CRM Strategy

“We are Making Sure to be Ethical”

A small group of marketing execs hopped on a Zoom link to enjoy a moderated conversation about CRM marketing during COVID-19 (and some REAL wine+cheese)

Nitsan Peled

We had such, such big plans for our line of PostFunnel events for 2020. As recent as late-January we told you all about how “In 2019 we launched a series of CRM events under the PostFunnel brand. You loved them, so next year you’ll get more.”

But, then. Well, you know.

And, as the world zoomed out of the office and into zoom meetings, we went with the flow. And last week, we hosted our very first virtual PostFunnel gathering – but did not pass on the wine and cheese! Those were very real indeed.

In this time of social distancing, self-isolation, and lockdown – hosting this virtual event was very important to keep the conversation going on what matters to us most – relationship marketing. Plus, marketing amid coronavirus is of course still a big challenge all marketers face, and we felt that this is the perfect setting to discuss it.

So, a selection of fine wine and cheese baskets were delivered directly to our participants’ doorsteps (pictured below), just in time for the zoom dinner. The participants, all marketing executives from cutting-edge brands, including Boden, Your Golf Travel, Tails, Animed Direct and more – were all on the ball.

Our custom-made Zoom backgrounds tied the room nicely as well.

As always, the most beneficial part of such a meetup, is the opportunity to share and hear challenges, ideas, solutions and tips directly from other smart professionals that share similar goals and worklife pains. And so, after a (not so) quick introduction, the conversation started flowing. The topic at hand, was, of course, “the situation”, and how to make the most while enduring it.

One of the Heads of CRM said her brand has been focusing more so on content. “We are seeing massive engagement on content. Generating content and creating a community is strong now, rather than marketing the product itself.”

“I can now see that we have a bunch of new customers that are shopping online… the challenge will be to retain them,” was a spot-on take from a senior CRM manager. As far as data goes, her brand took this opportunity to do some “Spring Cleaning” while taking a “day-to-day” approach.

“We are making sure to be ethical in terms of how to handle the warehouse and workers,” told us a loyalty expert, “this is critical for us as we know customers are looking for that. We are making sure the messaging is very clear.” Adding that the word “COVID-19” can get you in the spam folder. We hope you’re taking notes! Read more from Optimove on what your customers want to hear during a crisis.

Another participant, a founder, was on the same note – “We are all about messages to inform people. The goal is to create trust and let customers know that there are people behind the brand.” And we couldn’t agree more, read further on quick ways to adjust your communications for COVID-19 by Optimove.

“I believe community will be more of a thing after coronavirus, so we’ll be looking to find ways to incorporate that into our CRM strategy” predicted Jenna Eaton, CRM Manager at Tails. And Lauren Dougherty, E-Commerce CRM Manager at Animed Direct agreed: “One thing we want to do more of is create a sense of community.”

“This is an opportunity to build BETTER relationships with people,” was summed up by Mark Lewis, Independent Consultant at the Tate, which is a conclusion everyone agreed on. “Was great to catch up with different industries and sectors to hear how they’re adapting to the ever-changing COVID-19 situation. Lots of examples of changing quickly and forensic use of data to drive the next decision. Look forward to the next meet up” was simply concuded by Oliver Gunning, CMO at Your Golf Travel.

We hope that you got a glimpse of our very first virtual gathering. And even a good piece of advice from some of these experts. Watch this space for future upcoming events that we plan to host (virtually or not) on trending topics that should be on every CRM expert’s mind.

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