Summary

In this episode, I interview Allison Bryant, a senior lifecycle marketer at 10 percent Happier.

Allison shares her experience of starting a team from scratch and building marketing infrastructure for the company's growth. She emphasizes the importance of understanding the customer journey and collaborating with other teams. Allison also discusses the role of CRM as a force multiplier and the need for prioritization in driving impactful initiatives.

In this conversation, Allison discusses various strategies and tactics for increasing engagement and preventing churn in a meditation app. She shares insights on the power of re-engagement campaigns, the effectiveness of rerunning challenges, and the importance of repetition in messaging. Allison also explores the use of AI and LLMs for copywriting and highlights the proactive approach to churn prevention. She emphasizes the strategic role of lifecycle marketing in driving LTV growth and offers advice for founders and teams looking to optimize their CRM efforts.

Takeaways

• Starting a team from scratch requires understanding the customer journey and collaborating with other teams.
• CRM is a force multiplier that can significantly impact growth and retention.
• Prioritization is crucial in maximizing the impact of CRM initiatives.
• User insights are key in driving impactful initiatives and optimizing the customer journey. Reengagement campaigns can be highly effective in increasing engagement and preventing churn.
• Rerunning challenges and courses can provide valuable re-engagement opportunities for users.
• Repetition is key in messaging, as people often need to hear things multiple times in different ways to break through.
• AI and LLMs can be powerful tools for copywriting and personalization in CRM efforts.
• Proactive churn prevention strategies, such as re-engagement campaigns before renewal, can significantly impact retention.
• Lifecycle marketing plays a strategic role in increasing LTV and should be seen as a partner in growth.

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction and Background
• 02:13 Transition to CRM Role04:56Starting the CRM Role at 10% Happier
• 07:34 Mapping the Customer Journey09:14Collaboration with Other Teams
• 13:03 CRM as a Force Multiplier
• 19:04 Importance of Prioritization
• 24:40 Evolution of Priorities and Skills
• 30:55 Using User Insights for Impactful Initiatives
• 33:59 Discovering the Power of Reengagement
• 36:10 Rerunning Challenges for Engagement and Revenue
• 40:12 The Importance of Repetition in Messaging
• 43:53 Using AI and LLMs for Copywriting
• 52:15 Proactive Churn Prevention
• 59:02 Preventing Churn with Reengagement Campaigns
• 01:06:03 The Strategic Role of Lifecycle Marketing

Episode Summary

Janet Mao, an experienced product professional (previously at Blinkist), discusses the collaboration between product and CRM teams. She shares her career trajectory and highlights the importance of CRM in product development. Janet explains the challenges faced when working together and provides advice for CRM professionals on collaborating with product teams. In this conversation, Janet and Karan discuss the collaboration between CRM and product teams. They share examples of how merging features and using CRM as a testing ground can lead to increased engagement and adoption. They also explore the idea of a shared CRM resource for product teams and the benefits it brings. The conversation touches on the trend of removing lines between product and CRM and Airbnb's approach to product marketing and product management. The key takeaway is the importance of focusing on goals rather than functions and the value of collaboration in achieving those goals.

Takeaways:

• Collaboration between product and CRM teams is crucial for successful product development.
• Understanding the goals and strengths of each team is essential for effective collaboration.
• Education sessions and knowledge sharing help bridge the gap between product and CRM teams.
• Including CRM in the early stages of product development leads to better user engagement and retention.
• Clear communication and alignment on goals are key to successful collaboration. Merging features and using CRM as a testing ground can lead to increased engagement and adoption.
• A shared CRM resource for product teams can help bridge the gap between CRM and product and ensure alignment with the overall CRM strategy.
• The trend of removing lines between product and CRM is gaining traction, with companies like Airbnb combining product marketing and product management.
• Focusing on goals rather than functions is crucial for effective collaboration between CRM and product teams.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

01:32 Janet's Career Trajectory

06:19 Collaboration between Product and CRM

11:25 Building the Social Community at Blinkist

16:33 The Importance of CRM in Product Development

22:33 Including CRM in Non-Social Products

28:57 Hurdles in Working Together

33:16 Advice for CRM Professionals Working with Product Teams

40:57 Merging Spaces into the Library Feature

42:20 CRM as a Testing Ground for Product

44:09 Shared CRM Resource for Product Teams

47:56 The Trend of Removing Lines Between Product and CRM

48:36 Airbnb's Approach to Product Marketing and Product Management

53:10 Focusing on Goals Rather Than Functions

55:12 The Importance of Collaboration and Working Together

In this episode, I had a chance to talk with Annalize van Deijl (Head of CRM at Mr. D Foods) about a topic that's always been fascinating - how does someone get into and excel in CRM. In the hour, we spoke about Annalize's journey from being a cabin crew at Emirates to being a Head of CRM, and how CRM as a field has evolved over time. Often folks start out in CRM, with a data, tech or ops background, Annalize talks about what she looks in new hires and much more!

In this episode, I spoke with Lana Dubinsky. Lana comes with tons of monetisation experience with her prior roles as Senior Director of Product at IMVU. More recently, she also found Women & AI. She works independently as a product advisor to a lot of gaming companies.

Lana discusses how she had been already using machine learning (ML) to foster monetisation & innovation at companies before gen AI became a rage. It was an interesting conversation, that I hope you can also get some value out of! Enjoy!

In this week's episode, I speak with Emmanuelle Arrault, VP of CRM at Deezer. She was previously Head of Customer Engagement with Betclic and Director of CRM Strategy at Sephora.

We talk about the role of data in CRM over the years, CRM team structures over the years and the playbook to build and train a CRM team for business growth.

You can reach out to Emma through her LinkedIn profile here.

I host 1-hour sessions to help CRM teams get trained on important lifecycle marketing aspects. You can check it out here.

In this episode, I am sharing a recent talk I gave at the App Promotion Summit demonstrating my projects with Blacklane & Blinkist.

You can check out the entire talk, also from other speakers here.

In this episode, me and Nina talk about common misconceptions or topics that receive undue attention sometimes in the customer engagement space. Most CRM teams find themselves at some stage talking about

👉 Email marketing topics such as email designs,

👉 Subject line testing - should we go short, long, funny, etc.

👉 Personalization in lifecycle marketing - how & when to do this effectively?

👉 Gamification - but struggle to see whether they create any business impact.

You can reach out to Nina on her Linkedin & do let us know if there are any misconceptions you want us to talk about in an eventual Part 2!

For this episode, I spoke with Thiery Sequeira - CEO of Massive Rocket. Massive Rocket has been accelerating CRM & customer data projects for brands all across the world.

Thiery shares his journey of creating Massive Rocket & his early experiences working with CRM tools. He shares his insights on how the industry has evolved over the last few years & how Massive Rocket has been helping clients get to value, quickly.

I hope you enjoy the episode and consider rating it - if you enjoyed it.