In conversation with… Christian Eckhardt

Welcome to “In Conversation With”, our newest blog series! Here, marketing and CRM experts analyze the latest market trends and share tips to enhance customer experience and engagement strategies.

In this first issue, we interviewed Christian Eckhardt, CEO and co-founder of Customlytics, a full-stack mobile technology and marketing consultancy in Europe.

This year hasn’t been easy for organizations who value their users’ privacy. And this is something our first guest knows all too well!

During our conversation, we talked about how to navigate these increasing privacy regulations, the ever-rising importance of first-party data in marketing and how to approach CRM and personalization strategies from a customer-centric perspective. During our conversation, we talked about how to navigate these increasing privacy regulations, the ever-rising importance of first-party data in marketing and how to approach CRM and personalization strategies from a customer-centric perspective.

What are some of the recent shifts you have seen in mobile marketing strategies amongst your clients recently?

Christian: There are a couple of trends, but the most notable ones are probably the changes and challenges in data privacy and how it’s impacting all the areas of the app marketing space, with a number of implications, making it hard to keep track of all of them.

To name a few, the data tracking landscape changes from device-level tracking data, making paid retargeting increasingly difficult. That raises the question of “how can you increase the retention and stickiness of your users?” and the one remaining answer is CRM activities, using a platform like Batch or other CRM solutions to get in touch with your customers.

Yes, so confirming that the trend is the shift from paid media to owned media sources, how do you recommend that brands leverage their owned media sources?

Christian: Pretty broad question, that I can answer with an equally broad answer: CRM — with all the mobile CRM channels like push notifications or in-app notifications — if done right, it won’t feel like marketing. Users will think it’s part of the user experience. Doing it right means putting yourself in the customer’s shoes.

Truly ask yourself: what is the information I would like to receive as a customer of this product or brand, and what would be useful for me? Stop adopting the marketers approach, always asking yourself what you want to sell with a CRM campaign, and start adopting a customer-centric approach instead.

The rationale should always be: how can your CRM campaigns create additional value for the customer?

So how does a highly personalized CRM strategy integrate with a performance marketing strategy for a brand?

Christian: From our perspective at Customlytics, it’s all part of the same customer journey. We have this marketing framework called the Marketing Master Map to map out all the different steps and parts of the customer journey with suggestions of communication with the customer at every stage of the funnel.

Every touchpoint along the way needs to be thought through, and aligned in order to create one big journey from awareness until loyalty and advocacy. As a marketer, I should use every piece of available information to personalize the customer flow.

Let’s say you’re an e-commerce business: the customer comes in via an app where I showed a specific product, a pair of sneakers. I have some information about the user, and I can leverage that along the funnel to personalize the experience for them, knowing that they are interested in sneakers. The user's behavior in the app can inform my communication later on.

There are technical limitations as device level data is increasingly difficult to get, but if available, use it, educate your communication, know your customer (what they did before, after, what they’ve clicked on, etc.). That’s where integrations between Batch and attribution platforms such as Adjust or AppsFlyer are so crucial to track the customer’s journey.

In general, CRM and Acquisition Managers are part of different teams, with different goals. Do you manage to bring them together to create that unified approach of the customer journey?

Christian: Yes, of course that’s a challenge and outside of the technical limitations, there are also organizational limitations. We always try to combine the two but the reality is that, especially in bigger companies, teams taking care of paid User Acquisition and CRM are usually separated, so it becomes more about making sure that they communicate and exchange ideas. Sometimes in smaller and leaner organizations the teams are the same or close together, especially if the app is the only product, and that’s an ideal scenario.

What would your top 3 recommendations for CRM marketers be?

1. This is by far the most important one: put yourself in the shoes of the customer when you create campaigns or messaging in mobile CRM. Ask yourself: would this be relevant for me as a user, is it enriching the user experience, creating a better one? If not, don’t do it.

2. Getting familiar with the platforms that you are dealing with, in this case, mobile apps. Dig deep into what kind of opportunities these give, see what’s different to traditional CRM, what’s available in terms of technology? Geolocation, for example, is not the only thing enabling you to achieve highly personalized campaigns. There are so many things you can do, and understanding all the possibilities you have will help you deliver value to the users.

3. Don’t get into the trap of targeting the user just because you want to make that extra sale, from a customer perspective, it doesn’t work.

Indeed, making sure that your CRM strategy is part of the customer journey in the app and not just as marketing actions. How does Customlytics support CRM marketers?

Christian: Our service offerings include consulting and support for mobile app strategy, campaign management, analytics & technology integration. Our team of experienced professionals is geared towards taking care of all relevant topics to successfully promote mobile apps. Not only do we cover the entire spectrum of marketing infrastructure and app store optimization (ASO) - we also run performance marketing as well as retention campaigns (CRM) in-house.

We will be joining Customlytics and Remerge at the Berlin Mobile Marketing & Growth Meetup on October 6th, to discuss the latest trends in the mobile space. Click here to register!