CRM Strategy

For CRM Execs, It’s Nurture Time

A group of marketing leaders shared their thoughts at a PostFunnel virtual event and spoke about adjusting to an unstable reality

Dafna Sheinberg

A group of carefully handpicked smart CRM leaders and marketing execs go on a private zoom link. One day, it might be the beginning of a joke. But these days, it’s just the reality of doing professional events.

Last week, a second such PostFunnel Virtual Forum took place, designed to be intimate and to facilitate a real conversation. Moderated by Optimove’s VP Marketing, Amit Bivas, it indeed was short, sweet, and insightful.

JTI, PAASE Digital, Quidco, and more, were amongst the represented brands. The main topic at hand: how to grow and engage customer bases in such tumultuous times.

Nurture Time

“As we see a rise within retail around pet food and fashion,” Dominic Butterell, Member Experience Director at Quidco, stated. “And to grow our community, we utilize social channels and find private groups on Facebook to be very useful as far as engagement goes, and we are getting positive feedback.” Though perhaps not completely scalable, such methods allow marketing teams to control the message and conversation with the community tightly and nurture a perception of a helpful brand – which is especially critical these days.

“We try and make this period a little more fun,” said Ido Padani, Chief Commercial Officer at Quidco, “so we do a lot of content building to grow and engage our community.”

Daniela Nardelli, Digital Marketing Manager at Heist told how, on their end, “management recognized the situation and shifted the focus towards testing engagement.” This reflects an understanding of this reality as a time when purchasing power may be limited. So it may be a savvy move to optimize the nurturing of existing communities.

“We knew and recognized quickly not to push sales emails as buying behavior was rapidly changing – so early on we came up with 3 content pillars (how we as a business were working from home, what we can do as a business to give back, showcasing our CO.LAB.12 project which involved women in our community co-creating underwear with us),”  Nardelli added.

“We’ve also seen a massive turn towards owned channels, using emails and leaning into the huge amount of attention on organic social media,” admitted a Marketing Manager from a retail brand, “we have used a lot more ambient Instagram content. This allowed us to be more experimental.” Adding that this mindset is likely to stick long after COVID-19.

Take Your Time

Another angle of considering shifting customer expectation was brought up by Phill Manson, Director at PAASE Digital, who went on to say that “we’ve gotten so used to being able to order online for next day delivery. COVID-19 has led us to consider whether we really need our deliveries right away or if we can wait a few days.”

He also added that, “I think we’ll see a move away from Amazon and next day delivery and for consumers to want to shop directly with a brand, not the middleman.”

To that, Mr. Padani asked the participants, “Are all of these passing trends, or new norms?”

Unknown Unknowns

It was interesting that he continued to say, “If it’s the new norm, we need to recalculate all our strategies and costs. Traveling is a big category for us, and it’s still unknown when and how it will come back.”

Towards the end of the conversation, participants were asked what they think 2021 will look like, CRM-wise.

“We haven’t thought this much ahead, everyday things are changing, and it gets harder and harder to plan ahead,” said a Marketing Manager with a slight giggle.

Another CRM Manager couldn’t agree more, “Our vision has become more customer-centric though”. Reflecting the overarching understanding that being very attentive to customer’s shifting habits is ever so critical.

“We have seen a lot of 1-time purchases, and the challenge is to convert these,” shared another CRM professional on the call. “We are looking at the short term of acquisition rather than long term benefits as the subscription is the new reality for us.”

“Overall, the key thing is to figure out how to manage efficiency that builds your future, but at the same time getting the shop ready for better days,” concluded Mr. Padani.

Overall, as the CRM space is rapidly developing, it is more important than ever to create strong and healthy relationships with your customers. PostFunnel aims to keep all this fast-evolving knowledge in one place for you – on the most relevant, timely, and trending matters. Stay tuned for our next virtual event coming soon!

Interested in attending an event? Send an email with your name, occupation, and company name to: contactus@postfunnel.com

 

Here’s some previous content we produced based on PF events: