Why Are High Growth Scaleups Going Bonkers For 'Braze' and Other CRM Tools? 🤯

Welcome to The Growth Spurt, a fortnightly newsletter with curated frameworks that will challenge your thinking as an aspiring creator, marketer or tech-enthusiast.

Read time: 7-8 mins

Today at a Glance:

• In the last 90 days, I came across 5 scaleups in the process of implementing Braze. If you don’t know what Braze is, it is a Customer relationship management (CRM) that is popular with many growing businesses.

• 4 lessons I learnt about lifecycle marketing the last 15 months: (1) Not all CRMs are created equal. Some are more implementation heavy than others. (2)Lifecycle marketing is the OG marketing (3) Don’t try to boil the ocean (4) Prioritise quick wins when navigating complex tool

Time to confess: What did you do when you realised you f*ked up?

Did you hide your head under the sand, like an ostrich?

Or did you let a sigh, ate a guilty tub of ice cream and accepted that it is okay to start from square one?

Well, we all have lessons to learn- so let us dig into the good, bad and ugly.

Why Are High Growth Scaleups Going Bonkers For 'Braze' and Other CRM Tools? 🤯

In the last 90 days, I came across 5 businesses in the process of implementing Braze as part of their workflow.

Braze is getting soo popular with high-growth scale-ups, it is INSANE! If you don’t know what Braze is, it is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool that is growing in demand in many businesses.

Since the last 15 months, I was the ‘Braze person’ - clawing my way through this platform.

Hence, I am happy to spill the tea with my learnings on CRM and lifecycle marketing.

‘‘First of all, WTF is Customer Relationship Management Platform (CRM) or Lifecycle Marketing? ‘‘

CRM and lifecycle marketing addresses the same thing - full funnel marketing. 

Life cycle marketing consider the full customer journey from awareness to onboarding, all the way to advocacy.

CRM are platform tools to execute these life cycle marketing strategies. Examples are platforms like Braze, HubSpot, Customer.io, Segment etc.

I have the most amount of experience with Braze- hence let ‘s take a closer look into this platform.

‘‘Why is CRM like Braze a popular marketing strategy to drive growth?’’ 🤔

1. Cross-channel CRM platform is the best engine for cost-effective growth that maximise LTV.

As companies are looking to nurture customer relationships on web app and digital app products, REAL-TIME cross channel communications across SMS, push, email, in-app message is crucial.

Case Study: Bumble BFF 🐝

Imagine you are looking for your next bestie on Bumble BFF.

Use Case 1: 

• You are messaging a potential bestie and you have a timely in-app message that there are 10 potential BFFs who are also obsessed with Aussie alternative band RUFUS. ‘‘OMG.. they love RUFUS too?!’’ - you click the pop up message straight to the app and you start engaging with them.

• And then you tell your friend to download Bumble so they can meet other like-minded peeps (advocacy)Use Case 2: 

• You were swamped with work last week and did not open your Bumble BFF app. Just then, you get a message that Matt complimented your profile! ‘‘OMG, who is Matt?’’ 😍

  • And you find yourself jumping back into Bumble BFF even though you were MIA the last 7 days. (engagement/retention)

2. Segregating PERSONALISED, REAL-TIME comms for different user groups

Every business has various audience segment groups.

For example, communicating with free trial users vs paid users is a different ball game. This differs from people who are earlier in the journey, e.g. abandoned carts.

The way you talk to users who have not converted vs the way you communicate to annual users who are familiar with their pain points and your product offering is so different.

Braze, like many CRM tools segment these audiences for real-time comms- making your audience feel heard, supported and informed.

Major Challenges with Braze that might not suit all business types

1. Very tech-implementation heavy $$$

• Collating real-time insights for users is a SUPER COOL feature.

• But that requires complex tech integration - that takes a lot of engineering resources and increase collab between growth/marketing and tech teams

• Implementation is heavier for mobile apps> web app and certain features like content cards > IAM, push etc.

