Mass Appeal

CRM today is much more than sending an email or push notification. It’s about predicting user behavior, understanding their motivations, and finding ways to support them on their journey. In this episode, Tommy chats with Alejandro Hernandez, the Senior CRM Notifications Manager at Babbel, the renowned language-learning app. They discuss what his role looks like today, including the collaborative work being done with data scientists, data engineers, and product teams to develop deep learning models that enhance customer communication. They also dig into CRM strategies to reduce churn and re-engage lapsed users. 

• How much of what you learned in school translated to real-world experiences?
• What does CRM mean to you today? What is the main objective that you have within your role of CRM?
• In terms of CRM, what information are you looking for to understand how to communicate with someone?
• What other information are you looking for to leverage machine learning? And when you leverage machine learning, how does that affect your day-to-day work?
• Can you tell us about your strategy for reducing churn and reactivating users?
• What kind of details do you include in a push notification to prevent someone from churning?
• What are you looking forward to doing with CRM in the future?

• 2:08 Intro to Alejandro
• 6:18 What does CRM look like today
• 9:10 Mapping out the learning journey
• 12:08 Leveraging deep learning
• 15:00 Strategies for reducing churn
• 18:16 Reengaging dormant users
• 24:25 The future of CRM

• Alejandro Hernandez’s LinkedIn
• Babbel

Trishul Patel is the VP of Product at EmberFund, an app that allows you to play popular sweepstakes casino games, learn about crypto investing, and earn Bitcoin for free. Trishul focuses on keeping their product fun. In this episode, he touches on EmberFund’s evolution from a crypto fintech app to a gaming app, what drives product development, and what keeps their users coming back to engage with their app.

• Tell us about your background prior to joining EmberFund.
• What was the first opportunity you noticed at EmberFund that you could impact when you joined?
• Why don’t you tell everyone how you see EmberFund and what you think it is?
• How do you point your attention to what's next within a superapp?
• What does the app landscape look like for your industry?
• Where do you spend the most time drawing influence from?
• What’s got you excited in terms of new features?

• 2:54 Trishul’s background
• 8:21 The Google survey test
• 10:29 What is EmberFund?
• 15:52 Product development within a superapp product
• 18:06 EmberFund within its market
• 20:02 Players we pay attention to
• 23:38 What our users want
• 25:05 What’s to come

• Trishul Patel’s LinkedIn
• EmberFund

Ian Chen is the CEO of discotech, an app for booking live events and nightlife amenities. In recent years, nightlife demographics have shifted, and Gen Z doesn’t party in the same ways Millennials did. In this episode, listeners learn how discotech adapted its mobile marketing strategies to appeal to the next generation. 

• How did you arrive at creating discotech?
• How do you create value for customers and vendors?
• How do you identify and acquire the right customers?
• What changes have you noticed in your industry over the last few years?
• How does discotech meet the needs of Gen Z?
• What does the experience look like when booking tickets to Cirque du Soleil?
• How do you determine what kind of events might be interesting for Gen Z?

• 2:15 discotech’s origin story
• 4:36 What is discotech?
• 8:22 UA for nightlife goers
• 11:38 Nightlife culture: Millennials vs Gen Z
• 16:26 Appealing to Gen Z
• 19:15 Partnerships strategy

• Ian Chen’s LinkedIn
• Discotech
• Socials: @discotechapp

• Tell us about your background.
• How did you go from brand management at P&G to co-founding SoLo Funds?
• At what point do you realize you’re ready to go full-time into your endeavor?
• How does SoLo Funds benefit working-class people?
• How did you grow SoLo Funds to where you are today?
• What are you looking forward to this year?

• 2:45 Rodney’s entrepreneurial beginnings
• 8:07 From P&G to SoLo Funds
• 19:35 What is SoLo Funds?
• 27:00 The network effect for organic growth
• 32:12 Big things coming

• Rodney Williams’s LinkedIn
• SoLo Funds
• Social handle: @rodneybwilliams

In this episode, Tommy interviews Wei Tak “Tuck” Nyou, the Senior Manager of Loyalty Marketing at Ponta, a loyalty rewards coalition in Japan with over 200 brands and 120M Japanese members – more than 90 percent of Japan’s population. You’ll learn some of the reservations brands commonly express about joining such coalitions, as well as the value proposition for brands. You’ll also learn Ponta’s perspective on what makes a brand attractive to acquire. Finally, you’ll hear about the challenges and opportunities of expanding their loyalty rewards coalition overseas to Taiwan, Vietnam, and Hawaii, the potential for new verticals, and integrating mobile games with their reward program.

• Can you tell us a little about your background?
• Why did you want to shift your career from B2B to B2C?
• Can you tell us about Ponta and Loyalty Marketing?
• Why would a brand not want to join a loyalty coalition? What are the challenges of getting brands to join Ponta, for example?
• Is there an element of customer acquisition built into these programs?
• How do you determine which new brands would be most valuable for you to add to your coalition?
• Is there anything unique about the loyalty market in Japan? Does that make it difficult to expand into new regions overseas or are there opportunities to expand?
• Were there any challenges you encountered when you expanded to either Taiwan, Vietnam, or Hawaii?
• Are there new verticals you’re considering expanding into?
• Has your team considered integrating mobile games into your rewards program?

