#11 Ernest Ang | Why comparing CRM to a race car improves your strategy

So great to have you, Ernest, in the call here to talk about you and your experience and I think you have some great ideas about how to think about cim, what concepts to use there. Before we go into that, it would be great if you can introduce yourself a bit and also the company that you're working for.

Great. Yes, sure. So hi everyone, my name is Ernest and I'm originally from Singapore. I've been working in marketing for almost a good past 10 years. I would say I've been actually really fortunate to have gained quite an international experience in by working in Singapore, Sweden and now also working in Germany and now working in Berlin. So currently I am working in a company called Travel Circus. We are a travel tech company. Basically we are selling travel packages and short getaways to our customers. Our markets are focused mainly in the dark region basically where I'm currently responsible and working for the CRM team and also the organic social media team. So my role is the team lead for this two functions in travel circuits. Basically my role here as part of the CRM agenda is to really help to drive revenue growth through repeat purchases and retention in that sense and also to drive customer engagement, thereby building up a stronger relationship that we have with the brand. I think this is a short introduction of myself. My. Yeah, I really actually started off my marketing journey working in a media agency and then I moved on into the client side and ever since then I've always been working more in the client side and so I think I enjoy that more personally.

How come?

Well, I think it's also about personality. Right. I feel that the work, the style suits my personality better and I feel that after my first experience working in an agency, I don't think it's for everyone. There are people who can enjoy it and would prefer that. However, I think I prefer to be on the buy side than the sell side of things, if you will.

I can understand that. And you were mentioning already one part that you focus on with your CRM team is to generate revenue and also when we talked you were mentioning that you are kind of passionate to figure out a CRM that is generating revenue and the idea around it. Can you explain to me a bit, how did this passion grow? What was the background to it?

Yeah, I think first things first, it's a personal mission of mine to want to turn the perception of marketing into a profit generating function. The perception that we tend to hold when it comes to the marketing function in a company and that is they are actually a cost generator because we are always taking money or always needing money to invest before we can actually make more money from it. But that's the whole point. I think there is that ROI aspect to it. So I think there is a need to somehow change the perception of how it's being perceived as a marketing team. And I believe that CRM falls into that because it really does help to drive more revenue through existing customers and also by nurturing those relationships to really push the envelope on that. And I think that's really one of the reasons why it's a passion point for me because I believe there is a strong need to change that perception that we have here because at the end of the day it's not just about spending money, but getting more revenue in return. So we should always be looking at roi. But at the same time, what I think is also very fascinating about marketing is that it's not always about dollars and cents, but it's also, there is that more qualitative, the softer aspect here, which is the brand, right. So how do we push the brand out together with the whole business agenda to, to really meet short term and long term goals. And I think that's really why I find it fascinating and I make it a personal career or business mission of mine that, you know, if I'm working in a marketing team, I want to be in the position where we can really showcase that marketing is not just about spending money, it's really about investing and then getting a return from that. I think we can do that a lot more, especially in the digital world as compared to perhaps 15 years ago where all we had was advertisements on billboards and TV where you can't track it.

What kind of methods do you use to show that impact?

I believe methods I would say would be. I think the attribution modeling is always really important. I would say speaking, I think it's also about having that mindset that, you know, whatever that you're doing. How does it really help to add value from a qualitative and a quantitative standpoint using the technology that we have to try to help us drive that more data driven approach towards marketing? I think that is probably the one way that I anchor myself and always consider, okay, does this make sense if we are not sure? At least now there is this whole concept of a B testing. We can try it out and see what works. The way that I will actually go about doing this so far I hold on to this philosophy that, you know, yes, we should still be aware that we should not be too data led but be data driven in that sense, I think that's really important. I think they're two very different things. If we are just being led by the nose, everything is just what the data says. I think we are missing the context here and the whole point at the end of it.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. I just had it with one topic company that we want to get feedback from the customer. But for this specific topic we always asked it in an early touch point and actually we needed to do it at a later one to get there the data out. That was interesting for us. So as you say, we need to think about the context at one point. Can we also generate those data points? So that totally makes sense.

