Growth Lessons from Viber: Mikhail Pashintsev on Scalable Revenue Strategies

The route of Mikhail Pashintsev towards growth marketing was nurtured by over a decade of experience in the mobile marketing and MarTech sector. He characterized his career of more than 15 years, including positions in well-known agencies and tech companies, as a shift from the old marketing concepts to a new one based on business outcomes that can be measured quantitatively. 

Mikhail Pashintsev pointed out that conventional marketing had inflexible methods which were often cut off from one another and between different categories like advertising, sales funnels, and customer retention. Witnessing how frequently these separated elements led to no growth at all, he was pushed to use the growth marketing tool. 

The growth marketing approach keeps the financial aspect of the business as the main concern, and thus, testing is done iteratively throughout the whole customer journey.

Changing Strategies at Rakuten Viber

When Pashintsev became a part of Rakuten Viber in 2014, a worldwide messaging application that currently has more than one billion users, the company was not yet fully aware of the capacity of systematic growth tactics.

In such a situation, he realized that it was necessary to look deeper than mere metrics like impressions or downloads. He assessed the quality of conversions and the amount of user engagement across the funnel stages, from the first activation to the long-term activity, in a very detailed manner. 

This required the locating of the weak points in the acquisition and onboarding process and then the bending of those interactions to yield improved outcomes. One such instance was the broadening of the user authorization channels. The platform at first depended on a social media login from one global network only, but Pashintsev insisted on adding local network options for distinct regions. 

This modification led to a greater degree of user profile completeness and consequently, an increase in user engagement, as other users could instantly recognize their contacts, a minor but significant change in its impact that can be measured.

Driving Growth Through Engagement and Retention

Pashintsev, while working at Viber, managed around 300 marketing campaigns and activities, which were all aimed at keeping the users engaged even after the first installation. He pointed out that the main goal of the growth marketing cycle is far more than just making the product widely downloaded. It is actually a matter of bringing users back, not just daily but also after a week and after a month. 

For instance, in the case of the messaging platforms, it means creating different usage patterns for the users, such as from one-on-one chats to large group chats with family or coworkers, so that the app can be a person’s daily must-have.

Group chats are one such type of usage that is helping to retain user interest in a unique way. Pashintsev noticed that in some areas more than 20% of group chats revolve around parental groups, which is a form that gradually keeps the users updated with important information instead of just being through trivial interactions.

Future of Growth Marketing

Pashintsev, while looking into the future, pointed out that growth marketing would always be a dynamic part of technology and consumer behavior. He sees the boundary between product and marketing departments disappearing more and more, with the campaign decisions being made based on the customer data that is updated constantly, and the collaboration between the departments.

According to him, the professionals who have the ability to combine the analytical and the creative parts of their work, while keeping in mind the financial outcomes, can be the most successful ones. They will have a better ability to face the challenges of modern digital markets.