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How Fave uses data to skyrocket marketing ROI by segmenting and targeting the right customers
45 Plays1 year ago
Hosted by Julie from Vase.ai Market Research. In this episode, we speak with Chen Chow, the co-founder of Fave, one of the leading cashback apps in Southeast Asia. You will learn Chen Chow's perspective on :
Using data to create and improve products for different segments and markets, such as the Jobstreet English Language Assessment (JELA) and the Fave;
Leveraging data to grow Fave’s user base, revenue and retention, and how they optimized the marketing channels, such as email and push notifications
Approaching data-driven marketing in Southeast Asia, and what are the challenges and opportunities in this diverse and dynamic region.
In today’s episode, we discuss :
00:00 Introduction
01:23 Chen Chow's career & background
04:37 The importance of having clear positioning for your product & business
09:31 How to choose the right target segment for your product
13:47 Use a balance of data and intuition to choose the right target segment
19:28 Designing cashback the right way as part of retention strategy
32:23 Monitor your inputs and outputs as key metrics
46:02 Lighting round - Advice for those interested to pursue a career in marketing
This episode is full of insights and stories from a leader who has been at the forefront of marketing, technology and data in Southeast Asia.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Sponsor
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Winning with Data-Driven Marketing Podcast. This podcast is brought to you by WASD.ai Market Research. I'm Julie, your host in this podcast. And in every single episode, we talk to industry leaders, marketers, and growth experts in Asia about how to use data to enhance the ROI in their marketing activities. We will bring you to our speaker shortly after a quick word from our sponsor.
00:00:28
Speaker
WaaS.AI Market Research is an AI-powered digital research platform that can help you understand your target customer as quick as 24 hours from as low as $1,000 US dollars. For those who are having questions about what your target customer think about your brand, your ads, or your product, you are guaranteed reliable findings that can help you build better branding, advertising campaign, and launch a more successful product.
00:00:56
Speaker
Find out more at www.vase.ai. It's www.vase.ai. And use promo code PODCAST to get your first 10% off. Now, back to the show.
Chen Chao's Career Journey
00:01:13
Speaker
So joining me today is the famous Chen Chao who a lot of people already know about. He has years and years of experience in reaching the gap between marketing technology and data. So thank you for joining us today. Welcome Chen Chao. Thank you Lee and it's my honor to be here.
00:01:32
Speaker
So looking through, so I know you for quite a bit, but just for the audience, right, I will share a little bit about Chinchao. So Chinchao, you've been in Accenture, then you went to Job Street, and then Groupon. I think I started to hear a name when you're in Groupon, and after that, you started your entrepreneurial journey, KFit, and then Faith. So I'm curious, right, can you take us back to your career starting point and share with us how do you get to where you are today?
00:02:04
Speaker
When I first graduated, I got a place for Master's at Stanford. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a scholarship, so that was how I started Accenture.
00:02:14
Speaker
I think in consulting, I think that's where it got thrown into different projects and good learning. And I think that in that project as well, I think the people around that, many of my teammates went on to build lots of amazing stuff. Many of them are now CEO or C-levels in many huge companies. So I think that's sort of where that first career built upon. And then I think from there, I went to job street.
00:02:36
Speaker
That was my first exposure to product. I had no idea of product when I first got in, decided that just to, to take a different leap of faith and went in to pick up. So I think that is a job streets was looking at the fresh graduate student segments, understanding the students segments. And I think that over there as well, we use quite a bit of data as well. Still remember back then we were trying to do a job street English language assessment, basically at employers, a lot of them challenges with fresh graduate students, English language command.
00:03:06
Speaker
So we created a product, JAWS Short Form Jela, and basically we enabled people to take the test once in every three months and because to encourage them to put in log data into JAWS.
00:03:20
Speaker
For every data that you put in, you will know how good you are, your English, compared to people of the same type. So if you put in that you are economics major, you know how good your English compared to every economics major. If you put that you study in unistim layer, then you will be compared against everyone in unistim layer. So everyone will get like 5, 6, 7 datas of like, you're better than 88% of students of this, 66% of people of that, right? And, and I think that sort of tying in data, gamifications and driving, building on objectives and that build on, and that
00:03:49
Speaker
features that was created, they still use today, almost 15 years down that line. When you use them down by millions of people and maybe affect positively or negatively people's job applications over the years, right? So from there, after job trades went into Groupon,
00:04:06
Speaker
So at the time Joe offered me as an inside sales manager, which is technically a telly sales, but I think that when I dropped three hours, I was learning that I should pick up sales one day. So that was what drives me to pick that up, right? And fast forward as I'd gone into job Groupon,
00:04:26
Speaker
Like after serving my two month notice, Joel and Tim doesn't need any more Thalesios already. They couldn't wait for me to hire other folks to run it. So I was there for three weeks, bombing around. And one fine day, Joel basically asked me, why didn't you go to CO? So that was how I got into CO. No experience, never manage anyone, thrown in, into there, build it up from group one, from the start, from Malaysia, turn around a few other countries and eventually manage the operations for APAC.
00:04:53
Speaker
And I think that the 2015 YOLO moment came and we decided to start our own journey in K-Fit. And then from there, got a chance to buy Groupon back. So we bought Groupon in Southeast Asia back and went on to build face. And in 2021, we got a chance to be acquired by Pylapse.
