#GROWTH Summit London Recap: The Inspiring Stories of Liz Earle, Avon, and Sweatcoin

Reading Time: 8 minutes

When it comes to customer engagement, you must be mindful of how you approach creating frictionless, relevant experiences for each customer and what channel you choose to engage with them. Even seemingly minor missteps here can hurt the customer’s perception and ultimately result in a loss of loyalty as well as stunted growth for your brand. Teams need to grasp practical methods for avoiding issues. What aids in this effort is utilising the right tools to create these seamless experiences. Familiarity with customer engagement trends like scalable omnichannel engagement, accurate personalisation, and effective use of Generative AI can greatly contribute to achieving this goal.

To help brands explore the full potential of customer engagement through effective strategies and best-in-class technology, MoEngage once again hosted its #GROWTH Summit event in London on October 19. The event featured a lineup of 17 speakers, including influential individuals, innovative marketers, and experts in customer engagement.

Across 6+ sessions, speakers from leading brands like Liz Earle, Virgin Experience Days, Avon, Booking.com, AWS, Sweatcoin, Travelodge, Blockchain.com, Oswald, Pooch and Mutt, Whering, ev.energy, Token.com, Lounge, Soldo, Product Madness, and fourfiveuk shared their insights on how to thrive in today’s fast-moving consumer landscape, the evolution of customer engagement, the integration of GenAI, and much more.

Over 120 attendees from diverse industries filled the room, thoroughly enjoyed the sessions, and had the opportunity to network with like-minded peers. They also had the chance to connect with other partner tech solutions such as AWS, mParticle and Vonage, who are partners of MoEngage and event sponsors.

Welcome and Introductions

The overcast weather outside couldn’t dampen the spirits of the attendees as they made their way into the stunning Kimpton Fitzroy, London. MoEngage clients were the first to arrive for pre-event welcome drinks. It was a lovely experience to have a gathering of MoEngage clients, all coming together to interact with one another and with our customer success team.

Jason Smith, VP at MoEngage, started the event with his welcome address. He spoke about the objective of #GROWTH events: to inspire change and innovation by exchanging insights.

Jason also touched on the evolution of MoEngage as a customer engagement platform, emphasising its recent advancements such as the introduction of Generative AI, Merlin. The innovative tool that aims to enhance team productivity and drive business growth.

Merlin AI learns from the performance of your past campaigns, understands context based on your audience and use case, considers the positive and negative impact of specific keywords, and helps you build high ROI-driving campaigns.

Merlin AI’s capabilities are constantly improving, with upcoming features that include creative generation, segmentation, campaign building, and more.

Learn more about Merlin AI right here.

Now that we went back to see how the event began, let’s do a quick run-through of the event’s central themes and the key sessions that brought them to life.

The New Era of Customer Engagement and How It Will Evolve in the Coming Years

The first panel discussion focussed on: The New Era of Customer Engagement and How It Will Evolve in the Coming Years. Speakers delved into important changes in customer engagement and how they’re adapting and responding to these changes to stay relevant. Among the panelists were Nadine Berdux from Oswald (by Unilever), James Collingham from Pooch and Mutt, Gian Lucio from Travelodge, and Rita Sousa from Lounge.

Here are a few key takeaways we gathered from the speakers:

• Take a step back, challenge your data, and then plan your next steps. It is important to choose the correct tool that provides accurate data on behavioural patterns and signals in order to create personalised experiences.
  James Collingham, Director of E-commerce, Pooch & Mutt

• Understanding engagement goes beyond tracking email clicks; it’s important to consider other channels, such as Push or SMS as well. You must look at it holistically rather than in silos.
  Rita Sousa, Head of CRM, Lounge (previously Lounge Underwear)

How Sweatcoin Became the Most Downloaded App in a Year

Definitely one of our favourite sessions, not only because they are a MoEngage client, but also because of their incredibly inspiring growth story. Becoming the #1 most downloaded app is no easy feat; doing this within a year is all the more difficult. But Sweatcoin has achieved it! Rowan Pereira, the Group Product Lead of the step counting and activity tracking, walked the audience through the exciting journey Sweatcoin embarked on in the past year.

If you want to replicate Sweatcoin’s success of gaining 10M users in just 7 days, Rowan has outlined a helpful 5-step plan to get you started.

Step 1: Recruit local influencers

• Borrow trust
• Invest in a local agency
• Think outside of your category
• Own the content

Step 2: Leverage native content

• Creative first: reach more people with user-generated content
• 2x watch time and 70% lower CPI compared to regular ads
• Pick the winning content & scale it up to all channels

Step 3: High-velocity referrals

• Develop features that not only incentivise invites but encourage people to invite quickly.
• The “piggybank” feature increased K-factor by 30%
• And decreased CAC by 70%

Step 4: Turning users into influencers

• Identify super-users; people successfully inviting more than 20 people
• This growth loop yielded 6,840 new super-users in Brazil, and we can attribute 2,319,939 new users to its output

Step 5: The power of virality

• Use influencer content to garner more interest and engagement
• This helps increase trust and makes your content more relatable

Want to know more about Sweatcoin’s journey to the top? Read Rowan’s interview to get deeper insights into their strategy.

Personalisation Without Purpose is Pointless by Gianfranco Cuzziol

Gianfranco is an engaging individual who has traversed the agency-client side divide. Experienced CRM, Data, and Business Transformation expert with a track record of setting and delivering customer strategy with customer and business objectives at the centre. He joined Aesop as the Global head of CRM 4 years ago to take conversations with customers beyond the store and seamlessly transition conversations onto digital channels. He then became the Head of CRM and Personalisation for Natura Co & Group, working across four brands: Aesop, Avon, The Body Shop and Natura. He currently leads CRM and Personalisation for Avon International.

