The One to One Consumer Marketing Podcast

Beiersdorf's Axel Adida on Staying Relevant with Your Strategies, Skills, and Technologies

Max speaks with Axel Adida, Chief Digital Officer at Beiersdorf. They discuss how marketers need to be flexible "in mind and skills" with technological and customer behavior changes, especially when initiatives like cookie deprecation are shifting how to grab customer attention. They also talk about how unique content leads to self-select personalization, what tech trends are impacting marketing today, and how learning hard skills improves problem-solving.
 
Topics discussed:
The need for flexibility "in mind and skills" with changes in customer behavior and evolving channels.
Why customers will gravitate towards content tone and angles that resonate with them in self-select personalization.
How marketers are rethinking data ownership and focusing on which signals are important as cookie tracking changes.
How to increase loyalty by bringing freshness and constant interest in the brand.
Why marketers should prioritize having a robust yet simple tech stack and skilled teams.
Which technology and trends — like generative AI and the rise of influencers — are impacting consumer marketing today.
Why learning hard skills like data, systems, or programming can help marketers become better problem-solvers.

Hear.com's Nadine Fuller on Nurture Customer Journeys and Quality of Life

Max speaks with Nadine Fuller, Sr. Director, CRM & Customer Activation at hear.com. They discuss hear.com's strategy for communication that includes choosing the right content, channel, and timing, as well as how to keep customers engaged when there may be years between purchases. They also talk about the importance of testing, the challenges and opportunities of today's many channels, and what tools hear.com uses for effective CRM.
 
Topics discussed:
The marketing strategies required to sell a product that people need but don't necessarily want.
How hear.com approaches their customer communication, including choosing the right segment, content, channel, and timing.
Why you still need to stick with basic marketing principles, whichever CRM tool you're using.
How constantly-changing channels and partners are hard to navigate, but also present more opportunities as well.
How hear.com uses SMS to interact with and deliver value to their customers.
Strategies for long-term customer retention and the unique challenges marketers have when sales might be seven years apart.
Advice for marketers, including how you can accelerate your marketing program through testing.

StockX's Jacob Fenton on Building Authentic and Organic Engagement

Max speaks with Jacob Fenton, VP Customer Experience at StockX. They discuss how StockX prioritizes listening to customers and engaging with them organically on community platforms, using their feedback to guide new initiatives. They also talk about why customer service issues are also brand issues, how they use technology to improve the seller experience, and what customer sentiments will drive brand messaging in the future.
 
Topics discussed:
How StockX builds organic engagement through influencers and community platforms, where they can educate on or reframe brand messaging.
The importance of having a robust customer listening program that can guide new initiatives.
How StockX uses technology and account managers to improve the experience and relationships with sellers.
Why a customer service issue is really a brand issue and how they work to understand and solve customer concerns.
How they’re solving their biggest challenges of shipping speed and quality.
Why customer interest in what brands stand for will drive brand messaging in the future.
Advice for early career marketers around prioritizing and choosing the people you want to work with.

Arktic's Adalia Cuesta Bergstrom on the Best Ways to Design Chatbot Conversations (Webinar Replay)

In this episode, previously recorded as a webinar, Spectrm’s Conversation Designer Esteban Gómez, speaks with Adalia Cuesta Bergstrom, Senior Conversational AI Designer at Arktic Business Consulting. They discuss the fundamentals of how to design conversations for chatbots, including thinking through possible paths, designing for specifics, and the importance of voice and tone. They also talk about the steps for conversational design, how to humanize your chatbot, and how customers won't remember whether it's a bot if they have their questions answered.
 
Topics discussed:
The evolution of the role of conversational designer across different companies and industries.
Why the most important factor in designing a conversation is to make sure the user feels heard, and why you should design for specifics, not generalities.
The importance of voice and tone in a chatbot conversation, and why it should shift depending on the situation.
The reason why companies should make users aware they're speaking to a chatbot.
The best thing you can do to make your chatbot human.
How customer service chatbots differ from marketing chatbots, and how companies can get the content correct for either use case.
The process for designing a conversational chatbot and how it's a multi-team effort.

Portland Trail Blazers's Kevin Kinghorn on Driving Fandom Through Authenticity and Consistency

Max speaks with Kevin Kinghorn, Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President for the Portland Trail Blazers. They discuss how to build a marketing strategy that drives fandom and emotional connection, the importance of authenticity and storytelling, and why focusing on fewer audience segments allows for more consistent brand-building. They also talk about the importance of stadium experiences beyond the game and how to leverage data to identify areas of underperformance.
 
Topics discussed:
Understanding the drivers of fandom and the "jobs to be done" so you can build your marketing strategy.
Why having fewer audience segments results in more consistent brand-building across channels.
Why marketers should focus on the "double funnel" of both acquisition and retention.
Why the age of season tickets and just watching a game are dead, and why sports brands need to focus on a more holistic stadium experience.
How to create consistency across channels through aligned storytelling.
How regional sports networks are changing how sports brands reach their fans.
Why data insights can help you identify where you're underperforming in the market.