Challenges and Strategies in Faith's Growth
00:05:10
Speaker
Can I know what are the top one to three challenges you face when we are trying to grow in the user base or growing the market share?
00:05:19
Speaker
Good question. Yeah. So I think that maybe one thing that in a, as we build on faith, right? So I think one of the conscious choice as we go on is back then was we don't want to be at E-wallet. So until today, a lot of people may not realize that we are not at E-wallet. So, and it's a conscious choice because the competitors, if you call them competitors have billions of dollars, right? Grab. They, they raised maybe in 16 billion US dollars total.
00:05:49
Speaker
US dollar, ShopB pay, they have billions. If you look at Maybank, you will look at Bose, which is owned by Asiata, Tachango, which is owned by CIMB Bank and Financial Lazada, right? They all have billions.
00:06:04
Speaker
Connections connect brands everything so if you go hit on you're asking for trouble So I think that when we look at growing user base as well is picking the segment So I think that one of our challenge is you cannot go mess Because you go mess hit on against all this
00:06:22
Speaker
Giants, you will get crushed. So how do you play? How do you work with everyone, create values, and argue a certain segment, right? So if you look at today at faith, there are two parts, right? I think one is that we are at the malls, mostly at the mid-size, two, three outlets to 2030 outlets. Generally those sites. For those that have few hundred outlets, we are mostly not there because we can't compete in that play.
00:06:51
Speaker
For those that is a single stall at the Pasamalam and others things, we are not
Data's Role in Decision-Making at Faith
00:06:56
Speaker
there as well.
00:06:57
Speaker
Right, because that market is different levels of CDs and play. So we find a sweet spot that's maybe one. Two is working closely with all the players that for most people think that it's competitiveness. Right, let's say today, whether boost, prep pay, touch and goals, early pays, the likes of Google Pay, Pay La, Dash, Cinta Dash, UOB, we are all working partners, right? So, and many more, right? So for us, instead of saying that, okay,
00:07:25
Speaker
This is our space and we want to do like this. Why don't we go with the cross? Maybe something that people may not realize, right? Today, if you have a touch and go at
00:07:35
Speaker
If you found any 5P doing a QR, you can just scan and get all the 5P cash back, sitting in your target and go app for all the merchants, right? And if you do the linking account one time, you get it across, right? So that's a simple and in Singapore that feature, the same feature was available for Payla, DBS Payla, UOP, Tomorrow app, Cinta dash, Google Pay, right? So it's integrated building. So think of it like called that case in Singapore, let's say Subway.
00:08:02
Speaker
Today, a customer today can use a DBS payload to pay and get a cashback for Subway. Tomorrow, they can be able to use a UOB Tomorrow app to redeem that cashback and earn another cashback that the next day they will use a single dash to redeem. So it all ties back to Subway, but then it's now multi-platforms, right? And that's being built up, right? So I think we'll look at it. So I think that if you look at user base as well, traditionally you look at user base is that saying these people need to register in your app.
00:08:33
Speaker
they need to have an account, they need to have all these things. But today, many of our users are not in faith app. Many of our users are sitting in touch angle apps, the Google Pay app, the DBS Payload app, et cetera. And those are our users as well. So I think in the end, it's also looking at how to definition users, how do you play around and how do you create win-win synergy? So the fundamentals, right? So that what is user, right? So I think that's maybe something you look at
00:09:02
Speaker
that what can be done, what can be done, right? And I think as you build the user as well, it's always knowing the unique dynamics, right? What makes sense? What doesn't make sense? What sounds cool, but may not make sense, right? So I think it's a lot of it, aware of it, right? At what channel? So sometimes you may be able to get users super cheap. But the lifetime value of the customers could be very low.
00:09:26
Speaker
or it may not fit your segment. So a lot of times, sometimes we may be like two zeroes to get something, and then we found our channels and say, oh wow, this is super cheap, but then we may not realize that the customers that you're not aligned to us, right? And of course, sometimes you found the right segment. How do you be able to really, really drive it, right? And also a lot of times is looking at the parts, right? Is that, think of like, let's say you're gonna drive user to downloads.
00:09:54
Speaker
Just by doing performance marketing, just by setting that the downloads happen when people having Wi-Fi versus 4G or 5G, reduce your cost per acquisition by maybe about 50%. Just a simple tweak like that.
00:10:14
Speaker
Oh, very interesting. There's a lot of questions that really line up. Let's go with the first one. I really like how you said, don't go for the math and pick the target segments. And eventually, just not as you painted, right? Now, after your plan is all fulfilled, I can see how you are technically capturing a lot of users, even though they are not on your platform.
00:10:37
Speaker
But if we go back to the starting point, I spoke with companies who are sometimes just getting started. The question they have is this, how do I pick a segment that is not too broad but not too narrow? How do I know that if the segment I pick
00:10:54
Speaker
will actually give me sufficient market share that I don't leave money on the table at the same time because it is easy to look at the mass market and feel like that's the biggest market share. So what is the technique that you use when picking the target segment?
00:11:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think one is understanding the market dynamics, your unfair advantage, what is the unique about yours, right? So I think that's maybe one of the things. Let's say for hours our cash base always used back at the same merchant. Everyone else is not, right? So you need to sort of find an angle. So for this, at what segment it works the best. At what segment it may be irrelevant.
00:11:38
Speaker
So if you think on it, then we also do store value, where people can store the value. But Starbucks already got their own store value. People wouldn't do it. But if you look at the roadside garage, we use store value 100 gate there. You likely won't. So the super big one don't need us to do this because they can afford the R&D's and customization to build it.
00:12:00
Speaker
The super small one doesn't need this. So the sweet spot falls back to the middle, right? So I think a lot of it is finding angles. And sometimes it's at a segment like Starbucks. We haven't worked with them at a national level, but we do work with them in Johor.
00:12:17
Speaker
We do have a Singaporeans that come over the cross, which is our base, and it's a segment that is wide enough to play from there. Subway back then, we started from Northern before we were in nationwide. So there is also a different segment that we look at it and say, how do we angle it? And sometimes it's that looking at it and saying that, okay,
00:12:38
Speaker
is that sometimes it's a starting point, sometimes it's this and all for the for the play, right? And there's no right or wrong as well. How much capital you have, how much resources you have, how much risk you're willing to take. And that's all these things we'll tie back to answer just on that question, right? On how big is good enough, right? So let's say you have billions and billions sitting there that you can afford to take huge risks on.
00:13:03
Speaker
Yeah, go for big ones, right? If you don't have that, you have a very, very limited, you're bootstrapping, every dollar is super precious, then you had to be very narrow and target and then gradually expand. Let's say when we launch in Pune, we didn't launch in a whole island. We didn't launch in an area. We didn't even launch at a mall. We launched at an LG floor of Guinea Plaza.
00:13:28
Speaker
At that time, maybe 70, 80% of restaurants there at the LG floor on us. That was how we launched. When you went into that floor, you feel that it is launched, right? Because it has same limited resources. If you do statewide, if you do most wider area, you would not be felt. But when you concentrate, you get something. So a lot of times also that's a play. Of course, you can be forever there.
00:13:57
Speaker
But that's the starting point, and then you go. So I think it's big a starting point that makes sense. Even when we started faith in Clang Valley, we started in Tulawee, in Vansa. We started in Uptown.
00:14:11
Speaker
And we started this as three Hetabas, focused on FMV. So those were the three area that we started with. And then we go around across regularly. So it plays an angle as you go on. So I think the thinking on it, dream big, start small, and then go from there.
00:14:30
Speaker
Hmm. I can see it from a lot of the points that you mentioned, right? Concentrate, focus, peaking. I'm curious, is there like data? Knowing you, I know you are a data cruncher. So how do data or research play a role behind all this, finding the right focus? If you can give us a specific example, that would be great as well.
00:14:55
Speaker
Yeah. So let's look at where to start, right? So I think the one is that, so let's say I'm picking where to start. So I think few things that data that we external data, right? So I think take one, one is that if you go to like Google maps and see where the businesses are.
00:15:12
Speaker
So you know there's a certain concentrations of area. You can use some data in terms of how many shops are there in across. Sometimes it's manual, right? You go and look at it, open a directory of the malls and count, right? Sometimes it's more automated. But basically, I think one is a supply. And a lot of time, a lot of people have done work to determine the demand and supply play. And the second, I think, is observations. Which area feels like there's a concentration? Do you know the market or you don't know the market?
00:15:39
Speaker
right, for some of the second tier city, literally to draw across and say, this is the center point, how do we draw a line, right? A circle within that and focus within one km radius, half km radius from there, right? So I think a lot of it is start from area using summer data and these are the kickstart, right? And then as you build a point, let's say example now is fast forward, you already operate in the whole city.
00:16:07
Speaker
So how we're balancing is that we know the supply in every mall. So the thing of it is that you list out all the malls in town. This mall has 344 shops. We are in 68 shops. That's the 20% market share. What is the market share across, right? It's by percentage and absolute value. And the second one is by transactions, right? You do the same thing, right? Actually, you might not have the anti-transactions of the mall.
00:16:31
Speaker
But you have the yaw transactions, right? And then sometimes you do observation. I do walk the malls. One way to get my 10,000 steps. The second way is counting how many people are in the shops and take your snapshots across,
Consumer Transaction Challenges and Solutions
00:16:45
Speaker
right? So I think then, and then you balance it up, right? Some malls, the strength is in supply, gap is in demand. Some malls is the other way around. Supply is a gap, demand is strong.
00:16:57
Speaker
And some models is bad in both, right? And some is great in both. I think some of this, so I think as you use data, if you use some data, start from your hypothesis, standpoint observations, and then pull through.
00:17:11
Speaker
Of course, you might have lots of data to look through. I have a data person, so I look at data every hour and all those kind of things, but you don't want to be sent into there with so much data and you don't know what to do. You still want to start from a hypothesis. You want to try to find out. You want to find out, supply the problem and demand the problem. You want to find out why people don't transact.
00:17:36
Speaker
Let's say, for example, you have a budget user, why people don't transact? There are many factors that can go in there, right? One, no one land on your app, no one land on your website. Two, they land, but they bounce quickly. If you're app-wise, do they uninstall? Right, how does it install? Uninstallation rate. Email-wise, do they unsubscribe? If you do push notification, do they open or don't open or do they block the push?
00:18:05
Speaker
in-app, the same thing, right? So then for each of that, if you do emails, then if you open, do they click? After they click to the page, how long they stay? Do they bounce? Do they try to do transactions, but the transaction fails because the OTP doesn't come up, because they, you already ran out of money or because the authorizing just the Google truth, or they don't even attack. All right.
00:18:32
Speaker
Like, so if you look at it, there are just a mere point of transaction doesn't happen. Just now in the last two, three minutes, we may be talking about 10 different things. There could have been a problem, right? Then of each other, you might need to say, okay, you may have suspect that this tree is definitely not the result.
00:18:50
Speaker
this fall, maybe we need to dive deeper. Then you go with some data to say, okay, this makes sense, top makes sense. What is the market expectation? And again, now with all this generated AI, you just go there and ask that, right? What is the conversion rate of this day, day, day, or no, right? And I think that today, that sort of connect, right? And today, of course, yes, there are, sometimes the data doesn't work perfectly. I mean, that's true. But I think that a lot of it is, how do you leverage on it?
00:19:20
Speaker
And you will never be perfectly full on data, but you want to have enough to make decisions. And a lot of decisions you don't need perfect precision. You need good enough judgment to say that this is worth investing into it, or this should be stopped immediately.
00:19:40
Speaker
Right. The, that's the good enough for you to know that why is it, why should we prioritize or why should you deprioritize? So I think most of decisions are like that. Right. So you get enough to go in and say, okay, this makes sense. Let's do and, and move on. Right. So you don't need to be like, Oh, I need to be, this will be 7.33456 that level accuracy. That's useless for this. Right. Maybe in research project, project in university may mean it may make sense. Right. But may not be.
00:20:10
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Oh, thank you. You have actually, you have actually touched upon a couple of things that I was going to ask next, but you really touch upon like things that people should be aware when you're actually using data, not going to a rabbit hole, but at the same time, we need to form clear hypothesis to test.
00:20:26
Speaker
Now I want to switch a little bit to retention. So, well, faith being, you know, helping merchants to get cash back. So I'm very curious, what are some of the most effective marketing strategy that you have used in faith that help with retention? Yeah, so I think for us is to help merchant to retain and hence if the merchant to retain consumer would do it right. So let's say for us, every faith pay transaction trigger a cash back.
00:20:56
Speaker
The only way to use cashback is you need to be retained to come back, and hence you get the value of cashback. Or else that cashback won't disappear, right? And there's a time bound, so it's a period of time, right? So let's say example, for dentists that we work with, they want you to go back to do dentists every six months. It's very hard for them to do it, but let's say they put a 10% cashback. Now you go to dentists, you pay 200 ringgit, you got a 10%, 20 ringgit. It expires at the end of six months.
00:21:27
Speaker
So in a way, it pushed you to do that. Then this visits again within six months, right? Or the same thing, medical checkup, or maybe the car workshops, some of the car workshops are working with us, right? For you to service your car. Sometimes a lot of times, okay, now we say nevermind, let's track one more month, two more months. But if your car servicing is 800 ringgit, 5% cash worth is 40 ringgit. Service your car on time, you get 40 ringgit back.
00:21:52
Speaker
where auto-deductile for your next hazardous, or you wait one moment and you've lost that for tearing it. That drives people to glory. So I think a lot of it is the objective driven and people do it subconsciously rather than saying that, okay, I need to be
00:22:08
Speaker
Blend through, right? So it's a remind people surface it out. Some people don't care, right? Oh, 40 over one ring gate. Yeah. Service income. I don't care. But some people, a lot of people care. Most people care. All right. So I think it's into, into driving that habit as well.
Enhancing Retention Strategies with Data Insights
00:22:22
Speaker
Right. So let's say like people with morning coffee, every morning go back coffee. There are three, four coffee place. If this place keep on giving you the cash back, you're like, okay.
00:22:30
Speaker
This is my habit, right? I go and go back and do it. So, or some of them, they may be doing cashback and then they got, let's say, you know, like something in malls, you have those people at a concourse, they really do events. Then you transact, you get a cashback. With a cashback, you have to go back to the store upstairs in the same mall, right? So that drives you back to the store, right? Or sometimes electronic shops, they do cashback. You buy the first thing, you buy the TVs. Let's say you buy the TV 2000 Ringgit.
00:22:56
Speaker
3% cash back, you got 60 ringgit. Then you'll go find something else to buy for 60 ringgit, right? Like if you don't find something 60 ringgit, now you buy 200 ringgit stuff, right? Catals or whatever. So that 200 ringgit cattle, you get another 6 ringgit. Then you're like, okay, what can I buy? You buy two batteries or whatever, right? So people go through. And I have seen even very rich people do that.
00:23:16
Speaker
There was one time that was managing billions of ringgates or sharing on how he buy one thing and get a cash pay by the second thing and then using cash pay by the third thing. And this person managed billions, right? And this person still bothered to do that, right? And it became a fun factor, right? I know enough listed companies in Malaysia that actually do that. When they meet me, they're like, see, I do this, I do that, right? So it's actually quite interesting, right? Sometimes you look at how, of course, people feel that.
00:23:46
Speaker
the value, right? Let's say Penang. Penang, a lot of Penang likes people are in a negative way, you see, in a good way, it's very post-conscious, right? So people really wants to make sure that every dollar is captured and used, right? So for them is that, if I can get this value, I get this value, right? So let's say stock value, the same thing, right? So I think we were talking about retention and not just retention, but selling at the same time of retention.
00:24:16
Speaker
So let's say you go this coffee place, decently enough, this coffee each time you pay about 10 ringgit, what we do is we actually work with a shop to let you top up maybe 40 ringgit, pay 40 for 50 ringgit top up to be used only in this cafe. So now you have actually paid 40 ringgit for your next few coffee there. If you don't go back in the next six months, that 40 ringgit will disappear. You have already prepaid, right?
00:24:47
Speaker
Today in a without a tool Starbucks people would do it.
00:24:50
Speaker
But most other press people won't do it. But now you enable the people to do it and say, okay, let me do it, right? Let me pay out front. And they don't even remember. They just need to, they can easily check and they just, when they pay, it's just auto-deduct. They don't even remember and say, oh, do I still have that cash back? Do I still remember that, right? Don't have to, you just use it, right? And then you just auto-deduct. So I think it's that sort of thought, a habit. So I think as you go on retention, in the end, it's understanding the consumer mindset.
00:25:20
Speaker
how do you be able to, what kind of behavior you want to drive back, right? Some may be daily behavior, some may be weekly, some may be monthly, some six monthly. Let's say that this, you don't want a patient every two months come and see your dentist as well, right? I mean, something quite wrong with you, right? So you just drive the right frequency. So a lot of it is use it
00:25:46
Speaker
in a right way anyway, see even reminding on retention, right? Different people had different preference. So let's say it's a push notification. For some people that use the app middle of the night, pushing a notification to them at chapter TAM is perfectly great. For a lot of people, that's annoyance, right? For let's say emails. All our emails are actually automatically generated and it actually learns behavior. The more you open, the more email you get.
00:26:17
Speaker
So it actually learned the behavior with AIs and building tool, right? And we've been doing it for the last many years without really calling it AI, right? Let's say for example, every of the merchants, did you get the reports, monthly reports of all their transactions, what time, what day people comes, how where has gone out, how's the different outlets, how's the reviews at different outlets and everything. All these reports for all merchants, 30,000, 40,000 of them,
00:26:40
Speaker
are all generated AI, not done by human beings. It's auto-created and autos published for them, right? For them to review. So it's actually quite interesting, right? If you look at this, it's today, a lot of things is actually already in that world. It's just that it was not branded as AI back then, right? To think of it. Back then, it's just like automated reporting, right?
00:27:06
Speaker
But if you think on it, the slides are all written, not by human already. And this world is going to come in, right? So if you think on it now today, when you think of doing retention, how do you be able to drive it? And I think that as we talk about all this technology, there's still a huge leap to pull through the rest of the country or the rest of the world as well, right? Yes, in the major areas, a lot of these are default people on it.
00:27:34
Speaker
But there's still a lot of private countries where people are still using cash. There's still a lot of private communities that people still don't believe or don't dare to try. So I think how do we move that and build that process?
00:27:49
Speaker
Interesting. What you inspire me to think about it as, well, for example, certain times cashback or any other promotion tool, right? Everyone seems to know, yeah, I know about the tool, but actually to think deeper into, as a consumer, we are so easily, we just take, see the value and see the period, right?
00:28:08
Speaker
But what you inspire me is that actually there's a lot of thinking behind what value to put that makes sense so that people go through that funnel to keep on using the cashback and also the period that makes sense for the nature of the product. And just like you mentioned, but in order to do that, we need to understand the consumer mindset. Is there any techniques that you can share with us on techniques you use to understand consumer mindset or your team use?
00:28:37
Speaker
Hmm. So I think that the understanding consume my sets. I think one is that I think definitely data, right? Which area people repeat how frequently, why people like how often they repeat, they don't repeat, re-spend more, don't spend more by demographics as well. Right. Because let's say even if there are retails. Right. It's for sometimes people that pay may not be people that using it. Right. So.
00:29:04
Speaker
So even like maybe one example, right? It's like even for one of the women lingerie shops, most of the buyers are female. Yes. Right. So here's quite interesting, right? And it's actually by a certain segments and whatnot, right? So by each group and they're like, that's how that segment connect through as well, right? So, so I think it's using data give you a sense. So let's say example, cash back.
00:29:32
Speaker
If your shop is already full at lunchtime, always lunchtime pack no place to sit. Don't give cash back at lunchtime. But a lot of these shops, the same shop at 1pm you have no seats, at 2.30pm the shop is 90% empty. Why don't you do some cash back at 2.30pm?
00:29:54
Speaker
to bring some of the cost-conscious crowd and those have a little bit of flexi time that we would then eat their lunch later or earlier. Let's say you say like your big crowd is chopped to two
00:30:08
Speaker
To drive it, you give a decent amount of cash back after Optip testing, optimize it, 11 to 2, 11 to 12, and 2 to 3. Then you basically now instead have a two hour full pack lunch crowd, now you have four hours of pack lunch crowd with the first hour and last hour has a bit more, the rewards, right? The same getting as flip the other way. Some places they are office area, weekends is empty.
00:30:36
Speaker
Right? The area has not much people or food the other way. Shopping malls that is crowded on weekends, every day is empty. How do you drive that? Or even Ramadan? We all know in the industry that week two, week three of Ramadan is the time where people go out and eat buffet. The first three, four days and the last three, four days, usually people don't eat Ramadan buffet. Most of the time people spend with families.
00:31:02
Speaker
So by knowing insights through data, you know how to price it. How do you move to certain segments to drive it, right? And sometimes also it's demographics, like let's say Aquarius or the Kiao Towers. Foreign tourists will go there, no question. They don't need any motivation. But for them to get it sustained, they might want local tourists. So then how do you target that? So a lot of it is also secbertized and understanding
00:31:29
Speaker
the numbers, right? So let's say example, for certain else, they are buffet breakfast, like it or not, they are ready to serve. But today, because at a certain price range, people won't go. Is there a price range that you can do to drive more people to go in? Because after all the food is there, there's a lot of sun costs, right? If you look at beauty, wellness, the same thing, there's a lot of sun costs. Things has already opened. How do you drive it?
00:31:55
Speaker
drinks as almost expiring, food as almost expiring, how do you do it? I think traditionally people have been doing that, right? And at what time, if you look at it, think of data in the airline industry or hotel industry, it has been there for quite some time. You know that every time we went to sit on a plane, the person left of you, right of you, paid maybe more than you or less than you. If you go to hotel, the person left of you, right of you, maybe more or less than you. It's not the same price,
00:32:25
Speaker
A crossbar, if you do right-hailing your book across, three different bill booking at the same time, you might have different price based on certain behavior. Let's say one of the common marketing things that people know, many platforms do it. If you use the iPhone, you are quite rich, trust you more.
00:32:43
Speaker
That's a typical, right? I think that a lot of e-commerce does that. Of course there's a level one basic fundamentals, but it builds, right? I think that people go through today. If you were looking at the airline price three times, open, close, check, close. The best logic is increase the price slightly. You get penny, you buy straight away. Right. So there is a lot of those logics that has been done today to using data to maximize optimize and bow into the right, right.
Key Metrics and AI in Marketing Success
00:33:12
Speaker
Play right. Yeah.
00:33:14
Speaker
Gotcha, and so we talk a lot about, just now we talk about growing user base, we talk about retention. What are the key metrics you use to define success in marketing from your perspective? Yeah, so I think for me is that a lot of time is that there is an input and maybe I will put it as a
00:33:36
Speaker
output, right? So I think if you think on it, what's the output? Output maybe is the installations or what we call monthly active customers or new customers, paying people or maybe active users. So those are our brand new output, right? But then the input is at what point each of the funnels you build through, right? And I will say that for some of that you pull the data, track it,
00:33:59
Speaker
and let it be. You don't look at it maybe every single day. And some of it you go super deep. And in the end it's where is the problem, where you deep dive. And where is like you scan through, make sure nothing breaks.
00:34:10
Speaker
So I think that there's a lot of arts and science balancing between the two, right? In terms of, and plus, every business is very different as well. So I won't say it's a one-size-fits-all and say every business do have all these things. It doesn't work that way, right? So let's say an example from Web and App. For us, people that will buy a voucher,
00:34:34
Speaker
is actually more cost effective to sell them on the web. But after they set pay on the web, we will tell them that the only way to redeem is download the app. The cost to get this person to download the app is actually free now. Because the bill has paid for the voucher, the only way to do is download the app to use it. So there's no more cost to get it.
00:34:54
Speaker
right? Because there's only way to redeem it, right? So it is through some play, right? And that you have to sort of like understanding the nuances on it, right? So let's say thing of even data back then, this was five or a few years ago, when in George JB, right? We were looking at it like, why some of the places the Singaporeans don't, that doesn't use?
00:35:22
Speaker
the transactions. And after all, we found the biggest problem they had is the place doesn't offer a wifi. They don't use because they have no internet. And that was a problem. Right. And that can be an easier solve if we know it. So a lot of time is that why certain things that doesn't happen or maybe certain area now is better back then. Certain LG floor basement one, the internet doesn't work there. So people can't pick.
00:35:47
Speaker
I think this problem in this last two, three, four years, I think it's mostly soft. If you look at earlier years, then there's a lot of this problem, right? And I think things will evolve as we go along as well. All right, let's say back then where we were doing the key fit business.
00:36:01
Speaker
Right? The biggest acquisition segment was people that changed their relationship status on Facebook. Those days, people still changed their status. Single in a relationship to engage. I can remember those days. Yeah. And that was our target audience. The moment you change, all the ads go there.
00:36:23
Speaker
Right? Single to interrelationship. So now we'll say, you talk to them and say, okay, now you're in a relationship. So go and exercise together, have fun together. If you break up, then you'll say, okay, go out and have fun with new people. So the messaging can then tie to that. So in the end, we'll look at marketing, right? Is, in the end, are you talking to the people? We are all consumers as well, right? We are bombarded by unlimited marketing out there.
00:36:50
Speaker
So a lot of times, even as a marketer, ask yourself why you respond to certain things, why you don't respond to most of the things. For those that you respond yourself, why you respond? And a lot of them observe, if you put a part of a sales material in front of shops, be there, stand there, or go around there and see how people react to those.
00:37:15
Speaker
Let's say you look at people's screen, moving mouse screens or using their fingers and their phone. Where do they look at it? Where do they spend time? Where do they don't spend time? Where do they scroll through? Where do they keep track? So I think a lot of nuances in that, in terms of that. So there'll be the objective part and the subjective part, and then you are tied to both.
00:37:37
Speaker
What is your view? How would generative AI and the trend that we are seeing, how AI going into the mass market change marketing? Yeah, so I think that today, I think what it would change certain things and you will not change certain things. You know, start from not changing, right? I think in the end, as you do marketing, you still need to talk to the audience. You still need to capture the buy-in from the audience.
00:38:02
Speaker
Right? So the audit, whether you want to do drive acquisition, people to download the app, people to sign up, register, people to pay for something. So that's acquisition, right? Or retention, people continue to come back. So I think that AI auditors can drive that process a bit, but what doesn't change is you still need to win over the customer, the consumer, right? Maybe the process tax is a bit easier.
00:38:27
Speaker
but the consumers still make that choice in one way or another, right? So whether it's one-off choice that they repeated, or it's a conscious choice along the way, but there's some choices to be made at a human being level. So I think that is still not changed. But I think why all this AI has
00:38:44
Speaker
evolve and transform is that it enables us to understand people, right? So let's say today you can basically train up all this generative AI, right? By basically saying, okay, I have this demographics, this before art, this behavior, this other, they reply with us this or whatnot. And how do we do it, right? If I want to have this rough messaging, what are the few drafts that we can do
00:39:07
Speaker
what are the few images that we can recreate that within seconds, right? It's hours or days or weeks, right? So I think that it cut short a lot of it, make us enable us to test, but it does not take away that it still need to win over the high off consumer.
00:39:22
Speaker
So I think that's sort of where it is. And I think that today in terms of you look at a prom engineering, learning how to write prom, it's become super crucial, right? The same topic, same questions given to same five people asking slightly differently will get very different answer. And I think today that's the evolving, right? How do you be able to do it? And there'll be things that we get disrupted.
00:39:47
Speaker
there will be things that will be enhanced. So I think as everyone looking into this is how do you be able to write this and then go beyond?
00:39:58
Speaker
Gotcha. And so that's my next question. If I were to ask you like as a marketer, what are the one to three things that you believe at a marketer today should write on this wave in order to actually get a hit on it instead of the competitors actually getting a hit of it?
00:40:18
Speaker
Good question. I think as a marketer, I think one is that be very familiar with all the new tools. Your competitors are going to have these tools. Your competitors are going to use these tools, whether you like it or not. So I think it's be familiar, try it, learn it, and really learn, unlearn, relearn, and to really optimize it, right? Exchange notes, don't be scared of it.
00:40:40
Speaker
try it and find out what would work. I think in the end, knowing your end objective, leveraging it. Let's say you have a demographics segment, or you have objection handling. All those with this stuff can be created, can be replied, built on, and you train it up. So I think that you basically know of someone that was
00:41:02
Speaker
doing the SEO, right? And they were using this chat GPT to train up so that they can learn all the things, newer things, and then that got enhanced into their codes, right? So a lot of these things can be leveraged, right? So let's say example right now, if I think of, okay, I want to target this segment, is it relevant segment or not? How big is the segment? What should I try to convince a skeptic of that segment?
00:41:30
Speaker
Right. So all this, you now have a easy tool within seconds or minutes to be able to create. And I think that there are more and more newer software as well, right? New tools that's built upon all these things as well. Right. Let's say today you can create slides within seconds. You can do many, many things, right? Across board, right? Today, even with video, many of the videos are
00:41:55
Speaker
automatically generated, right? And you basically feel similar, right? So I think that that will come in. So I think that if you think on it, one is embrace it, learn it, adapt to it, right? And build on. And I think the second one is that the fundamentals are still key.
00:42:14
Speaker
No matter what the tools and everything, the fundamentals are still there. You can't get away without fundamentals. It's just that now with this, the way to approach the fundamentals may be slightly different. Right? So think of a good old days, right? Back then when the old old days are parent generations, they only had billboards, TV, and radio.
00:42:38
Speaker
In the last 10-20 years, we have a flurry of online work that started created. And in between, there's maybe a bit of metaverse and whatnot start coming in into the picture. But if you think on it, it's just the medium that shifted, right? If you're old enough in a good oldest chatting, you start from IRC, then ICQ, AOL, then MSN, Yahoo Messenger, then you go on
00:43:04
Speaker
Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and all those things, right? So, and then TikTok World, and now Lemonade and all those things, right? So the world shift with the tools and everything.
00:43:14
Speaker
but the fundamentals doesn't shift, right? People still need to communicate. The same thing in marketing. You still need to convince people to say, so think of it, there are multiple theories of marketing, right? But everything on it is, again, is awareness, acceptance, and then after that, people go and activations, right? So I think in some form of that, you still need to go through that. Do people are aware of your things? After they're aware, do they know what you're doing?
00:43:40
Speaker
If they know what you're doing, do they think that that's relevant to them? Is it useful to them? And if they pass through this space, do they think that they should take the efforts to go in to get this, and are they willing to pay for it?
Blending Data with Creativity in Marketing
00:43:54
Speaker
If you think on it, it's roughly this, irrespective of the medium.
00:43:58
Speaker
It's just how you do it. Maybe the how you do it in each of the stats may be slightly different, but the fundamental doesn't change. Do you answer some of those questions? And then if you go deeper on retention, the same thing. People are using whatever they provide in whichever world. And after they use it, do they think they want to use it?
00:44:20
Speaker
Do they feel good enough that they will repeat it? Would they want to continue paying for it? Would they want to get on a subscription where they pay every month continuously? Or would they want to pay ad hoc? Or maybe no, they are not going to do it anymore.
00:44:34
Speaker
Would they go out and tell or refer to others? And this is telling others, so there are multiple things, right? One is saying that, okay, I just use it. I'm not going to tell anyone. I'm just okay. The other one is, and you're going to tell others, there are a few ways. One is that if you ask them to tell and they will tell.
00:44:51
Speaker
whether positive or negative. Or the other one is you don't even need them to tell and they will go and tell people everywhere and it would go all up and go do it, right? So I think in the end is that psychological, right? Why people do this? Why? So you would think on it, there are many of the things that people do it that it may not make sense logically, but people do it willingly.
00:45:13
Speaker
So how do you get to that mode that people will then refer your things, right? Go out there and tell people that you should do this and encourage people even though you don't incentivize them, right? And of course, there's a sort of forbidden fruit, right? Where people don't do it, people do it, right? So there's also that breaking rights and everything, right?
00:45:33
Speaker
And even now it's across generations, right? So I think as you deal with your consumers or the target audience, there's also a different segment. There's a segment that maybe many of you are familiar, the digital native, the people that grew up with technology. But as you go down this path, there are also many people that still feels a bit scared to use many things on digital work, right?
00:45:59
Speaker
So how do you win over that? Is that your segment or not your segment? If that's a segment, how do you convey to them? How do you give them confidence that they won't screw it up? Think of your parents, grandparents, uncles, and everything, right? How do you make them confident to do online banking? How do you make them confident to put in their credit card details? How do you make sure that they don't get scammed after that?
00:46:25
Speaker
Because the scammers are getting smarter as well, right? Oh, yes. They also have chat GPT. Yes. They have everything. So whatever you have, they have it. How do you make sure that they... So it's a balancing as well, right? How do you pull someone in and yet give assurance, right? So if you think on it, there is multiple dimensional there.
00:46:44
Speaker
Gacha, I really like your examples to illustrate how you pick a certain scenario and go narrow enough in order to find a talking point by using data. So now we're actually going to wrap up. We're going into lightning round. I have three quick questions for you. So first question is, what advice would you give to someone who is interested in pursuing a career in marketing?
00:47:09
Speaker
Yeah. So I think that you care about, if you think of marketing, right, is that you care about getting people to get on something or get care about people to continue using something or care about people to tell others about something or care about people to spend more on something. I think the fundamentals are those few things, right? So you, do you care deeply about this or not? The methods and style will change today. Maybe it's this medium.
00:47:35
Speaker
Five years later, it will be different mediums, 10 years later, it will be different. There'll be different segments. Do you care about different segments? All these details, right? And it's balancing between data, creativity, and testings. It's a unit all free at different blend, right? Full data alone, no observation, doesn't work. All observations have no data, like it can't work as well.
00:47:59
Speaker
And if you have all this data and everything, but you're not creatively talking to people, it is about empathy. People care about it when people know that you care about them. So I think that's maybe that, right? So I think that will be sort of how I look at it. Nice. Question number two, what is the one marketing book or resources that you would recommend?
00:48:21
Speaker
Hmm. So the, I think good question, right? So I think for me, this, this, I think instead of reading books, I think is a lot of the articles and everything, but I think that now I would actually recommend, but we are the, but not Google.com.
00:48:37
Speaker
Anything that you have in mind and thoughts, let's go and talk about it. I spent quite a lot of time talking to Bhat these days, asking that Bhat to do everything for me, right? And when the company announced their quarterly earnings, analyze for me. When the exchange rate goes up, goes down, ask about what happened. US debt ceiling, Bhat does a summary for me every day and tell me what happens, why not, right? Why this person says so, why this person do that? So I'm talking to Bhat every day, right? So I think that the
00:49:04
Speaker
And if you think of any marketing things, you can go on that, right? And pick it up through the, I mean, that's just one, but I think is go out there and pick the medium that you learn the best. It could be video. It could be audio. It could be reading. It could be through talking. It could be through short form, long form, and all different ways. Could be through trial error. Could be through instruction, formal instruction. No, not wrong.
00:49:35
Speaker
speak the way that you learn best and go on it. So for our listeners who want to follow and connect with you, what's the best way to do so?
00:49:44
Speaker
Yeah, so I think feel free to ping me on LinkedIn. I think that's best. Of course, don't sell me things. I know that I'm not in a marketing data related sessions, but I do get a lot of spam messages and people try to sell, so don't sell me. If you try to sell to me, I'm not going to respond on it. So I think that's maybe one, right? And I think that the, and I think even if you try to sell something to anyone,
00:50:10
Speaker
you like be contextual right and find a way to relate because all else it's just spam right so I think that the the so I think that's maybe the best way to reach out and of course if you are in KL or whatnot I think that a lot of events that were not sometimes I'm there so feel free to say hi and whatnot yeah
00:50:31
Speaker
Yes, and we will use the lessons that you tell, you know, using data to understand you, to talk to you instead of just selling to you. Thank you so much for being here, Chen Chao. Thank you so much for listening.
Podcast Conclusion and Call to Action
00:50:44
Speaker
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00:50:50
Speaker
Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving us a review because this really can help other listeners to find the podcasts. You can find all the episodes or learn more about this podcast at was.ai. See you in the next episode.