Shelton-based Cara Mocarski is a business leader with multiple focuses. Within the marketing and public relations world, she is recognized for her innovative work as the founder and head of the agency Cutting Edge Communications.
Mocarski is also known for her works as a community marketing executive in Fairfield County on behalf of Welcome Wagon, the recognized new mover marketing company based in Coral Springs, Florida. Last month, Mocarski was recognized for attaining the President’s Sales Leadership Club, the highest sales recognition awarded by Welcome Wagon ”“ she was only one of five Welcome Wagon employees who qualified for this top honor, which was based on exceptional sales performance.
For the past 13 years, Mocarski has placed in the top 10 U.S. rankings for Welcome Wagon sales, and the company also recognized her as a Premier Ambassador for her community involvement and a mentor to her colleagues. Last year, she was promoted to the level of national sales trainer.
While the term “welcome wagon” has become a casual expression for greeting a new member of a neighborhood, Mocarski explained that Welcome Wagon as a business has existed since 1928 and was progressive in its workforce recruitment and responsibilities.
“It was all-female,” she said of its origins. “We were ahead of our time. But since I’ve been with the company for 13 years, I’ve seen a big change ”“ and I train a lot of men and women, and they’re of all ages.”
Today”™s Welcome Wagon operates through a data registry to identify new residents to an area. Traditionally, the company offered its welcome after the residents arrived, but operations are different now.
“Last year, we launched a pre-mover program, because we have all this data,” she explained. “We know at least six weeks before someone’s moving if they’ll need services like a moving company, a home inspector, junk removal ”“ people make a lot of their buying decisions before they move, and we saw that was really a huge need across America.”
Welcome Wagon also adapted from having homeowners as customers to having renters as well ”“ an expansion that Mocarski welcomed.
“Look at Stanford, for instance ”“ there are so many renters there,” she said. “And now we can target people renting single-family homes and people in townhomes, condos and renting apartments.”
In the Welcome Wagon environment, Mocarski stated, local businesses team with the company as “community partners” and their products and services are shared with the neighborhood”™s newcomers in a special gift book with coupons and advertising information. The local business selection runs the gamut from financial advisors to home improvement specialists, and each category has one local business that is unique to that profession. Mocarski noted the most popular category sought by new residents is dentists.
“I’ve had dentists in one market that started with Welcome Wagon when they opened their practice family,” she said. “They recently left after 40 years ”“ they retired.”
Welcome Wagon traditionally used postal mail and printed material to reach customers, but Mocarski noted that “we doubled the exposure with our digital platforms” that includes a phone app and social media advertising.
Mocarski praised the Fairfield County business sector for its longtime support of Welcome Wagon.
“Without community partners sponsoring campaigns, we wouldn’t have Welcome Wagon,” she said.