Yeah.

And also when you think about growth, you like to also connect things with frameworks, as I know you're passionate about that. And you were mentioning to me that there is a framework that explains or compares growth to a race car, which is super interesting. Can you explain how that works and also how you see that in cim? What are the transfers that you do there?

Ross? Yes, I'm a fan of frameworks because I think it really helps to structure your thoughts and your way forward. I would say I think it gives you a really good starting point and that's why I'm a fan of frameworks. One of these frameworks which you've already mentioned, I believe the one who invented it is reforged this company which was then also taken and I read about it through Emily Marker, one of her newsletter. From there I was inspired to adapt the framework that you mentioned about this race car framework into a CRM strategy. Maybe I can just quickly talk about the few components of the framework in that sense. So picture a race car, the growth engine, the engine itself, the lubricants to really drive the engine. Right. And at the same time, what else do you need is fuel. You need the troll to drive and move this engine forward. And from time to time, as this is a race car, think fast and furious. We have the turbo boost like nitrous. So apart from the chassis in itself and all the other components that you know helps to drive a car, I think this is what the race car framework focuses on. These are the four key components. So I can repeat again, it's the growth engine, the lubricant, the fuel and also the turbo boost in itself. So what is interesting is I believe when it comes to this framework, the growth engine is really the central aspect of it. Right? This is where the self sustaining growth happens. But at the same time engine doesn't just work by itself just like that. I think there's a lot more inputs that need to go into it. There are a lot more processes that have to go through it before it starts moving, before it's able to start accelerating and moving this car forward. So with the same, in the same chain of thought, the growth engine to me is really the central core piece here, which is where the CRM strategy lies. And that to me is basically what we need to nurture and what we need to grow and what we need to constantly do. But to be able to build this engine, we need to be able to understand what are the other key factors that will help to really optimize and also drive this engine forward in that sense, thereby driving the car forward. And when we talk about lubricants, I would consider that as like, you know, running optimizations and a B testing experiments. These are the things that we'll consider. How do we then really fine tune, you know, the different aspects of this growth engine in order to keep it smooth and smoother in that sense. And then when I think of fuel, I think of fuel as something that goes beyond just the CRM team I'm thinking about. Which brings me to another key framework that I use which is, you know, looking at the people, the business, the process and the technology. So what are these? And these are all inputs towards, you know, helping to drive that CRM growth engine forward. To me. And so when I think of people, you know, who are the people in the team that needs to help to drive and feed towards or contribute towards the growth engine in that sense? Who are the, what are the key processes that we need in that sense? You know, when it comes to, is it about for us in our case, is it about the deal selection process? How do we choose to go about choosing certain deals to be pushed out and what we should not be pushing out in that sense? Who do we need to speak to? How is the cross functional alignment and cooperation that we have between different teams? How does that affect CRM? Because CRM doesn't just work on its own. It works very closely with our customer service. We are working closely with our sales team. I even have to work with legal from time to time. Of course, I have to speak to finance as well. And of course one other key player I would say would be our tech IT team. Right. So all these different functions are somewhat playing a part towards building up the CRM strategy or CRM engine in that sense. And to me, I think we need, especially from a CRM team or a CRM practitioner. You need to be really comfortable with that. If you don't really enjoy them, then maybe it's going to be quite overwhelming and difficult in that sense. So that's the fuel aspect. I'm sorry. There's also one other part to it. I think I talk about the people, the business. Yeah, correct. So the business part as well. So when we talk about business, of course it's about what the business goals are. What's the business trying to drive? How does the CRM team helps to contribute towards or impact the overall business goals at the end of the day? But for us in Travel Circus is really about, you know, driving and growing the revenue pool for the business using, yeah, basically more organic and almost free channels, if you will, and newsletters. So it's not entirely free, but it's a very, very low cost compared to paid marketing and performance marketing, if you will. So, yeah, and then we have processes itself as well. What are the current processes of how things run? I mean, this is all specific to businesses. I don't need to go into too much detail, but I think it's important to be cognizant about what those processes really mean. And how does it play into the CRM strategy as a whole. And then technology. Technology is very important and I think that plays a very key part. But of course, at the end of the day, I see technology as a tool, not a means to an end. It is really about using the technology to help drive the agendas that we have. From a CRM strategy perspective, it can actually make or break the strategy as well. Simply because I've experienced it before. If you have a tool that limits you, it limits your thinking, it limits the whole team's capabilities. You can't move forward more than that because it's just so difficult to steer a really heavy and very old ship. If you can't move it and you can't steer it, then it's just really, really very difficult. And it's always a constant uphill battle. So these are the key components to the fuel in itself. And then, last but not least, I will talk about the Turbo boost. I think of it as key campaigns that you have, your Black Friday, your Valentine's Day campaigns, your Christmas campaigns. How do you make use of those campaigns to really help to accelerate revenue performance in that sense? All right, so this is basically the framework that I use and also to help build up the strategy for 2025 for travel circus so far.

