Learning from an achiever is possible only when you know what they did right, and importantly, how they did it. In that spirit, we unravel the professional journey taken by Immo Hutte who is currently the head of marketing at FinanceScout24.
But his current position and his role there is a tip of the iceberg with huge layers of untold learning, struggles and even key insights lying underneath.
So, we aim to uncover some of those, thus making an effort to draw some lessons along the way.
What’s Inside?
- Immo Hütte’s Career Journey
- Data octopus is the lifeblood of modern marketers
- Benefits of CDP
- Lesson Learned
- Who is Immo Hütte?
Immo Hütte’s Career Journey
Right after he successfully finished his studies at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Immo started his career by opening and developing the Swiss market for Tradedoubler, an internationally operating digital marketing company.
This “project” grew significantly and soon became the local market leader. Right then, Immo realised that it’s time for new challenges and to diversify his knowledge-backpack. So his journey to his prowess in marketing, and the technology driving it, took the next stages.
Consequently, he joined Adello as Director EMEA, where he deep dived into the ropes of mobile marketing and technology. About his role at Adello, he said that it enticed him because it was multi-faceted by scaling a new and promising technology again.
He spearheaded the development of the Swiss market and the expansion of business into new markets such as Germany, the UK, and Benelux. By teaching companies about the possibilities and benefits of mobile marketing and selective use of technologies, he connected the dots in the complex data-driven marketing universe.
Later, he moved on to Sunrise Communications AG, the second largest Swiss telecommunications company, as Head of eCommerce. Not surprisingly, he took the job because he understood that marketing and product should be working hand in hand. A marketing strategy could just be really successful if it’s thought end-to-end.
“If you want to build a future in marketing then you need to make a habit out of regularly stepping outside your comfort zone.
I was tasked with developing the online store revenues, which starts with unveiling the right channels and target groups to drive traffic, creating special offers and creatives to attract the respective target groups, optimizing the user journeys on the site itself (from the website look and feel, to content, to special offers, constant A/B testing etc.), to finally increasing online sales,” he says.
In his current role at FinanceScout24, he works towards pulling together all the strings of marketing he has spun so far to help organisations build a coherent marketing framework.
CDP: The Data Octopus Is the Lifeblood of Modern Marketers
It’s no question for an experienced marketer like Immo and his career path shows to underline the significance of data for succeeding in marketing.
The data, its exploration and processing, undoubtedly, are vital for optimising marketing strategy. It is also indispensable to bring data together from different sources, process it and send off to the relevant areas of the business.
This is the only way that you can leverage data-driven insights at scale. Therefore, you definitely should implement your own data octopus: a customer data platform (CDP).
One might wonder if they can be an effective marketer without a CDP? Sure, but you won’t be nearly as successful as you would be if you wisely use one.
Benefits of CDP
- Generate invaluable first-party data (this always comes in handy if you’re a marketer!)
- CDP is the hub for all user data that then can be used for various use cases
- Create, cluster and segment user-profiles
- Predict user behaviour
- Create individual customer experiences
- Optimise customer lifecycle
- Make campaigns more efficient
What’s becoming clear is that CDP-based personalisation leads to increased engagement, which then results in increased conversions. Having a single source of truth – somewhere to power these personalisation efforts – is a real competitive differentiator nowadays and enables you to add value to each user journey.
FinanceScout24: Your Digital Companion
Here at FinanceScout24, their mission is to be consumers’ digital companion when they’re buying any finance or insurance-related products.
People can often feel slightly daunted when they’re buying complex financial products like mortgages – they don’t know what the fine print means and which options are most suitable for them. FinanceScout24 is guiding their users through the process and is negotiating with banks and insurances the best rates for the user.
They want to provide hyper-personalised offers that are matched to the specific needs, and to back that up with a quick, easy, understandable, transparent, and convenient customer experience.
How Do They Do This?
Immo says they, at FinanceScout24, work with over 60 partners and negotiate the rates they offer the customers on their behalf. Later, they provide them with the most suitable products based on user’s specific needs and situation.
For the user, all processes should be as digital as possible and as personal as desired. Insurances, Mortgages and Credits should be easily comparable and sign able online. In case someone wants to have a personal contact with an advisor, one can also do a chat or video call.
The most digital and convenient process for the user might be the one for car insurances. One needs to just upload a picture of the existing contract and FinanceScout24 will then automatically benchmark it against other offers that are currently available on the market. If there’s another alternative that has a better rate, the user can digitally sign a new contract in a few minutes.
Utilising the Octopus’ Potential
Their approach to implement a CDP at FinanceScout24 was to build a minimum viable product (MVP), test use cases, analyse the results and scale from there.
They started feeding their CDP with data for first most promising use cases. Marketing Automation via mail and SMS has been build case by case, constantly A/B tested and optimised before then adding in tools like their CRM, analytics and data connections with other owned platforms.
“Once we added these tools into the mix, we started to generate real value. We could all of a sudden connect the different user touchpoints and experiences.”
This allowed us to understand our users and to provide more tailored and matching recommendations, and also meant that we could serve our users with activation and educational content. “It actually exceeded our expectations: as soon as we started to personalise our communications at scale, we saw an almost instant uplift in conversions.”
But there’s still a long way to go
They are currently going deeper into their use cases and are busy running constant A/B tests. Their aim is to keep on digging out key insights – from layout to the right wording to quite trivial things like who responds well to emojis and icons all the way to how they can optimise for conversions.
“My main takeaway for all companies that invest in a CDP is: Make sure you have a plan, a tool, a team and an experienced “driver”. Make up your mind to know what you want. Select the tool carefully based on your needs, give it the importance and attention it deserves and then have fun with it.
“It’s like Monaco’s Formula 1 track: you need to know the target and the track and you don’t necessarily need the most expensive car to win the race but the best plan, team and driver,” he advises.
Companies often buy a great tool and expect it to run by itself – it’s like buying a Ferrari without knowing the race track nor the driver. Then either the driver crashes in the first turn or he will move slowly on the track. And if then the team fails by changing tires or fuelling the car, you will miss the success as well as the fun.
Lessons Learned
- All marketers must make a habit out of regularly stepping outside their comfort zone.
- Every marketing department should think of using a data octopus: a CDP. This connects disparate data sources, bringing everything together in one place, making it accessible.
- Have fun by unleashing the potential of your tools! If you enjoy the process then you’ll use the tool more, which will unlock increased value for your organization.
- Make sure the combination of the “race track, car, team and driver” fits perfectly.
Who is Immo Hütte?
Next steps
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