are text messaging.

Solving Business Challenges

“Until recently, SMS didn’t carry a connotation as a tool that solved business challenges. But once businesses understood the immediacy, reach, and cost-effectiveness of SMS, they began to realize the potential it can have within their everyday operations,” states John Duffy, founder and CEO of mobile platform provider 3Cinteractive. “SMS provides the most ubiquitous and effective way to reach consumers. Every phone in the U.S. today is capable of sending and receiving text messages. We make it easy for pharma and healthcare related businesses to tap into mobile’s power and reach. We make the barrier to entry very low for our clients.”

3Cinteractive, which helps companies develop and deploy mobile initiatives, experiences firsthand the powerful and immediate impact mobile campaigns can have in healthcare. “We developed SMS-based applications with a major pharmaceutical manufacturer that deliver a rebate coupon for brand-name prescriptions to a consumer’s mobile phone while they are at the pharmacy counter. This rebate can be redeemed right at the point of sale, helping pharmaceutical companies extend the revenue streams on brand-name drugs and stem the consumer shift to generics,” says Duffy.

“Additionally, we’ve deployed a mobile messaging solution for a national healthcare staffing company that allows them to reach out to their completely mobile workforce of 70,000 nurses instantly to notify them of staffing openings and important job-related updates. It has completely streamlined their staffing communications and driven down costs dramatically.”

mHealth Initiatives

The focus on mHealth solutions using mobile phones goes beyond mobile and healthcare-related businesses. CTIA, the non-profit wireless advocacy group that represents all sectors of the wireless industry, has engaged the U.S. government directly to help facilitate the adoption of mHealth initiatives by hosting mHealth policy forums. These forums allow government officials and wireless industry experts to work together to promote mHealth solutions that significantly drive down healthcare costs and increase the efficiency of delivering healthcare.

3Cinteractive is CTIA’s exclusive mobile technology partner, helping educate and inform the healthcare industry of the benefits associated with implementing mHealth strategies. “The cost reduction we have seen by deploying SMS applications in hospitals and medical centers is significant,” says 3Cinteractive’s VP of Industry Relations, John Styers, who works closely with CTIA on mHealth. “Reliable data is starting to surface showing that SMS applications have significantly increased patient compliance with drug and medical device treatments. This not only improves patient health, but drives down the costs associated with non-compliance—which are estimated to be $100 billion annually in the U.S.”

Considering the strong national focus on reducing healthcare costs, and the demonstrated ability of mobile messaging to not only reduce costs but also improve the effectiveness of delivering care, a perfect storm is brewing around mHealth. And the device that you carry with you everyday in your pocket might alter the healthcare
landscape forever.

This article originally appeared in the March 2010 issue of PM360.

3Cinteractive, along with Neustar, was proud to sponsor the Mobile Marketing Association’s (MMA) 2010 Consumer Best Practices (CBP) Public Forum event. 3Ci also played host to the MMA’s CBP Committee Meeting at our offices in Boca Raton as well as a VIP dinner at the Seagate Beach Club in Delray Beach.

Pictured, left to right: Niki Dunbar, 3Cinteractive; Alison Billings, T-Mobile USA; Mike FitzGibbon
and Mark Smith, 3Cinteractive; and Ryan Martin, U.S. Cellular

By all accounts both the MMA CBP Committee meeting and the Industry Forum were a big hit. All of the feedback regarding the events was tremendous and several highly productive meetings occurred as a result of the forum.

3Ci thanks Neustar, the MMA, the CBP Committee members, and the forum attendees for helping to make this year’s Consumer Best Practices Forum a success, and special thanks go to Kelly Dowling, Jeff Michaud, and Joe Arcadi of the 3Cinteractive team for their efforts.

The forum, held at the Boca Raton Resort and Club in Boca Raton, Florida, discussed the CBP Guidelines, which are produced by the MMA’s CBP Committee (of which 3Cinteractive is a member). The guidelines provide measures of acceptable and unacceptable practices. Updated regularly, these guidelines set the industry standard for cross- carrier mobile content services, such as short messaging service (SMS), multimedia messaging service (MMS), shortcode programs, interactive voice response (IVR), and mobile web.

More than 300 million mobile coupon users globally by 2014

By Arlene Satchell, Sun Sentinel
February 9, 2010

As cell phones become appendages that many people can’t live without, businesses are increasingly eyeing them as prime real estate for their marketing and advertising messages.

Whether it’s to build brand, boost business or reward loyalty, more merchants are adopting mobile marketing strategies to tap into the cell-phone’s power of immediacy.

“It’s cool,” said Kristen Palestis of Plantation at a Jamba Juice in Fort Lauderdale recently after she opted in to receive a 20 percent coupon on her cell-phone.

“I’m spending less money and it was real easy,” said Palestis, 25, who used the coupon to buy a smoothie.

Palestis received the coupon within seconds of texting a special five-digit code from her cell phone.

Retailers mobile marketing messages can include text-messages with numeric ’short codes’ that customers dial to receive a promotion, bar-coded digital coupons, Web page or website links and display advertisements.

“We know the most effective way to reach the customer is to be where they are,” Jamba Juice spokesman Damon Miller said. “For our customers this means both on the Internet and on their mobiles.”

Since September, Jamba Juice’s 20 South Florida locations – 22 statewide – have been testing a text-message campaign that invites customers to sign up for offers on their mobile phones.

Getting special offers quickly into the hands of the consumers who are most apt to use them is what Jamba Juice and others are striving for.

These mobile social users as they’re called — represent 11 percent of American online adults, but their ranks are growing, according to Forrester Research Inc. They’re more likely to respond to ads on their cell phones, buy mobile content and services such as ring tones and access the mobile Web.

“We’ve seen fantastic results both in opt-ins and redemptions of follow-on offers,” Miller said.

Jamba Juice, a national chain of more than 700 smoothie stores, plans to roll out the campaign to other markets early this year, he said.

Companies that embrace mobile marketing know they have to be careful not to abuse the access consumers have granted, so permission-based text-message offers are becoming the standard.

Trade groups like the Mobile Marketing Association in New York have set guidelines for marketers that are designed to protect the consumer, said Jeff Michaud of 3Cinteractive in Boca Raton, a mobile technology firm.

These include opt-in, opt-out and message delivery frequency standards , he said.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most exciting aspects of our business is seeing the development of our people and the organization. We’ve had the fortune of witnessing this business grow from “just an idea and a business plan” to a “well-oiled machine” that is now built for scalability. The only reason we’ve been fortunate enough to experience such incredible growth is because our business has great people.

Over the last few years one of those great people, our Creative Director, Jeff Michaud, along with his team, has built a brand and an identity for our company within the industry. As our brand and our solutions continue to grow, Jeff has done an amazing job keeping the communication, message, and materials consistent with our identity and accomplishments. Jeff and his team have also put the framework in place for a scalable and effective corporate communications strategy that continues to give us tremendous marketing publicity. The creative services part of our marketing unit has helped us to win and retain key clients thanks in part to the outstanding work that Jeff and his group have done and continue to do.

Please help us in congratulating Jeff Michaud as he takes on his role here as Vice President of Marketing and Creative. Congratulations, Jeff!