His wealth of experience across CRM, personalisation, and customer engagement showed in the insights he shared at the #GROWTH Summit and the rapt attention of the audience listening to his session.

This session tackled the ins and outs of personalisation, the right approach for your brand, how to optimise your personalisation efforts, and much more.

The session starts with an all-important question, “To personalise or not to personalise”. Gian equated engagement with basketball to help brands understand what is right for them. He explained, “After the invention of Basketball, someone introduced the 3-pointer, saying that if the basket is made from beyond the 3-point line, the team wins three points. However, relatively taller players eventually realised that they make more accurate baskets if they’re standing closer to the basket.”

What does this have to do with customer engagement, you ask? Gian said, “Sometimes, you don’t have to be as personalised or as close as you think to gain the same benefits.”

He then went on to provide three actionable and simple foundational pillars to personalisation:

1. The Customer

Customer-centricity is vital to a brand’s sustainable growth. Think about what your customer is trying to do, the motivation behind them taking specific actions, and the obstacles they face in their journey with you. Let in-depth customer data and analytics be your guide here.

Your aim should be to make the journey frictionless for them and to meet them wherever they are. Be it WhatsApp, Email, In-App or any other.

2. The Brand

While talking about Aesop, Gian mentioned that they didn’t personalise communication too much to stay true to the brand. Because the brand became much more authentic to the customer when they spoke about their brand values and culture. This resulted in better returns compared to what a highly segmented and personalised campaign might have given.

Understand the true essence of your brand, then ask yourself if you should personalise.

3. The Trust

Think about ethics and privacy from a customer point of view. Get your board involved here, ask them to think about the quality of the data they’d like to collect, get them to ponder over what ethically collected data could do for your brand perception and value.

Gianfranco’s rich but actionable session impressed attendees and keyed up for the next session, the fireside chat with Liz Earle!

Want to hear more from Gianfranco and his take on how “Personalisation without purpose is pointless?” check out his webinar here!

Unlocking Wellness and Success: A Journey with Liz Earle

One of the most fascinating sessions of the event was the fireside chat with Liz Earle, the founder of the award-winning skincare brand Liz Earle.

In this fireside chat, we spoke to Liz about her fascinating journey from journalism to entrepreneurship, skincare, and the secrets to her consistent success.

The Journey From Journalist to Wellness Advocate

Liz Earle began her career almost four decades ago as a journalist, writing primarily for magazines. Her early writing focused on health and beauty at a time when well-being wasn’t a topic as common as it is today. This was the era when nutritionists, naturopaths, and alternative health practitioners were gaining recognition, and Liz was among the first to embrace this new wave of well-being.

Embracing Change and Authenticity

Her journey didn’t stop with skincare. When the company was sold, Liz Earle returned to the world of writing and publishing. One of the mantras Liz shared with the audience was embracing change and staying relevant in a rapidly evolving business landscape. Echoing Gian’s sentiments, she also emphasised the significance of authenticity in building customer trust. She says, “Every interaction with a customer is an opportunity to build trust.”

Include Social Media in Your Omnichannel Engagement

While social media engagement is crucial, Liz Earle recommends that brands be open in their focus on social media. She strongly suggests brands engage with their audience at the right time through the channels they are present on. She recounted her experience with Instagram Live during the lockdown, where she casually chatted with her community from her kitchen. The unfiltered, authentic content resonated with her audience and became a fundamental part of her business.

She emphasised that on social media, consumers prefer authenticity over perfection. Showing the reality of everyday life, including its flaws and imperfections, builds a more genuine connection with the audience. This shows how crucial it is for brands using an omnichannel approach to understand the customer mindset when they craft messaging for different channels.

Key Takeaways for Success

Liz Earle shared two critical pieces of advice for anyone in business:

Embrace Change:

In a constantly evolving world, adapting and managing change is crucial. Surround yourself with individuals who are comfortable with change, and identify and address resistance to it.

Trust Your Gut:

Trust your instincts when making decisions, especially when hiring team members. Liz shared that she has learned from costly mistakes when she ignored her initial instincts during the hiring process.

In conclusion, Liz Earle’s journey is a testament to the power of authenticity, adaptability, and a commitment to personal well-being. Her story inspires entrepreneurs and wellness advocates looking to make a lasting impact in a rapidly changing world.

This wasn’t all; we had exciting conversations with the Co-Founder of Revoola, the Marketing Manager of We Make Footballers, and the Marketing and Growth Director at Token.com to understand their approach to customer engagement and selection.

With this, we drew the curtain on #GROWTH23, one of the most rewarding events of the year. #GROWTH23 was a massive hit as participants walked out with truly inspirational stories and exclusive insights on what it takes to succeed in today’s highly competitive landscape. We learnt from industry influencers, discussed solutions to problems we face together as a community, and spoke to our valuable customers to better understand their needs. Here’s to many more #GROWTH events ahead.

About #GROWTH:
At MoEngage, we believe that creating communities, sharing insights and learning from each other is an essential cornerstone of a thriving business. #GROWTH events bring leaders from different industries together as a community to share industry nuances. We are proud to host and create a global community of growth marketers, product owners and entrepreneurs.

Read more session recaps from other exciting discussions at our #GROWTH Summits 🚀:

• Liz Earle MBE Shares Success Story and Advice at #GROWTH Summit London 2023

• Customer Journey to Nowhere: The Funny Side of Customer Engagement With Marketoonist

• Driving Customer Engagement With Hyper-Personalization and Automation

• Building the Modern Martech Stack: The Ins and Outs, and Role AI Will Play

• The #GROWTH Story of Poshmark