Anywhere Real Estate's David Marine on Continuing the Legacy of Ingenuity at Coldwell Banker

At the time of this recording, David was the CMO of Coldwell Banker. He has since transitioned to CMO of Coldwell Banker's parent company, Anywhere Real Estate.
Max speaks with David Marine, Chief Marketing Officer at Anywhere Real Estate, the parent company of Coldwell Banker. They discuss how Coldwell Banker is building on 117 years of ingenuity in their marketing efforts, as well as how and why they executed their recent rebrand. They also talk about how to target two primary audiences, their focus on creating national campaigns that can be customized at the local level, and how they embrace new social media and technological opportunities.
 
Topics discussed:
The history of 117-year-old Coldwell Banker and how they were founded on principles of ingenuity and being customer-focused.
Staying relevant by having a "Go" mindset and willingness to try new things.
The decision to lean heavily into video to showcase homes in the early days of YouTube.
How Coldwell Banker balances marketing to two distinct audiences: their agents and their home-buyers.
Why Coldwell Banker embarked on a major rebrand in 2018, and how they used storytelling to get their agents and customers bought in.
How they're creating national campaigns that can be customized at the local level to better cater to different markets.
Why every brand should be experimenting in AI today to see how it can impact their business tomorrow.

General Mills' Jay Picconatto on Better Ways to Collect and Use Data to Personalize Customer Experiences

Max speaks with Jay Picconatto, Global Commerce Lead at General Mills. They discuss the ways marketers can collect and use data to deliver better results to customers, and how data from various sources scales personalization efforts. They also talk about how GM is leveraging AI and automation in content creation, what channels and "disposable content" are working for them, and the technology shaping the future of marketing.
 
Topics discussed:
Four ways that marketers use data — target, personalize, gain insights, and measure — to deliver better results and experiences to their customers.
How GM is leveraging AI and automation in their content creation process to deliver more personalization.
Why marketers should focus on a "cocktail recipe" of first-, second-, and third-party data to better understand their customers.
How Jay used SCANERS — search, content, availability, navigation, ratings, and subscriptions — to drive GM's e-commerce business.
What channels are working for GM, and how they're focusing more on "disposable content."
The technology trends that will shape the future of marketing, including generative AI, clean room data collaborations, and VR.

Blinkist’s Jelena Zbijowski on How Subscription Businesses Can Succeed in CRM

Max speaks with Jelena Zbijowski, Head of CRM and Product Marketing at Blinkist. They discuss how Blinkist engages and retains its customers through its "famous" onboarding screen, education, and selective communication. They also talk about the necessity of collecting zero-party data to inform your personalization efforts, how AI will elevate customer engagement, and advice for marketers around testing, learning, and listening.
 
Topics discussed:
How Blinkist increases retention by understanding the user, educating them, and being selective with their communication.
The unique benefits and challenges for CRM and retention with subscription-based businesses.
Why the CRM team should start engaging at onboarding so they can create personalized experiences sooner.
How the "famous Blinkist subscription screen" works to drive retention.
Why the foundation of personalization should be the zero-party data you collect from your customers.
How AI may challenge the balance between personalization and privacy, but how it will ultimately be a tool to elevate customer engagement.
Advice for marketers that includes why you should test, learn, and listen, as well as why you should be more data-informed.

Consumer Cellular’s Chase Young on Cultivating Personal Connections Through Unique Channels

Max speaks with Chase Young, VP of Marketing - CRM & Database Marketing at Consumer Cellular. They discuss how Consumer Cellular differentiates itself in appealing to their 50+ demographic, why their monthly bill is a successful marketing channel, and how they rely on education at onboarding. They also talk about how channel aggregation tools are the next tech trend, and why sending communication that feels personal is better than "the right offer at the right time."
 
Topics discussed:
How Consumer Cellular differentiates itself in how they appeal to their target audience in the 50+ demographic.
Why one of the successful channels for Consumer Cellular is the physical bill they send out.
The challenges to retaining customers, including poor cell service and lack of tech knowledge — which can be remedied with education.
Advice for consumer marketers to try on different roles for more insight into other business units.
How marketing tools are evolving to include more channel aggregation.
Why "being personal is better than personalizing" and how we can't always rely on technology to "speak from the heart."

Freepik’s Álvaro Castañeda on Creating Relevance Through Personalization

Max speaks with Álvaro Castañeda, Head of CRM and Customer Service at Freepik Company. They discuss how Freepik starts their personalization efforts as soon as the customer registers, how they manage their data, and how they use mission-driven teams to accomplish a common goal. They also talk about the challenges to CRM today, how AI can be a tool to enhance CRM, and what channels will be important in the future.
 
Topics discussed:
Why Freepik begins personalization as soon as a customer registers, and the importance of onboarding.
How Freepik engages with customers to move them from freemium to premium.
What tech stack Freepik uses and how they manage their data.
How Freepik uses mission-driven teams to align across departments on common goals.
The biggest challenges to CRM today, including AI, data privacy, and staying relevant.
What channels will be most important and effective in the future, like the website and email.
Advice for young marketers that includes learning how to engage with customers by starting your own mini-business.