How Babbel transformed the way they work along their customer lifecycle. For a young start-up, the biggest challenge often is about how to get to the next buck – fast. As a digital subscription business, though, sights need to be set much further into the future. Here’s how to break down silos and abandon long-established patterns of thinking.

1. From “Cash Revenue Machine” to
“Customer Relationship Management”
How Babbel transformed the way they work along their customer lifecycle

2. Nina Pollex
Head of CRM, Babbel
2020

3. Born in Berlin
in 2007

4. 750 people in
Berlin & NYC
(and counting…)
50+ nationalities

6. 2020
CRM?
Marketing
Sales
Brand
Product
BI / Data
Customer
Service

7. 2020
Marketing
CRM
CRM @ Babbel – pre-2019
Goal
€€€

8. 2020
Marketing
CRM
CRM @ Babbel – pre-2019
Goal
€€€ Product/
Engineering
Goal
♥♥♥

9. 2020
CRM @ Babbel – pre-2019
● … converting leads/registered users into
paying subscribers
● … while pushing longer-term/higher-priced
subscriptions over shorter ones
● … by “reasonable” discounting, driving
urgency & balancing variety of content
● … as well as personalizing based on country,
learning language & time since sign-up
🤩👏😊

10. 2020
CRM @ Babbel – pre-2019
● … converting leads/registered users into
paying subscribers
● … while pushing longer-term/higher-priced
subscriptions over shorter ones
● … by “reasonable” discounting, driving
urgency & balancing variety of content
● … as well as personalizing based on country,
learning language & time since sign-up
Conversion
Engagement
Retention
Winback &
Re-activation
Awareness
Acquisition
Interest
Preference
Churn
Advocacy Loyalty
Upsell
Nurturing
?
?
?
?
?
?

11. 2020
Problem: Retention & Engagement
% of users active
Time
😒 … 🤔

12. 2020
CRM @ Babbel – the Transformation
Conversion
Engagement
Retention
Winback &
Re-activation
Awareness
Acquisition
Interest
Preference
Churn
Advocacy Loyalty
Upsell
Nurturing
We could nudge users
to come back to the
product (= learn)We could drive
advocacy & loyalty
We could help
retain learners &
win them back
We could keep
learners engaged out
of the product
We could help people
get started on their
learning journey
We could help
learners who are
struggling

13. 2020
Conversion
Engagement
Retention
Winback &
Re-activation
Awareness
Acquisition
Interest
Preference
Churn
Advocacy Loyalty
Upsell
Nurturing
● Until 2019: 8-people team focused on one
goal (→ driving revenue)
● Doing so very successfully: ~30% of the
company’s overall new sales revenue
● → Whatever we would take on should never
come at the expensive of our “core job”
CRM @ Babbel – the Transformation
● Product being a closed ecosystem owned
& driven by the Product department –
potential of CRM and outreach via CRM
channels rarely considered 🙋 <> 🧐

14. 2020
CRM @ Babbel – the Transformation
Step 1: Free up
resources without
neglecting current
operations

15. 2020
Step 1: free up resources without
neglecting current operations
2. Identify potential for optimization
a) Automate standard/default campaigns
b) Speed up creative processes by
building a repository of standard/default
assets and re-using them
c) Rigorously challenge 80/20 & if in doubt
AB test to find NO uplift
󾓪 🇨🇦 🇦🇺
English
1. Analyzing time spent on recurring tasks

16. 2020
CRM @ Babbel – the Transformation
Step 1: Free up
resources without
neglecting current
operations
Step 2: Paint a
vision & make a
plan

17. 2020
Step 2: paint a vision & make a plan
The Habit Loop
(habit building research)
Onboarding (addressing most
common problems/questions
of new subscribers)
Reactivation GOAL
Welcome
& where
to start
What
makes
Babbel
different
What
else can
I do with
Babbel?
Great job
in your
first
week!
How to
build a
healthy
learning
routine
Cue / new
learning
content
Action /
Learn or
review
Reward /
feedback
Haven’t seen you
in a while…
Do you still remember
what “xxx” means?
+10% uplift of
weekly
engagement
over holdout
group

18. 2020
CRM @ Babbel – the Transformation
Step 1: Free up
resources without
neglecting current
operations
Step 2: Paint a
vision & make a
plan
Step 3: Getting
exec level support

19. 2020
Step 3: getting exec level support
No
engineering
resources
needed
No need for
statistical
significance
Ideation &
speed above
all else
A manual
hack is
better than
nothing
Ruthlessly obsessing over quick wins!

20. 2020
CRM @ Babbel – the Transformation
Step 1: Free up
resources without
neglecting current
operations
Step 2: Paint a
vision & make a
plan
Step 4:
Cross-company buy-
in & rallying others
around our cause
Step 3: Getting
exec level support

21. 2020
Step 4: cross-company buy-in & rallying
others around our cause
Help Me
Learn
CRM Product
Marketing
Instructional
Design
Customer
Service /
Community
Management

22. 2020
Help Me Learn – Define the Problem
Relevance x Reach x Frequency

23. 2020
Subscriber Onboarding – Solution & Results
Day 0 Day 1 Day 3 Day 5
Day 7
+6% +9% +5%

24. 2020
Subscriber Onboarding – Next Iteration
No improvement!

25. 2020
Reminders & Nudges – Solution & Results
+12%
~ +10%
+3%

26. 2020
Reactivation of Dormants –
Solution & Results
One-off send “Here’s what you missed”

27. 2020
Reactivation of Dormants –
Solution & Results
Automated send after 30 days of inactivity:
“Where are you, {Name} 😢”
Again x3 uplift in learning
activity after send, but uplift
not sustainable – need to
find a way to scale

28. 2020
In the end, we drove our “north star”
engagement metric by > +5% in 2019
– more than any other single team!

29. 2020
Marketing
CRM
CRM @ Babbel in 2020
Goal
€€€ Product/
Engineering
Goal
♥♥♥
CRM

30. 2020
Collaborative Initiatives
Weekly
activity
summary
Recommendations
feat.
Machine Learning
Content
Distribution
& Testing

31. 2020
Next Steps
Conversion → Engagement → Retention/
Winback
✔ ✔
Help Me Learn →
1.
2.
Help Me Connect (how to engage & support learners in social communities)

32. 2020
Learnings
CRM is crucial in
driving retention &
engagement
We can’t do it in
silos, we need each
other
The lowest-hanging fruits
are always sweet (at the
beginning, anything works
better than nothing)
Still do AB test though!
Not everything always
works as expected
Numbers often speak
louder than words! No one
can argue against a +x%
uplift in a core KPI
Embrace 80/20 –
learnings, progress &
impact > perfection
Without a more extensive
communication strategy,
impact is not sustainable
Make sure your decisions &
prioritization are based on
qual and/or quant research
Without exec
support it’s hard… Changing mindset &
processes around
“what you’ve always
done” is also hard

33. From “Cash Revenue Machine” to
“Customer Relationship Management”
Thank You!