2. HIGH Cost $$$

1. Braze is very expensive. Period.

2. Especially with when considering SMS integration with Twilio, feature-add-on like content cards, or addition of a certain number of data points.

Qs: Is Braze Right For Your Business?

In a growing business where CRM platform like HubSpot doesn’t suit the needs anymore [due to lack of personalisation, real time comms etc.] consider these 3 questions.

1. Is the company willing to allocate 1 engineer/marketing-tech specialist [who knows coding] to Braze for 3-4 months, without affecting other areas of the company ‘s projects?

2. Is the industry use case more reliant on nurturing mobile app users where content cards and push notifications are more heavily used than other platform features?

3. Is the business use case heavily reliant on real time communications that is outside of transactional messages? If the answer is NO to these 3 questions, best to stray aware from Braze and choose alternative CRM for a high-growth scaleup that is prioritising resources.

2. Lifecycle marketing is the OG marketing

Whitney Wolfe Heard, CEO of Bumble spoke wise words on her recent MasterClass ‘Stretch your dollar’. 

Instead of relying on PR, she spent just $20 on cupcakes of Bumble logo and distributed across student campuses to acquire users for Bumble BFF.

Small sticky campus community, expounded by network effects drove Bumble to its success.

In the digital world, life cycle marketing, with the cost effective CRM tool is the best way to stretch the dollar while nurturing customers.

Article: Why Growth Marketers Cannot Live without Life Cycle Marketing

Key points I loved from this article. 

• Google Ads have become prohibitively expensive and Facebook CPCs are hovering around $1.72 per click.

• If performance channels are the growth engine for your company, you may need to rethink your strategy esp. profitability.

• 92% of consumers trust referrals from people they know.

• Failing to utilize lifecycle marketing means missing out on a lot of free customers and the ability to nurture customers through the entire journey.

Confession: 

When I was 18, I launched my jewellery business. I wanted fast and quick growth.

I spent $500 on paid FB ads and while I had 1000s of impressions, there was ZERO conversion.

Why?

Well I did not invest in life cycle marketing or took the time to explain why the jewellery that I made - is better than the rest.

I just shoved my product to the customer ‘s face.

While it led to a few purchases down the line, I was not able to sustain the growth.

3. Don’t try to boil the ocean.

I find myself often bursting with creative ideas. This gives me a huge energy boost but can get me in utter chaos at times esp if I am the only one owning the entire channel.

At the end of the day, there is only so much time, resources, energy-especially when handling a complex CRM tool.

4. Prioritise quick wins when navigating complex tool-use the DRICE method

‘There are so many touch points in CRM and so many ways to target users. What should I do first?’ 🤯

Just RICE it baby.

When choosing which campaigns to include in lifecycle management strategy, consider the D-RICE prioritisation method proposed by Lenny Rachitsky 

A Detailed RICE looks like…

• Reach: How many of your customers would experience the new idea

• Impact: If the idea pans out, how much it would affect conversion

• Confidence: How likely it is to work

• Effort: How much time it would take to validate (from the engineering team)

Article: Lenny Rachitsky- Introducing DRICE: a modern prioritization framework

Key points I loved from this article. 

1. With limited time and resources, what is the highest-value thing you can do for yourself? Prioritization. Ruthless, rigorous prioritization.

2. Always strive to run the laziest test possible, asking “What is the least amount of engineering work required to test this idea? - I NEED TO LEARN FROM THIS

3. If you are dabbling with 2 campaign ideas where one has more reach and impact than the other e.g. payment method- prioritise those comms over any growth loops and hacks.

TLDR: TOP 5 learnings who are interested in Braze or other CRM tools🔥

1. Not all CRMs are created equal. Some are more implementation heavy than others.

2. Lifecycle marketing is the OG marketing

3. Don’t try to boil the ocean, especially with campaign management

4. Prioritise quick wins when navigating complex CRM tools. Use D-RICE method. What questions you have about CRM or your experience with life cycle marketing?

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