Business of the Week: Elevate XS
Businesses, in a sense, are built and sustained via their consumer base. Any business can put forth great products and services, but it’s whether or not a customer will keep coming back for more, or come at all, that will drive it into existence—or unfortunately, sometimes to nonexistence.
The guys at Elevate XS, however, are here to help with consumer engagement and advocacy. Established in November 2011, Bart Casabona and Chris Garra left their corporate jobs to establish their own company to help small and mid-sized companies attract and retain customers.
“We kind of teach businesses to really develop relationships with their consumers, their customers, their clients so that there’s always that preference,” Casabona said. “The preference and the relationship that you foster with your client leads to advocacy. That’s really what we strive toward is to build customer advocacy for people’s brands.”
While most businesses are struggling with maintaining a presence in today’s digital age, Elevate XS helps to promote the products or services offline, as well. Nowadays, consumers hold immense power in the success or demise of a business—their opinions and reviews are valued as a source of where and where not to go for a specific product or service.
“Today, word of mouth referrals are critically important to businesses because the customer you’re going after has a terrible amount of influence online and offline,” Casabona said. “The consumer has the most influence they’ve ever had, because every product or service review is within a click away so that’s very daunting proposition for small and mid-sized businesses to digest and respond to.”
Newly-established or longtime businesses not only have to grapple with constructing an online presence to keep up with the digital age, but also have to deal with the time it takes to build this presence, as well. Elevate XS not only helps business owners to get their “digital” feet off the ground, but also assists in maintaining their online existence.
“That’s where we come in—there are a lot of small businesses but even if they’re web savvy, maybe they don’t have the bandwidth, they’re so busy driving their own business they don’t have time to do this,” Garra said. “Not only can we provide the strategy, the right touch points for you, but we can help drive the execution of that, as well.”
Casabona and Garra offer a combined 40 years of experience in digital marketing, public relations, media and advertising. Former PepsiCo employees, both wanted to branch outside of the corporate world to reach out and utilize their collective knowledge to help small and mid-sized business owners.
“The pull quote on our website is ‘The passion that fuels our creativity, dedication and curiosity isn’t in our contracts, it’s in our DNA,’” Casabona said. “I wake up every single day thinking about ways to help people that I know and see and run into in the community and hear about through other businesses and other friends, and that’s really exciting.”
Working with a network of freelancers that lend a hand with website development and graphic design, Casabona and Garra are well-rounded in the services they provide—from social to digital promotion, creative projects and communication, Elevate XS hits the major tenants necessary to help promote businesses. Because the two work from their homes or places that carry Wi-Fi, the operational costs of running a business are not a factor when using Elevate XS’s services.
“What really makes us able to compete, and a compelling proposition is that we have that same Madison Avenue/Silicon Valley experience, not only with us but within our network, too,” Garra said. “We don’t need to pass along those operational costs to our clients, so we’re very leen and very efficient, and you’re still going to get that award-winning, creative representation without the humungous costs.”
To find out more information about Elevate XS, visit www.elevatexs.com.
