With less than three week’s experience at Xtract I can already say that this company is working in an incredibly exciting area – especially for anyone involved in marketing. For years I’ve listened to discussions and read about customer insight, and working to delight customers through real understanding. Yet, marketing has not changed dramatically. Now the emergence of social media is actually forcing a turnaround – consumers are really becoming subjects instead of objects, and the Importance of word-of-mouth is becoming clear to all marketers. I feel privileged to work as part of this.
I’m Sari Aapola, and I was recently appointed VP for Product Management at Xtract. My background is in BtoB marketing and product marketing, and mostly in telecoms and software companies such as Tecnomen and Basware. I’ve recently spent two years in Germany, and one of my projects there was writing a book called “Sustainable Thought Leadership – how to build awareness and credibility to support business”. In it I present a model especially for growth companies with great innovations on becoming thought leaders in their category and target group. I’m now thrilled to work in a thought leader company, promoting its ambition to take its innovative solutions to benefit customers. The book will be out in a few weeks’ time…
A new version of Xtract Social Links was introduced at the Mobile World Congress in February. It includes great improvements, especially as its new interface helps marketers to take full advantage of the product. For the further development of our offering, I’m looking forward to a dialogue with our customers, real insight that will help us delight our customer over and over again.