So then, is it a framework that you use for yourself to Figure it out. Or is it also something that you use to maybe visualize it towards stakeholder and discuss it there?

Yes. I don't just use it to structure my thought. I actually use it as a starting point as well, to open up the whole topic about the strategy that I was about to create. Because I think with something a little bit more illustrative, it helps to relate with key stakeholders as well from the beginning and from the start. And I think it's quite memorable to remember a race car. It's easier. So I think it's worth shouting out and saying like, okay, you know, imagine picture a race car. And then from there we start going to deeper details as we speak of, as I just elaborates it a little bit more on. So I think it makes it more relatable and I think so far it's been good. I think my manager is very satisfied with the way the proposal of the strategy is. So I think that works for me in this sense.

And remind me again, where does the customer sit in the model?

The customer would sit in the business, of course.

Okay.

In the business aspect, which is where you keep the. The customer in. In the center of it all. I mean, that's the whole point. Without the engine, the central focal point of the whole strategy, then I think that's not really CRM anymore. Then it's just rm, I think relationship management and not customer relationship management. So I obviously didn't put the customer in a particular box simply because it's pretty clear that, you know, at the end of the day, if you go into the business aspect of it, these are the people and these are the customers that we need to serve.

Okay, makes sense.

Yeah.

And based on that framework, which components are you currently focusing on?

Currently focusing on. Okay. So I think I would have to focus on all four at some point, all at once. However, I think it's about the spectrum of how much focus you put on it or how much you're really working on. I think at this point, since I have been. I've just recently implemented or migrated into a new system, so I would say that we are more in. I'm now currently focusing more on the fewer aspect of it because when it comes to key campaigns, these are things that you could have already planned out at the start of the year or you already are aware what are the key kind of campaigns that we will be pushing out in the future and how basically the fuel need to somehow support that. The other components that are available in the race car framework. So now I'm Focusing more on the technology aspect, considering that we have a new system or a tool called bloomreach. It's been serving us really, really well so far. And I'm quite happy that the tool was implemented really smoothly without much hiccups, I would say. And so it's good that we can get it up and running almost on day one, basically.

How long is it running for you now?

It's almost two months, I would say. It has been two months, yeah. Since we've implemented it. It's a huge learning curve because it's a very complex tool. It can be as complex as you want it to be and it can also be as simple as you want it to be. But there's so many possibilities that you can explore right now. I think one key value point from the whole tool is that you're able to segment better because we're able to pull in all our customers data, regardless whether they are subscribers or not. We pull in all our customers data and then we can start slicing and dicing and creating different segments from there. And I think that really brings a lot of value to us because now we can actually do RFM modeling as well. So that's really cool because we can see what is our average recency and frequency and monetary values of our customers in different segments or different cohorts.

So when you decided for Bloom, Reach was like the segmentation part, for example, one key factor that made you switch in the end?

