Inside a Digital Marketer's mind - with Florian Heinemann (Project A Ventures)

In our series “Inside a Digital Marketer’s Mind”, marketing experts from various industries and regions tell us their thoughts on the state of Digital Marketing.

This time we've interviewed Dr. Florian Heinemann, Founding Partner of Project A Ventures. Find out what digital marketing developments Florian has identified, where he thinks online shopping is heading or what advice he has for marketers to stay relevant.

Digital marketing today

What developments in digital marketing are you the most excited about?

• Automation and cross-channel-orchestration
• Personalization and active management of the customer journey
• Overcoming the trade-off between branding and performance advertising
• The rising relevance of storytelling, especially videos and events

What do you see as the biggest challenges for digital marketers today?

Building sustainable customer relationships that increase margin in the mid to long term.

What in your opinion is the best tactic to reach or convert shoppers today?

Delivering a product or service combination that produces superior customer satisfaction based on objectively quantifiable KPI’s.

What was your biggest surprise in 2017 - what didn't you see coming?

The quick adoption of voice-based commerce: I would have expected it to develop in significantly more time.

Digital marketing predictions

Name 3 predictions for 2018 in ecommerce and digital marketing

• Video-based creatives will continue to gain relevance and market share
• Native advertising and storytelling will increasingly become part of performance-oriented marketing mixes
• Voice-based commerce will continue to gain relevance

Where will online shopping be in 3 years’ time?

The rise of marketplaces will continue, making it more and more difficult for independent shops to stay relevant and sustainable. So manufacturers are forced to think thoroughly about how (or if) they should be present independently (direct to consumer models), as well as what their marketplace strategy looks like. Moreover, the desktop share of commerce will continue to be shifting towards mobile and voice.

"The rise of marketplaces will continue, making it more and more difficult for independent shops to stay relevant and sustainable"

What would be your main advice to digital marketers to stay relevant?

• Constantly try out new approaches and platforms
• Work on your tech skills
• Learn how to derive insights from data, and develop storytelling skills

Marketech

What are the top 3 tools you cannot work without?

• CrossEngage - a marketing and CRM platform
• Opinary - for content creation
• and of course Productsup - for feed management 😊

Is there new software out that you plan to evaluate?

Yes, Zenloop: We think that the NPS (Net-Promoter-Score) concept encompasses a lot of applicable insight, if implemented in the right kind of way.

"Work on your tech skills"

Is there anything that you are missing / what needs to be developed?

I'd like to see more tools that enable advertisers to create video-based creatives; ideally for a wide range of user segments and in an automated, scalable way.

Opensource vs. Paid: Where do you use free software

We have a tendency towards open source, especially if we plan to hire dedicated developers for a certain piece of software/infrastructure. If the plan is to stay with a third-party solution without investing too much of our own development resources, we work with paid software.

What you didn't know about Florian

Can you name a recent ingenious marketing campaign that really stuck out to you?

Independently of what you think of their political position, I thought that the social marketing/ media approach used by the FDP in the last federal election in Germany was very advanced and modern for a political party.

What are your top 3 favorite industry news publications?

• OM Rockstars
• a16z podcasts
• Ad Exchanger

What is on your reading list?

“How Google works”, by Eric Schmidt: it’s not new, but still incredibly insightful. Another book that I haven’t read even though it’s quite old is “Thinking fast and slow” by Daniel Kahnemann.

Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you?

I turned into a passionate “Hockey Mom” without being able to play hockey myself.

*About Project A Ventures*

*Project A is the operational VC that provides its ventures with capital, an extensive network and exclusive access to a wide range of operational expertise. The Berlin-based investor makes use of the €260m in assets under its management to back early-stage companies in the digital technology space. With its unique organisational structure featuring 100 operational experts, Project A offers its portfolio companies hands-on support in the areas of Software Engineering, Digital Marketing, Design, Communications, Business Intelligence, Sales and Recruiting.The portfolio includes companies such as Catawiki, WorldRemit, Tictail, Spryker, nu3, Wonderbly and ZenMate. You can find more information at www.project-a.com and on the blog insights.project-a.com.

We hope you enjoyed the read.