Retention Masterclass

We all know about the mobile growth tech stack ... but what tech stack do you need for world-class mobile user retention?

In this episode of Retention Masterclass, Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier chat with Christian Eckhardt, CEO of Customlytics. Formerly from Delivery Hero, Christian is a mobile user retention expert. We chat about "CRM" for mobile, the tech that supports it, and messaging formats and channels that help.

One quote from the show:

"My co-founder and I, well I think it's fair to conclude that we never really have done anything else than mobile marketing in our lives."

Retention is simple. But simple … doesn’t mean easy.

In this episode of Retention Masterclass we chat with Vishal Anand, the CPO of CleverTap. Marketers spend a lot of time focused on how to retain users: what to do, when. How to onboard. What to show first. How to train. What messages to send. 

But sometimes, we forget the simplest things.

It’s all about the product! It’s all about the user experience … the customer experience. I mean, technique matters and technology matters, but if you don’t have a good product ... TikTok isn’t addictive because they have a better tech stack than you. Facebook doesn’t have a billion users because they send smarter push notifications. (Big hint, they don’t!) Clash of Clans isn’t STILL the top-grossing app because they onboard correctly.

Note: Peggy Anne Salz had technical issues, so this episode is just with John Koetsier.

Are fat funnels good, even for medical professionals?

Every smart marketer knows that customer retention is about much more than marketing. So today we’re talking to a head of product. She happens to be Dr. Ruth Guthoff-Rechnagel from Doctor Care Anywhere and, as you can guess from the name, she's been pretty busy during the current Covid-19 period.

So busy that, she says, her funnels are fat. In this episode Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier chat with Ruth about marketing, product, and -- of course -- retention.

What does acquiring a billion users teach you about retention?

In this episode of Retention Masterclass Peggy Anne Salz and I chat about PicsArt, which is a true global phenomenon. It’s in the top .1% of apps in terms of installs, it’s hugely popular, and people have used it to create and share over 100 million pictures and images. 

But before you get a billion users, you have to start with one. And that means you need a value proposition that works, a funnel that’s solid, and a user experience that delivers. So we chat with Jeff Roberto, VP of Growth Marketing, to learn more about how PicsArt has become a global phenomenon … with serious staying power. 

Somehow, PicsArt, which is now about 7 or 8 years old … has 150M regular active users … and is still growing! In the fast-paced mobile ecosystem, that's impressive.

How do you hook mobile users to maximize retention?

In this episode of Retention Masterclass, Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier interview Fouad Saeidi, the founder of App Growth Network. He's a gamer, he makes games, and he markets games ... so it's kind of the full meal deal.

We talk about:

 - growth

 - monetization

 - retention (of course) ... a 40% jump, even

 - user engagement

 -  gamification

 - habit formation

 - push notifications

 - key learnings

 - and, as always ... much more!

Are benchmarks bogus? Is measurement meaningless?

In this edition of Retention Masterclass, Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier chat with Brian Balfour about the perils of benchmarks and measurement.

Brian was the VP of Growth at Hubspot, which now has almost 80,000 customers. He’s been a founder and an entrepreneur in residence. He’s also the founder and CEO of Reforge, maybe the best place on the planet for the best marketers to learn how to be even better.1

We chat about:

 - retention

 - benchmarks

 - measurement

 - why retention is an output

 - whether you can engineer in retention or not

 - some of the best examples of retention he's seen

 - keeping marginal audiences you acquired because of COVID-19

How do you grow your mobile business sustainably for the long term?

In this episode of Retention Masterclass, Peggy Anne Salz and John Koetsier

talk about what every mobile publisher wants: great users and great customers. And they don’t just want to get them, they want to keep them. And guess what … they also want to monetize them. So ... we interview a lot of retention heroes on this show and we figured it's time to start talking to some of the radioactive spiders that turn them into heroes. 

One company that helps publishers accomplish that better than most is Liftoff. To learn a little bit more, we chat with Dennis Mink, the VP of Marketing at Liftoff. What we talk about:

 - evolution of mobile

 - users vs customers

 - Apple killing the IDFA

 - COVID-19 and retention

 - the ROI of retargeting

 - B2B retention marketing

 - biggest mistakes in mobile retention

How do you get people to spend $3,000 online for a sofa they’ve never couchsurfed? And how do you increase sales while decreasing cost of customer acquisition?

In this episode of Retention Masterclass Peggy Ann Salz and John Koetsier chat with Ian Leslie, CMO at Industry West. Industry West supplies modern furniture to the likes of Facebook, Airbnb, and Google ... and you! The company has seen consistent 25-30% growth over the past few years, and AOV for repeat visitors is massive. In a pandemic, their online-first retail sales approach is working better than ever.

How?

Personalization leading to retention.

Any mobile marketer wants better engagement and higher retention. One of the ways to get there is applying the right frameworks with the right tools to build and deepen connection with your users and customers.  

(It also helps to have a great mobile app ...)

In this episode of the Retention Masterclass video podcast, my co-host Peggy Anne Salz and I interview the godfather of the mobile growth stack, Andy Carvell, a partner at the mobile growth consultancy Phiture. Yes, that mobile growth stack with no fewer than 58 separate boxes across multiple rows like Acquisition and Monetization and pillars like Channels.  

Topics:  

- engagement  

- retention  

- mobile growth stack (or blob!)  

- AIC  

- RRF  

- RFM  

- Best channels to boost engagement  

- and much more ...

You don't get 7 million TED talk views for nothing. Rory Sutherland is the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy UK and the author of “Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life.”

And we had a wide-ranging, crazy, seminal, wonderful, and entertaining discussion! A short list of the topics we hit:

Why marketing is not physics

Why linear thinking doesn’t make quantum breakthroughs

Alchemy and magic

AB testing (yes, he uses data!)

What Uber’s killer feature really is

How brands really only need to done one thing brilliantly to be successful

Hotels and weatherproofing

Why Tesla’s dog mode made a non-dog-owner want to buy one

DoubleTree’s chocolate chip cookie

Rory’s friend Dave

Why brands should ask their customers to do them a favor

How brands can get COVID-19 era marketing horribly wrong

Delivering drinking water in vans

Consumer loyalty

Brand loyalty to customers

What Amazon gets right

Why your price should probably be higher to sell more

Clock radios

Nespresso versus Maxwell House

The beautiful insanity of Dyson vacuums and hair dryers

Use data to exploit versus using data to explore

Data versus common sense

P values (in analytics and statistics)

Mental lockjaw