• 2:20 Tuck’s professional background
• 7:18 What does Ponta do?
• 11:11 Common fears with loyalty coalitions
• 15:20 Determining what brands to acquire
• 17:24 Ponta research members
• 18:50 Expanding our point system overseas
• 20:23 Challenges to expansion
• 23:01 New verticals
• 26:17 Integrating mobile games

• Wei Tak “Tuck” Nyou’s LinkedIn
• Ponta’s Loyalty Marketing, Inc.
• Ponta’s Loyalty Marketing, Inc. (in Japanese)

• Were you a gamer or what prompted you to take the huge leap from PR to mobile games?
• What’s been the biggest challenge you’ve faced since joining Muus Collective in your role as Head of Marketing?
• How are you leveraging partnerships with BELLEMINT? What do you think makes a good partnership with game studios?
• How are Bellemint users interacting with Revolve?
• What role do community and social experience play in BELLEMINT?
• What’s your strategy for UA?

• 5:00 Amanda’s background
• 11:06 Fundraising challenges in Silicon Valley
• 14:50 Approaches to partnerships
• 20:21 Bellemint and Revolve’s partnership
• 25:30 Who are the “gamers”?
• 28:19 UA for fashion gamers and lovers

• Amanda Lulewicz’s LinkedIn
• Muus Collective

It’s no secret: AI has been all the buzz lately. But, what is it, really? In this episode, Tommy talks to Bani Malhotra, the former Senior Director of Product Management for Site Experiences and Omnichannel Personalization at Walmart U.S. eCommerce, who demystifies the many terms we hear related to artificial intelligence, including machine learning, deep learning, LLMs, SLMs, and Generative AI. She covers its many use cases for marketers and product managers to advance efficiency, productivity, creativity, and even business development. She also touches on some of her concerns about the technology regarding its drawbacks. 

• What was your first foray into a product role from your finance and strategy background, and what was one of the biggest challenges in making that leap?
• Were you implementing AI to help tackle some of the challenges you faced in your role at Walmart?
• When does a decision go from a logic tree to AI?
• How do outlier consumer purchases affect AI predictions?
• Could you define SLMs and LLMs?
• Where do you see AI benefiting marketers the most?
• Do you have any fears of what AI may threaten?

• 2:38 Bani’s background
• 9:58 Bani’s role at Walmart
• 17:42 Use cases of AI for user experiences at Walmart
• 21:10 The difference between heuristics and AI
• 23:52 The spectrum of machine learning
• 28:20 AI model confidence scoring
• 31:10 What is AI? Defining AI-related terms
• 41:00 Benefits of AI for marketers
• 54:45 Concerns for AI

• Bani Malhotra’s LinkedIn

• Tell us about your background in growth.
• What is Omio?
• Do you have localized marketing support in each market? Or are you able to centralize most of what you do in Berlin?
• What are some of the biggest hurdles you face when penetrating a new market?
• Why are you a big proponent of AI? How do you use it?
• What is AI incapable of helping you with today?
• How is your team leveraging AI around engagement and loyalty?
• How do you port data into AI models?
• How do you discern what is a good AI solution from others?
• How much is this about training your employees how to effectively prompt AI?

• 3:13 Norman’s background
• 8:24 What is Omio?
• 10:03 The future of localization for foreign markets
• 12:18 Hurdles to breaking into new markets
• 14:00 5 ways AI enables his life
• 15:45 Limitations of AI (it’s not creativity)
• 19:15 AI for engagement and loyalty
• 21:55 Tools to port your data into AI Solutions
• 24:29 The 5 foundational AI models
• 25:55 A/B testing AI content and training LLMs
• 28:28 Training your employees to prompt AI

• Norman Nielsen’s LinkedIn
• Omio
• Leaderz of the New School Podcast

• Tell us about how you got into programmatic advertising.
• Does your mathematics degree still play a role in what you do today?
• What is Kayzen? And what sets it apart in the marketplace?
• What does the democratization of programmatic mean to you? And how are you doing it?
• Do you see ad inventory changing marketing strategies for your customers?
• Are you seeing creatives being tailored to specific apps?

• 4:32 Tomás’s background
• 8:20 About Kayzen
• 9:53 How we “democratize” programmatic advertising
• 16:00 Kayzen School of Programmatic
• 19:54 What marketers can learn from ad inventory indexes
• 25:45 Customizing creatives to app gameplay
• 27:15 Misconceptions around games for app advertising
• 31:10 Clicks and engagement in programmatic

• Tomás Yacachury’s LinkedIn
• Kayzen
• Kayzen’s 2024 Mobile Programmatic Inventory Index
• Case study: Albertsons
• Case study: Maniko Nails

Benjamin Daudignac is the co-founder and CEO of Macadam, a European app that pays people to walk. Since its launch two years ago, the app has gained 2 million daily active users. In this episode, Tommy digs into Benjamin’s entrepreneurial journey creating Macadam, the challenges Macadam faced coming to market, and the strategies they use to keep app users engaged—and walking more! 

• What brought you to Barcelona?
• Why escape Paris?
• Where did the idea for Macadam originate? Tell us about the story of starting it.
• What was your biggest challenge in getting this product into the market and having it adopted by consumers?
• How do you leverage the community you’re growing within your app to deliver more engagement?
• How are you thinking about keeping users engaged in the future?
• How do you decide where to expand your business?

• 3:08 Choosing an environment for entrepreneurship
• 10:07 Ben’s entrepreneurial start
• 14:27 Macadam’s origin story
• 19:15 Bringing Macadam to market
• 22:12 Leveraging community
• 24:20 Gamifying walking to drive engagement
• 29:32 Considering where to expand

• Benjamin Daudignac’s LinkedIn
• Macadam