In the beginning was the word. In a business plan. Which envisioned CURE as a “company for customer acquisition and customer loyalty”, brokering products such as giro accounts primarily in the Benelux countries through an online platform. A “check24.lu”, if you will. CURE S.A. was formally brought to life on 29 May 2009. Little did anyone know at the time that CURE was to become a company for “Advanced Web & Social Media Intelligence” …
What everybody did know soon enough was that there was a significant gap between business plan and reality. This, however, was hardly for a lack of trying: Good-looking landing pages were quickly set up, SEO and SEA strategies (Google Ads, link building etc.) implemented. Still, CURE was a far cry from becoming a proper transaction platform – a sufficient development budget was simply not available. Worse even, seed money seemed to evaporate by the hour.
The first landing page of CURE S.A.
CURE’s parent company, KWF Business Consultants S.A., provided the first client and thus the young company’s maiden project. This project resulted in a service package that included “WebCheck” and “WebWatch” – i.e. checking the client’s website for function, usability, comprehensibility etc. – and monitoring the internet for brand-related content such as press comments and customer reviews, as well as the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of said content.
These first steps gradually gave rise to everything CURE stands for today. Social media monitoring, for example, started with simple Google Alerts and manual bookmark checking. What followed soon thereafter was the use of a professional social media monitoring tool, “Meltwater Buzz”, then still based on Techrigy’s SM2. When Techrigy was taken over, Meltwater began to develop its own tool; in practice, however, the new tool fell short of expectations: The software was simply not ready for the market, the liaison with Meltwater was soon terminated. Based on a Fraunhofer Institute’s market survey called “Social Media Monitoring Tools”, Brandwatch became our next tool of choice, having proven itself clearly superior to the competition.
Market survey by Fraunhofer about Social Media Monitoring Tools
The (negative) experiences with Techrigy/Meltwater served as a fresh reminder to no longer rely on one tool alone, but to use several tools – and only the best ones. Furthermore, we began to store the collected data in a proprietary database in order to offer customers the best source coverage and (self-generated) reporting possible. Having paid many on-site visits to Luxembourg-based Talkwalker, both their “drive” and tool eventually convinced us to collaborate. We have been regularly testing monitoring tools ever since, not just to keep up with the latest developments, but to constantly live up to our promise of using only the best tools for our customers.
There is no denying that data sources have been drying up, so to speak, a development only fostered by scandals such as Cambridge Analytica. Certainly not insignificant in this context is the fact that online communication in general continues to shift into messengers like WhatsApp, decreasing data volume and drying up further sources. Two years ago, CURE therefore decided to concentrate more on website analytics (e.g. eTracker, Google Analytics) and to use additional data sources included in customer reports. These additional sources include, for example, Google Ads data, channel data such as Facebook Insights or Twitter Analytics as well as newsletter and online shop data. All these streams enable us to provide customers with much more comprehensive insights and KPIs while significantly reducing our dependence on mere social web data.
In addition to analytics, CURE’s second main pillar continues to be the broad field of online marketing. In some way, this was one of our service areas from the very beginning (remember, “customer acquisition and loyalty “), but we have considerably expanded our know-how in this area over the past ten years. Besides website conception and testing, content creation & distribution, community management support and social media campaigns are an essential part of our services nowadays.
Combining analytics and marketing is axiomatic to CURE’s philosophy. Hence, our approach is twofold: We turn tracking and monitoring data into descriptive, more useable results and at the same time use these results to present marketing measures in an optimized and tangible way. To give you a little sneak peek, as part of an entire brand relaunch including corporate design and website makeovers, be sure to hear more on this over the next few months.
The brand logos “CURE Marketing” and “CURE Analytics” are part of CURE’s new logo family
Saving the best for last means mentioning CURE employees and CURE customers. They have been and continue to be of paramount importance for CURE to look back on ten proud years, and to be greatly optimistic and exuberantly happy about looking ahead on many more. After all, service quality always depends on how qualified and committed the people involved are, be it the one providing the service or the one receiving it. Every CURE employee is CURE, and every service is also the customer’s merit. We value our customers’ feedback highly and would thus like to thank them dearly for their input – it helps us become even better at creating new products and services, adding value, and growing. Both personally and as a company.
Heartfelt thanks, therefore, to all those who have supported CURE and who continue to put their heart and soul into it. Heartfelt thanks, no less, to all our customers for the constructive exchange, the countless friendly and helpful conversations, ideas, suggestions – and, of course, each and every order! We are delighted to support you even more in the future!
We promise to keep providing you with nothing short of the best service, and to spend at least the next ten years staying ahead of the curve through success, skill, quality, speed, flexibility, and – to be sure – fun!