Indeed, one of. That's definitely one of the key factors because we realized that in our previous tool we were not able to the segmentation was capabilities lacking, I would say. And we weren't very trustworthy of the data that we've gotten. I mean, I sort of inherited the tool and I think the tool has exchanged so many different CRM hands. And so a lot of the times we don't really understand the logic behind how some things have been done. And so obviously that really adds some friction to that point. And then when you start to pull out the numbers, you start putting together the data that you get from a gut feeling perspective, I guess it's more of a marketing intuition that you realize it doesn't quite add up or something is just a myth. And then now we are going into this question of does it, does it really make sense to spend so much time figuring this out versus yeah, how does this really break the business in that sense, if we don't figure it out would be some of the key considerations that would have to weigh out in that sense.

I think deciding For a tour is always tricky. Right. You also have to think about what are the different components, use cases that are important to me and I think you need to have a strong case that you can say, okay, it does make sense to move because it's a lot of effort to do that. Right? Yes, it's an investment.

Yeah. It's meant on all fronts. Right. Time, money, resources in that sense as well. So I guess maybe I can share another framework which I use to. To. To sort of help me make sense of how to evaluate my choices of tools or technology that I would love. I use this very simple framework, it's called nabc, which is needs, approaches or advantages, benefits and competing alternatives. This is what I use to help IT structure my evaluation or assessment of each of the different tools that we've shortlisted. But when I think about needs, I think about business needs. What are the business needs that we are trying to fulfill here? Does the tool meet those key needs? And if it doesn't meet the key needs then it's out of the game. That's my number one. The next thing is after looking at the needs, the question is what is the approach? How is it helping me achieve my goal or my business needs at the end of the day? Right. So I want to understand how, how easy, how quickly can I get to my goal at the end of the day? How much intervention would be required externally? Meaning do I have to engage my IT team all the time or do I need to constantly pay for change request? These are things I would want to consider as well. And then the next thing I will look at is benefits. What are the key benefits? By looking at the approach I will be able to understand what are the key benefits for the business for me. And the C part is where it comes to helping you to align basically having if you have done maybe four to five or even three different shortlists or evaluations with across different vendors, then you can start comparing your alternatives. So I use basically this framework to help me to understand what are the, you know, what's important for us, how do we then rank and, and evaluate the different vendors that we have to understand the suitability of these tools that we are going to onboard in the future.

So do I need to mention you create like a sheet and then you have those parts in it and then you add your list and afterwards you do a cross check with different tools that you have available and then you compare how much of this has a checkbox?

Let's say yes, I mean the whole implementation or the evaluation process for a vendor becomes quite complex or it's a very large project, I would definitely try to turn that into a process in that sense, then by documenting it. However, if it's really not such a big project, I wouldn't go through that trouble. So I think this framework gives you the flexibility to do that at the end of the day. So, I mean, for us, the next thing we're going to start considering is a loyalty tool. Right. And then depending on how many vendors that we have reached out to and shortlist. So by then we, I might have to really start to turn, you know, document out what are the different needs, turn that into a checklist and basically see how everything is stacking up against one another.

Yeah, great. I love how you always pull out like a framework to the different topics.

It's quite important for me, at least this is how I've been motivated and inspired by different people in my life that have actually instilled such a thinking process in me. And that's why I think it's always good to. I am always collecting different frameworks and keeping it in my arsenal and of course, reviewing it from time to time, looking at it and then expanding from there. What's important is to know the frameworks, but then what's important is learning and understanding how to apply those frameworks that would be suitable for your. Your business in that sense.

Totally. And it's great that you shared already three that have been working for you and what were the use cases so people can adapt this and use this themselves. Great. Yeah.

Hope that it inspires people to also consider and think about how those frameworks could work for them. There's love.

Thank you so much, Ernest, for sharing your experience, your insights.

Most valuable.

Yeah, I said I hope it inspires people to use some frameworks.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm happy to also get connected and discuss more with the other audience that you have, other CRM practitioners and maybe even exchange new frameworks that they have. I'm sure that a lot of professionals, CRM professionals, are also using different type of frameworks, which I'm not aware of, that could perhaps really be added into the arsenal or frameworks and working processes to help us become better CRM marketers.

We can start a collection.

Yeah. Yes. Go there, pick up a library of that. You can go through the whole framework library in that sense.

Now we have an idea. Thank you so much.

No problem. It was a pleasure.