What was your journey until taking on this role in the company?
I graduated in Communication Sciences, a sector I am still passionate and curious about today, and then I entered the world of shipping. It is a large, vast and varied area, where getting bored is impossible. Needless to say, I fell in love with it. Even while I trained as an Operative and then specialized as an External Salesperson, I always held hybrid roles which allowed me to make use of my Marketing and Communication skills. For medium-sized shipping companies, offline communication still functions as a driving force for commercial activity: merchandise, for example, is a precious resource that supports all strategies. Now I am Sales & Marketing Manager in Shipping System: I therefore follow both offline and online.
What do you think about social media in the B2B market segment?
In general I notice a difference in the use of social media between the Italian market and the foreign one. It is true that for our sector it is very difficult to identify the right interlocutors, who in poorly structured companies can appear in any department, from Management to the Switchboard. For Sistema Spedizioni, social media is an essential showcase but perhaps they are still too distant and cold compared to the style of this company, which until now has been very attentive to people. I think that Direct Marketing could be the right solution for Sistema Spedizioni because it allows you to communicate with specific people, in targets who can then generate opportunities for growth and continuous and more human relationships.
Which social network is more in line with your business model and which is less?
LinkedIn is certainly the social network most in line with Sistema Spedizioni, but we also take care of the Facebook page, always to remain consistent with the philosophy of personalizing relationships and communication. We believe that our value also comes from the desire to "put our face" and create relationships with customers. We want to carry on warm and direct communication for every customer. However, the most distant social network for the moment is TikTok.
The data shows that having a low number of followers damages the brand image, what do you think?
The number of followers is an important metric especially in B2C sectors. Sistema Spedizioni is growing both in terms of number of customers and investments, but none of these goals are linked to the number of followers of our pages. Social media, in our case, supports us in maintaining contact with those who know us and are already close to us. At the moment, therefore, we use commercial interactions to grow our following, and social media to have more opportunities for contact and loyalty with our customers and stakeholders.
How important are online reviews, are they important?
I believe that reviews are fundamental: better few, but good. A few years ago I personally contacted people who had left negative reviews on the Shipping System Google panel. I created a dialogue and discovered that almost all of them were actually the result of misunderstandings, so I kindly asked them to delete them and everyone totally agreed. Personally, I try not to leave public reviews and keep my opinions to myself: the more time passes, the more reserved I become.
Have you thought about enlisting the help of professionals from the social world given the importance achieved by digital platforms and their management complexity?
Absolutely yes! At Sistema Spedizioni we have had some negative experiences with external agencies, but at the same time we rely on an external professional who has followed us on both our Facebook and LinkedIn pages for years. My strategy is to listen to each Agency that proposes itself and try to understand, for each of them, what the excellent proposal is. When the conditions exist to invest in Marketing we would like to find a company that works very well with our sector and is specialized in the services we will need.
What are the future corporate communication projects?
We are now redesigning the Sistema Spedizioni website which we will also use to coordinate 360° communication, but before undertaking other projects we must focus on the internal restructuring we are going through. Personally, as I said, I think the next step will be to work on Direct Marketing, but looking ahead I'm eager to design one
integrated communication between offline and online, but also between Internal Communication and advertising: there is no better testimonial than a passionate and enthusiastic team.