Michael Pignataro is co-CEO – Operations for corePHP.
Just as every IT employee reports to co-CEO Steven Pignataro, every Project Manager and Client Services employee reports directly to Michael, an identical twin to brother Steven. Michael is corePHP’s CEO for marketing, sales and operations. He is responsible for recruiting, hiring, training and overseeing project management, account management and client services teams, as part of managing daily operations at corePHP’s Battle Creek, Mich. headquarters.
Michael is in charge of ensuring Drupal, Joomla! and WordPress projects are on-track and our clients are satisfied with corePHP services. Michael’s experience in financial management, technical training and customer support ensures corePHP’s quality of service and client satisfaction levels remain at peak levels, and that their services are delivered on-time and within budget.
Michael also spearheads corePHP’s software solutions and service offerings. He recently oversaw the creation and launch of corePHP’s most successful software product launch to date, an e-commerce suite of products, branded paGO Commerce.
His leadership and “can-do” approach helped corePHP grow consistently through challenging economic climate, while other technology firms were shrinking. His leadership helped fuel the growth and success of corePHP’s many new clients over the past two years, in addition to retaining past clients.
What are the most common pain points you help your clients with?
In everything we do either it is a simple website build to building a custom business solution for the web IE: Quoting engine for an insurance agency. We always focus on growth and how we can help that company grow from the digital strategy.
How has sales and marketing evolved since you started your career?
Marketing has changed very drastically. Back in the day most of the marketing was print. Now today it is digital and being digital you are now competing in a larger pool of companies which makes the digital marketing much more challenging and we are always innovating to achieve the results our clients are desiring. Sales also has changed. We typically did most of our sales via email and phone. Now it is changing to become more face to face. Clients want to put a trusted face to the vendor they bring on.
From a marketing perspective, what are the most important web development considerations business owners need to make right now?
Launching a cheap website from Godaddy does not help drive sales and revenue. It only helps GoDaddy. The goal is to build a website that will produce results. Think of your site as a 24/7 sales and marketing person. You would not cheap out on a quality human. The same should be for your site. Today when someone wants to do business with you they go to your site and if it looks cheap they assume the results will be to and will go with the other vendor. Make sure your site will speak the brand.
What organizations do you think have taken an especially innovative and/or effective approach to developing their online brands? What can we learn from them?
Zoho has taken an very unique approach to their brand. We recently sat down with them here at our office to go over some initiatives we are working closely with their team. Their approach is focused on engineering the best product first before marketing. And they have a really cool approach to their marketing such as guerilla marketing, partnership, affiliates, and more.
What are your biggest web development pet peeves? What do you wish brands would stop doing on their sites?
Design by committee. What this means is they hire us to design a site. With years of research and common practice we present the design to the client. They love it but the board all has their wishes that they want within the design. When all the different thoughts are put into the design it becomes mute point as the design is not at all good and really ready for prime time. It’s hard to back that design when the site goes live.
What role should marketing automation play in a brand’s overall marketing strategy?
We feel this should be a huge part into any brand’s marketing strategy. We do this day in and day out for our clients and see great results.
What are the most common mistakes you see brands making with marketing automation?
Poor implementation. Some brands try to set these up themselves and they have the basic understanding and the outcome is typically poor results with low conversion.
What do you think is the future for marketing automation? How will brands be using it into the future?
Well first to understand the future of marketing automation we need to understand where it is today. A study from State of Salesforce shows only 7 percent are seeing good measurable ROI from their investments in the different marketing automation software. Over 70 percent of markers are either unhappy or OK with the marketing automation software that they use. I think from seeing this we are going to see marketing tools go more predictive first approach. This will help the marketers get better results and have deeper data analytics that can help guide them
What trends, innovations or headlines are you following closely in your field right now? Why do they interest or excite you?
I love following design trends. I enjoy seeing what creative minds out there are thinking of ways for better connectivity with users in the digital space. Also enjoy seeing what software is out there to better our process and flows internally. Love tinkering around and bettering it as there is always room for improvement. And the better we become means the better the results become for our clients.
