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Marketing to Gen-Z in Fintech : Driving successful campaign & building organic social growth by 200%
56 Plays1 year ago
Hosted by Julie from Vase.ai Market Research. In this episode, we speak with Jia Nina (BigPay Country Marketing Head) about her experience leading a successful e-wallet campaign targeting Gen Z consumers.
Jia Nina shares:
- How she uses data and storytelling to drive growth and customer engagement. For example, how she used data to identify the pain points and needs of the target segments, and how she crafted stories that resonated with them and showcased the value proposition of BigPay.
- Some of the most effective marketing strategies and campaigns that she has led or participated in at BigPay, such as the ePemula project with the Ministry of Finance Malaysia, the expansion into the Singapore market, and the launch of the crypto exchange.
- How she aligns her team and stakeholders around a common vision and goal, and how she measures success using metrics such as brand sentiment, brand share, acquisition and retention.
Listen to the full episode to learn more about Jia Nina’s career journey from legal to marketing, and her advice and recommendations for aspiring or seasoned marketers who want to excel in their field.
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Transcript
Growth in Social Media Channels
00:00:01
Speaker
to other marketers out there. I wasn't a social media expert per se, but I had the skill set and the framework that I've learned from previous jobs and previous roles. And to date, I think one of my biggest achievements that I'm still very proud of is that we grew our social channels by 200% organically. What that tells you in a marketing peripheral and grand scheme of things is that customers were engaging with us and we found a winning formula to talk to our customers, right?
Podcast Overview: Winning with Data-Driven Marketing
00:00:33
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.
00:00:55
Speaker
We bring you real case studies while giving you background on how these leaders built their career to where they are today. We'll bring you to our speakers shortly after a quick word from our sponsor.
Promo and Introduction of AI Research Platform
00:01:09
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.
00:01:36
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
Meet Jan Nina from BigPay
00:01:52
Speaker
the show. So, today joining me is Jan Nina, country marketing head of BigPay. Nina has extensive experience in digital marketing, customer acquisition, and retention.
00:02:02
Speaker
At BigPay, she has led high-impact projects that include working with the Malaysia government to increase financial inclusion for low income groups. She has also built strategy partnerships with mega brands such as AirAsia, Sharpie, Zalara. She is very passionate about creating marketing strategies that drive growth and increase customer engagement.
00:02:24
Speaker
Thank you for joining us today. Welcome, Nina. Hi, Julie. First of all, thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here, to be having this conversation today. I'm very excited. Me, certainly.
Career Shift from Law to Marketing
00:02:37
Speaker
Nina, when I look at your LinkedIn right, one thing definitely stood out to me. You graduated with a legal degree.
00:02:44
Speaker
But in all your career choices, you seem to know marketing is the exact place you want to be. Now, it's not frequent to see a switch, but such a consistent switch. So I would love if you can tell us, you know, take us back to your career starting point and share with us, how do you get to where you are today? I knew this question was going to come up because this is something that I get asked very frequently in person, you know, at events and whatnot. But yeah, you know, I think
00:03:13
Speaker
Honestly, I always knew I was going to be a lawyer. I never knew I was going to be a marketer. And that's my most honest answer that I'll give you. You know, when you were a kid, you know, everyone has to fill in your report cards and there's three options of your career, what you wanted to do.
00:03:31
Speaker
And lawyer was always in the mix, right?
Curiosity and Experimentation in Marketing
00:03:35
Speaker
Growing up in an Asian household, it meant lawyer, engineer, doctor. That was not imposed on me just to clarify. It was something that I knew I wanted to. And I had just had this really deep, strong conviction and leaning into a career in legal. And it was because I couldn't stop talking as a kid. I was very talkative as well. And my parents were always like, you know, you probably should be the next Ellie McBeal or consider a career in Boston public or whatnot.
00:04:01
Speaker
And I think for me it was just so, it's also quite bizarre because I never saw myself in a marketing career to be honest. And so what had actually sparked that or kind of propelled me into that trajectory essentially is I think curiosity. I have always been a curious child to begin with. I always want to know what's on the other side of the point. I hope
00:04:26
Speaker
challenge precepts and concepts, right? And I think for me is also being at the forefront, liking to experiment a lot. And I think those are naturally essentially DNA of marketers, right? Experimenting curiosity, having the room to sort of play around a little bit more. And I think my
00:04:48
Speaker
interests in tech-based companies land in this kind of industries where it changes a lot. I think the interest was always there. And as I grew up and grew into my own element, I had opportunities that propelled me and which eventually landed me there. So it was taking a risk essentially.
Transition from Legal to Corporate Communications
00:05:05
Speaker
Having a strong conviction and knowing your personality type, you can take multiple personality tests, by the way, to kind of figure these things out. And having that unique experiences to experiment, to test, and to be in the frontline of game-changing industries, that all spelled marketing for me. And so when I went into the field, I fell in love with the process and I stayed there.
00:05:30
Speaker
Nice. Awesome. I definitely see that in order to be a successful marketer, the willingness to experiment and the
00:05:42
Speaker
The long-lasting curiosity is so important because it keeps changing. It does. It really does. And I think just to elaborate a little bit more, maybe just to give you a vantage point in terms of how I started exactly from legal and then pivoted into marketing per se, I started out on legal. And legal is a very, very niche, a very specific skill set.
00:06:02
Speaker
And 90% of my batchmates actually have left the industry. There are about 10% of them actually practicing. And when we have these little reunions, I think the common connotation that I hear from my ex-classmates are that, you know, you're one of the lucky ones that had such a strong conviction and knew that you were going to pivot. And the fact that we're outside of the standpoint looking at you and your trajectory is that
00:06:27
Speaker
It seems like you make a decision that paid off. How did you know you wanted to venture out? And legal into marketing is a huge switch. And I had no theoretical education in marketing and whatnot. It was a learn on the job kind of situation and it was a paid education, I would call it.
Marketing in Tech and Fintech Sectors
00:06:44
Speaker
So I think for me, how it started is literally someone took a chance on me and gave me an opportunity in a corporate communications role first.
00:06:53
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And I said yes without hesitating because to me, what was the worst that could happen? If this didn't pan out in one to two years, I could always go back to legal. I could just pay the nominal fee and still be a barrister and go back to practice. And yeah, there's always going to be it. But the opportunity to venture out and somebody seeing the potential or even
00:07:18
Speaker
you know, prompting and nudging me in that direction was very rare and was a very good opportunity, which I'm glad I said yes to. And that opened the doors to from experimenting, you know, learning everything in marketing, PR, crisis communications.
00:07:32
Speaker
ATL, BTL efforts, digital marketing, social media, everything under your marketing umbrella. I've learned it, I've done it. And I think that was sort of the best decision and learnings that came with. And so that gave me an opportunity to sort of, you know.
00:07:50
Speaker
propel into tech companies. So when I learned all these skills in my first role in corporate communications, that was a publication arm. That then propelled me into tech companies like video games and then eventually now I'm fintechs. So in video games, right, I think the core of being a marketer and in startup environments is you're always put in a situation of David and Goliath.
00:08:11
Speaker
And so the people who don't know this story, David is the smaller player. He doesn't have much, you know, he doesn't have an armor. He can't even wear it. It's heavy. And Goliath is like this giant that comes in, you know, with strength and armor and he's equipped and he looks like he's going to win it in two seconds.
00:08:29
Speaker
And so when you as a marketer go into industries that are in the front line of changing and you're competing for attention, you're competing for skin in the game, Yogi, brand share. And how do you tell a business storytelling and get so much skin in the market and so much brand share value and whatnot? You have to be like David. And so that allowed me the David skill sets of being agile, speed to market, and being very strategic in shots.
00:08:58
Speaker
Um, and that is essentially the core and essence of being a marketeer. And that those are things that I learned, um, being in a FinTech company, being in a games company. And, um, you know, essentially it grew and exponentially, you know, it's all the learning code that is, has come to this date. And, um, and then I landed a role in big pay.
00:09:18
Speaker
So with BigPay, it didn't look one-to-one, by the way. When I didn't like go in there and get my ideal dream job, you know, I got everything. Sometimes opportunity comes to you in disguise and they are not one-to-one 100%. But you've got to say yes and take that leap of faith and co-write it out,
Building Strategies at BigPay
00:09:37
Speaker
right? So I started as a social media campaigns manager. So I did all of the things and a relearning like crisis communication. How do we put a product announcement out? How do we build a go-to marketing plan in FinTech?
00:09:48
Speaker
especially when there's regulation by Peg Nagara central bank. So it's some of the parameters in protocol. And for me, I think to other marketers out there, I wasn't a social media expert per se, but I had the skillset and the framework that I've learned from previous jobs and previous roles. And to date, I think one of my biggest achievements that I'm still very proud of is that we grew our social channels by 200% organically.
00:10:15
Speaker
What that tells you in a marketing peripheral and grand scheme of things is that customers were engaging with us and we found a winning formula to talk to our customers. And for me, from that role, I then identified other opportunities, whether it was in partnerships,
00:10:32
Speaker
Um, and I, you know, I propel myself and put myself to do the things that was unglamorous and nobody wanted to do. And I did, I built a lot of things from scratch. And so when you pair up all of these experiences from social media and campaigns, from a partnership standpoint, you learn the art of managing internal external. So internal would be your cross-pollination, whether it's working with your risk team, your compliance team, your operations and product.
00:10:56
Speaker
You know, and externally it's managing your vendors, your partners, your stakeholders, and you bring it all together. That's landed me in the exact role that I sit today because I literally have a bird's eye view and so much experience, you know, together. Um, and you, you sort of like, you look at the business and you're like, okay, so now here's where I sit. This is where the business is going to, and this is what the business needs. And this is how I make a decision and this is how we propel and we continue to grow in the market.
00:11:26
Speaker
This is definitely inspiring, especially for marketers who actually sometimes start at a place that they don't know how to do. But it also shows that when you're willing to learn and really put in all the effort, you will actually grow to a place that they want to be. And talking about pick pay, I actually wanted to focus on your role there.
Storytelling and Data in Marketing Strategies
00:11:45
Speaker
So you touch on so many different marketing stuff just now.
00:11:49
Speaker
And I think in big pay alone, you actually touch on a lot of different elements. So what are some of the most effective marketing strategies that you have used? So marketing strategies in relation to growth or campaigns or let's start with growth.
00:12:07
Speaker
Okay, so I think marketing strategies, it really, really looks at what your objective is, right? So if this is, for example, a mission for more awareness campaign, right? You're looking at an acquisition, brand awareness and acquisition, you would be looking at an ATL kind of effort. And ATL efforts obviously would look at, you look at your business,
00:12:33
Speaker
metrics, your goals, and you look at your campaigns and your strategies at hand. And then obviously you also look at research and data, and then you build a go-to-market plan. And it's also very important because for ATL kinds of strategies, they are generally a broader, a larger net, right? You're casting a wider net,
00:12:55
Speaker
You're not doing very, very niche targeted conversions. You're doing much more of like, Hey, look at me or look at us. We are here in the market and we've got a great product that we think could be good enough added value to you or who could benefit you. Right? So these are USPs and these are stuff.
00:13:13
Speaker
And I think the most important part is to not do it like a salesman, but it's to do it with a very, very tinge of, I think, the added touch, magic touch of storytelling. Because as a marketer, essentially, the key secret sauce is to be able to tell stories and relate to your customers in a very emotional sense. Because believe it or not, especially for us as a fintech player, people say that money is a very logical thing. Personally, I disagree. I think it's actually very, very emotional.
00:13:43
Speaker
So knowing how to relate, tell a story that makes your audience go, Oh yeah, shit. Like, you know, that's, that's something that I really relate to. And that really, that really hit the spot, right? Because that's, that's literally what I'm going through. Or that's a product that I feel like could actually help solve.
00:13:58
Speaker
And so when you marry all of this together, knowing a very clear objective, having your data sets in point, building the right strategies and knowing what you want to hit the nail and having a very clear defined outcome is what I would say is a secret, I mean, a strategic success to marketing campaigns and efforts. You mentioned storytelling as a very important tool.
00:14:24
Speaker
Ultimately, we buy things through emotional context, but we rationalize it with our brain. There's obviously different people in the room making decisions about what storytelling is good, what resonates with people. Is there a framework you have or some gut feeling or heuristic that you use to kind of decide, okay, this storytelling angle is good?
00:14:45
Speaker
So number one, I think sharing the metrics across, sharing your vision and doing the lobbying, the buy-in process is very, very important. And as a marketeer, it means you need to have relationships across various departments. It does not mean you only market certain things to your audience or you only have relationships within your own division, right? So it means you need to have an understanding
00:15:11
Speaker
in terms of the vision that you're going to drive, the campaign you're going to drive. We're going to tell this story and we're going to go with this positioning. You're going to have to justify and get the buy-ins from various product owners or tech developers and say, we feel that this is the right product mission. This is the right product fit to go to the market, and this is a mission that we're going to drive. Therefore, we're going to say we're going to empower users with financial access and financial literacy, for example.
00:15:41
Speaker
And these guys are going to go, yeah, okay, but can you elaborate? Why are you saying that? And yeah, great. We've got a couple of suite of products that we think that are good for this cohort. Can you justify why you think that, you know, this is what we need to focus on. Then comes in data earlier that I mentioned, right?
00:15:57
Speaker
And you tell them like, Hey, we're looking at, you know, just, you know, the last quarter, there's just been an influx of a lot of people in gig economy that needs financial access. And right. And we think that this product can really, really elevate, um, how they receive salaries or how they receive payments and, and, and just the ease of access as they move around. Got it. Thank you for sharing. Is there like a case study that you can also
Collaboration with Ministry of Finance Malaysia
00:16:20
Speaker
share with us? I didn't grow of editing campaign, uh, that can also describe some of the effective marketing strategy that we have used before.
00:16:27
Speaker
Okay, this is a very, very interesting question. So I definitely have one top of mind that I know I'm very excited to walk you through. And I think this was the project with the Ministry of Finance Malaysia, right? So this was a project that was called Iipamula, and knowing very clearly
00:16:48
Speaker
what we wanted to do to win in the market. So you had to be selected as a player, as an e-wallet by the Ministry of Finance Malaysia to distribute cash distribution to up to 2 million youths, which is the Gen Z market. And in the height of it, we were in an endemic state, so we were still driving the digital payments and the cashless payments narrative.
00:17:13
Speaker
with this, it was a very tall order because you're looking at a sizable base of 2 million youths, right? And how are you going to talk to all 2 million youths? And how are you going to convince 2 million youths that you are the choice, the top of my choice? And so when we got this, it was a very tall order, but I think the
00:17:29
Speaker
The team just really got down to work very quickly. I think we were all wearing our David hats and we were like, okay, it's Goliath's coming. And we were ready to take it on. And I think that's what I love most about this experience. So we immediately knew that first we identified the market and we were like, okay, so the sizable base of 2 million youths.
Targeting Gen Z with Lifestyle Marketing
00:17:51
Speaker
And we know that Gen Z lives on the internet, right?
00:17:53
Speaker
Where are they hanging out? They're on TikTok. They're on Instagram. Some of them are business owners. Some of them are very entrepreneuristic. And some of them even like things like cryptocurrency and investing at an early on, which is a very different generation from the millennials, the boomers and the Gen X, right?
00:18:11
Speaker
And we sort of knew if we were going to onboard and sort of be the winning, have a winning formula, we needed to speak in a language that they understand. So first, your tone of voice in terms of talking to a Gen Z has to be very relatable. That was bursting top of mind that we decided we were going to do. We were not going to look like dinosaurs in a room, convincing Gen Z's to come onboard and use a product that was outdated. It was very lifestyle driven and it was very, very fit in terms of the market. So that was one.
00:18:40
Speaker
Number two, learning when we put the go-to marketing strategy together, we knew that we had to look through that data and we had to see like, okay, what was your behavior and your consumer spend like? Where were they hanging out and what were they spending on and what were they thrifting on? And what are missed opportunities and what are things that we can offer them?
00:19:01
Speaker
And so we very quickly found out that, you know, um, in data points and research, Gen Z's are unlikely to like millennials. Millennials has this rush and tendency to, I need to buy a house. I need to buy a car. Whereas the Gen Z's are like, yeah, maybe I could rent for a bit, you know, if it, so that I don't need the stress of, you know, purchasing a home first, I would love to travel a little bit more, maybe live, you know, be a digital nomad for six months, experience and explore the world, um, learn more about investing. And then when I'm.
00:19:31
Speaker
I will come back to making such a huge commitment at a later point. Then we realized that lifestyle investments and having more financial strategies were things that were interesting to them, and they were more likely
00:19:46
Speaker
to use QR codes to scan. The ease of access of payments was very important to them. They don't like to waste time. Anything beyond a minute is slow, right? So we knew, okay, that was it. And the third thing is they are very, very incorporated into lifestyle brands. So fashion, travel, and leisure, and shopping F and B were very, very sentimental and very relatable touch points to the Gen Z market.
00:20:10
Speaker
And knowing all of this, we use all these data points to assemble a whole list of merchants, which was how we got AirAsia, we got Celora, we got Shari, and a lot of partners to come in to build
00:20:23
Speaker
Um, just a bundle kind of offer, um, which was the most competitive one in the market compared to the other true, uh, e-wallet players. And what that told us is we had a theory, we validated it with, with, with data and we did our whole work and we did our, our MPS, you know, we were asking questions. We were communicating with our audience and asking like, what do you prefer? What brands would you like to see, you know, is this lucrative, um, you know, offer for you?
00:20:50
Speaker
And with all of these conversational two-way conversations, we were able to win so many people over. And that translates it into an acquisition play in terms of how many people signed up to BigPay and actually got the wallet during that campaign timeline. And we were also notably the choice's favorite.
00:21:12
Speaker
Because we got organic brand love from, you know, whether it is from social media, whether it is from advocacy on forums, you could just see it flying around. And I think organic PR as well was a very, very good track metrics that we saw. And we didn't pay for those things. And we were getting a lot of brand love. We were getting a lot of customers' advocacy naturally over organic skill.
00:21:35
Speaker
And I think for me, you know, just looking at this and the numbers that translated after that, and in terms of how it continued into customers continuously adopting the product was for me a success. And this was a very, very good example at a very, very high impact campaign for us. Wow. You mentioned a lot of, a lot of parts that you actually leverage data points. Yeah. About res and zing hangout.
00:22:05
Speaker
Um, you know, what kind of brand they probably resonate with. And that helps to put together a render list that you will do strategic partnership with. Um, but I, I heard a lot of stories around people when, and the way you describe just now is like, you know, this is the insight that you can use, which is not a common thing for a lot of people who need to deal with data and research.
00:22:25
Speaker
So I'm curious, when you are trying to look for this kind of data points, what are the biggest challenge you face? And how do you overcome that? First, you have to know what you're looking for.
Utilizing Data for Effective Marketing
00:22:36
Speaker
Right? A lot of people look at data and they come through a bunch of data.
00:22:40
Speaker
they don't know exactly the parameters of what they're looking for. So you could be looking for a needle in haystack, or you could be looking for the right data, wrong project, not knowing how to marry it. And I think in data as well, data alone, it tells you a story if you're willing to connect it.
00:22:58
Speaker
So the biggest challenge in itself is that data presents a lot of opportunities, but you need to put specific parameters around it so that you can connect the dots and align it to your opportunities and the goals that you really want to do.
00:23:13
Speaker
Be clear of your campaign objectives. If this is an acquisition play or this is a retention play or this is a conversion play, first align that and then look at the data in terms of your customers and then build the parameters around and centric to your campaign so that you don't get frustrated when you don't see things happen and that you are eliminating as much possible errors that are going to factor and affect your campaign and your efficacies.
00:23:39
Speaker
And then eventually, I think set very precise targeting and parameters with data. So if you're looking to do, for example, like a conversion play, I would say, okay, I'm planning to convert this customer to buy another product, to be a frequent user of another product. But if I am targeting a customer only who has predominantly
00:24:07
Speaker
been inactive. And I'm targeting a cross-sell in terms of a very highly active engaging campaign. It's a little bit of a mismatch. And I'll give you an example of that. For example, me as a payments platform, I noticed that my customer has stored their card on file and they have enabled ID metrics. So what it tells me is that this customer likes convenience and this customer does not want to go through the hassle of
00:24:34
Speaker
inputting their cart numbers or their information, they preferred a seamless experience and less friction as possible. Now, onto the next point, me as a business, knowing this and knowing that this customer usually traditionally spends more on high ticket items. Now, as a business, I would say, okay, most of the transactions have gone true and it doesn't look like this person has a problem with purchasing.
00:24:56
Speaker
As a business, I would then offer this customer a premium product, right? Like, hey, maybe you are an all-time traveler and you spend this kind of 400 to 500 ringgit average. Now, what if you were to also buy insurance on your travel? What if you were also to buy a premium travel package that has a little bit more advantage to your customers? So pairing the right data and sort of pairing and knowing what to look for and putting the right parameters is very important.
00:25:26
Speaker
And just now, one of the data that you mentioned is MPS. So you diligently for that project, you keep actually keeping track of basically the MPS score. Now I've heard people say some, some articles say MPS is outdated. Okay. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm not serious on debates over here. What's your point of view? MPS.
00:25:49
Speaker
is not outdated, right? Because you have to understand it's just like marketing, right? Marketing transcends over time. We evolve. And that is always going to be the heart and secret sauce of the magic of being in this role.
Relevance of NPS Scores
00:26:03
Speaker
Now, MPSS work. And the reason why you don't work is probably you're not asking the right questions or the format is outdated.
00:26:10
Speaker
There are different ways that you can engage your customers and asking NPS. And I think this is still a practice that we do at BigPay, and it's proven very effective. And it's given us extra browning points, I guess, from customers because they felt
00:26:26
Speaker
They felt hurt and they felt that as a business, we are engaging them in a two-way conversation. And we're asking them, what are your preferences? What do you think about this? Is there something that we could improve or is there something that you particularly enjoy? And what is something that you would like to see as you continuously use our product in this line of service?
00:26:49
Speaker
So for me, it is always making sure you are asking questions in the right tone of voice, in the right format, and you making sure that you do it in a way that is most up to date, right? So once you have those things in place, I think it remains a very valuable tool to any business.
00:27:08
Speaker
Is there any examples that you potentially can share around what are the potential actions that you have actually taken based on the MPS findings? Okay. No, this is a great question. And yeah, absolutely.
00:27:24
Speaker
So I think marketing to different markets is very different. So how you would market in Malaysia versus how you would market to Singapore is very different. And when we were expanding big pay into the Singapore market, we had to relearn behaviors and we cannot assume that the data points that we had
00:27:42
Speaker
in the Malaysian market is going to apply across the board, right? Yes, everybody needs financial services. Yes, everybody wants to be a millionaire and everybody wants to have the best product, right? But the market behavior and maturity and receptiveness is completely different ballgame. So when we're in Singapore,
00:27:59
Speaker
We had to talk to as many people as possible in terms of what were their brand perception towards big pay, what did they like most upon the onboarding experiences, what we thought we could do better as a brand, and who they would like to see us collaborate with to give them a value-added offer to be competitive and to have the right USPs in the market.
Expanding BigPay into Singapore
00:28:23
Speaker
And upon discovery, we realized that certain brands, for example, like Shopback and Shopee were very top of mind brands. And because they had seen that synergy with us in Malaysia, we have very strong affiliation with these partners in Malaysia. So we were like, oh, okay, you know, now we have
00:28:39
Speaker
the right answers and looking at these data points and market and consumer demand and market and be like, okay, it makes sense to strike a synergy collaboration in these markets in Singapore and to talk to these counterparts. We also knew as a product,
00:28:55
Speaker
The demand for digital assets was so much more higher. So everyone's into the Web3 craze cryptocurrency. I will not get into the whole situation and what's happening in that market. That will be for another episode. That will be for another day. I would love to go about it, but this would have been a five hour conversation. So I think cryptocurrency, the transition into Web3 and so many people are now moving into ownership of digital assets.
00:29:24
Speaker
And with the Singapore market, there was just so much more of a higher appetite and they were already sort of educated investors. And knowing that that put cryptocurrency-able priority product in our roadmap as a business, we made that decision. There was a market demand for it. And every marketer knows this, right? You got to act on a timely manner.
00:29:47
Speaker
The moment you don't strike the iron when it's hot, you've lost the plot. And it's a missed opportunity, right? It's opportunity cost for you as a business. So we moved very quickly based on the data that we had from MPS. And that's exactly why we delivered our crypto exchange and we got our licensing and we basically rolled out in the market in our offerings Q3 last year. I want to shift a little bit into how would
00:30:14
Speaker
How do you define success in either marketing or as an organization and whether or not this has evolved all the time? Hmm. This is a very, very good question.
00:30:27
Speaker
Defining success. I think success is a very subjective thing, right? Success looks very different to you. It looks very different to me. It looks very different to my parents. But I think, you know, as an organization, I would tackle that one because we've spoken quite broadly and quite a lot in terms of marketing relations. But I would like to touch on it from an organization standpoint and I will tell you what's important later.
00:30:53
Speaker
having buy-ins on your marketing effort across the board and your campaigns on a 360 level and just having everyone have the same sense or maybe a certain percentage of advocacy and a sense of pride and ownership in terms of, you know,
00:31:14
Speaker
the campaigns is a success to me because essentially you have successfully evangelized the goal and the outcome and the process. And if it means you have successfully told a story, even within your organization, that they are now willing to be part of your campaign and campaign the messaging for you. So everyone has skin in the game.
00:31:39
Speaker
And I think successful marketing as an organization is also seeing the pride and joy of your employees, advocating a brand, having tied in with the mission of the product that you want to do, feeling a sense of belonging in terms of your DNA. And I think if they naturally would even refer it to their friends and family, the whole evangelism that comes from a very natural state without you having to poof,
00:32:07
Speaker
Uh, or for it is the winning, I mean, uh, the winning metric, I think it was, it's what determines success. Get people in the organizations involved. Everyone is going to come together and you're going to have a collective win. And I promise you from the experiences I've had four years in big pay, it's, it's so magical and it's, it's one of the best feelings ever because everybody wins and everybody is now geared for the success of this project. I have.
00:32:37
Speaker
a lot of things that I wanted to ask here. Because actually, this is exactly one of the questions that I want to ask just now because you bring a new win in Goliath two times, right? And when you are bringing that examples, the thing that came to my mind is now, you need a team to fight with Goliath, but you need an aligned team.
Team Alignment and Collaboration
00:33:02
Speaker
Especially when if you're a daily team, how do you align them? So you just not ask, you just not answer that question. So without me asking, which is you need to give a size of the pack. Can you give us a specific examples of like, how exactly do you do that? Hmm. And in a way that is genuine, right? I think people will sense that it is not, not really come from originally. So, so as I'm curious, how do you, how do you go about this?
00:33:28
Speaker
I think the first thing that people need to know and the first thing from personal experience is no matter what business you're in, you need to know that you're in the business of people, right? That's the first thing. And what I, where I'm going with that is you need to come in and know that you spend nine to five or the most time you're going to spend in the office, right? With your colleagues and they become like a second set of friends or family that you're going to have.
00:33:54
Speaker
Now, if you build relationships with these people around you, you understand what makes them tick and you understand their personal goals in philosophy. And you can never run a project or work in a company and be completely detached. I just don't believe in it.
00:34:10
Speaker
And I think that most people, when you have that proximity and you have a team that is bonded together and you just generally have, I'm not saying that you need to tell your deepest secrets and go for, you know, kumbaya sessions and whatnot. I'm saying.
00:34:26
Speaker
know what's happening with your neighbor, right? Know that, okay, maybe my neighbor Kimi is having a bad day, you know, she's going through some stuff and, you know, elevate something or knowing that my other colleague has certain aspirations within the organization. And if you're within your means to help them achieve that,
00:34:52
Speaker
That's not really in your KPI in terms of your work metrics, but that's on a human metrics. And I think that's one of the big things that people miss out. We are often so focused on chasing KPIs and metrics that are given by our bosses or by our organizations. We forget to check in with the human metrics with the people around us. So if we buy that in and we actually have relationships with people,
00:35:19
Speaker
workload is going to become so much more collaborative, it's going to become easier for you, and it's going to be easier for you to lobby something with so much more support. Because people know who you are, and the DNA of who you, you know, is your essence and who you are, and you can't fake it, you're spending so much time interacting with people, right? It's people are going to know you for that.
00:35:42
Speaker
And so I would say that have relationships with people, know that you're in the people business and build these relationships and then together collectively go and attack it.
00:35:54
Speaker
That's exactly why I would go back to the example of Ippongula. We were actually the smallest and leanest teams compared to all of the competitors and the wallets in the market. But we came out with a recognition from Ministry of Finance and the Prime Minister's office.
00:36:13
Speaker
saying that this is such a well thought of experience from end to end. From digital, from your booth, to your engagement, to your buzz, and to your tech experiences, your onboarding experiences, it has been fantastic.
00:36:30
Speaker
And I'll tell you something, I almost cried listening to that in person because God knows leading a project at that high level, it meant that I couldn't mess up, right? I would not let myself. And there were just so many things on my shoulder that we were carrying on. It's product launch. It was presenting to the prime minister. God knows I was preparing for that. And that's a different story, right? But
00:36:55
Speaker
We didn't have the biggest team, but we had the A team. And the reason why the A team could come together was because the A team knew skill sets and strengths.
00:37:06
Speaker
So maybe I was really good at coordination and bringing the band together. Maybe my colleague X is really good at checking and making sure everything is done on time, very good in terms of time management. And then maybe colleague C is very good in communication and making sure that
00:37:25
Speaker
a mandate is socialized across and nobody gets left behind. So you need to tap into strengths from all your team to make sure you cover it, delegate it, trust your teammates, and have proximity with them. That's what's going to let you win. Regardless of how tall the order is, no matter what goliaths you're going to go through in projects, that is what is going to help you in the long run. I love that. I think you probably just make the title of our share, Human Metrics Met Test, in order to win.
Essential Skills for Marketers
00:37:56
Speaker
Well, with that, we have reached our very exciting lightning round. We call it lightning round because we actually have four quick questions for you. Okay. Are you ready? God, I hope I am. Let's do it. Okay. The board is always like very exciting, but you're like, what was she going to ask? Yay. Yes. Okay. The power is on my hand. Question number one.
00:38:23
Speaker
What are the most important skills that a marketer should have in your opinion? Skills as a marketer, number one, never be afraid to experiment. It's a really highly creative job. Just experiment, experiment. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. The worst thing that you can do is the mistake. Once you've made the mistake,
00:38:47
Speaker
It's done. And you'll just figure out another way that didn't work, right? But don't make mistakes that cost your business millions of dollars. I just have to put that caveat there. Keep yourself updated with market trends because you are in the frontline of your business success, to be honest. You are the first line of defense of your company and you are the informed person that's going to make or break your business in terms of how much they're going to go and market entries in barriers that you're going to cross.
00:39:16
Speaker
Um, know how to keep your language simple, know how to tell stories, um, and talk to your peers, right? Because you may have a great idea, but your peers always offer a different standpoint. So we're all looking at the same things, but the way we infer it, the way we approach it is very different. So always talk to your peers. That's where best ideas or you can solidify your, your, your, your decisions or your ideas. And, um, I think last but not least is, you know,
00:39:45
Speaker
Enjoy the process. Always enjoy the process. Well, although you say you're not sure if you're ready, but you aced this because you kind of already answered my second question, which is supposed to be, what advice would you give to someone who interested to press your career in marketing? But I think a lot of the things that you say just not really apply. Oh, actually, you know what? I could take that because I think
00:40:11
Speaker
Yeah, I'll take that. It's okay. We'll consider it a bonus. If someone wants to pursue a career in marketing, I'll just say go for it. What's the worst that can happen? If you try it and you fail, you just be good. This is not for you and you can pivot and move on. But if you try and you succeed,
00:40:33
Speaker
you would have hit goal and you would have found somewhere you belong. And personally, you know, that's why Nike famous, like the saying is so famous. Just do it. And personally, I'll add the final touch, which is you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don't take. So just do it. Love that. Um, my third question, what are the key data or key metrics that you wanted in either when you're building a marketing or brand?
Important Metrics and Recommended Books
00:41:01
Speaker
Hmm.
00:41:04
Speaker
I would look at brand sentiment. I think there are four prongs of this, right? So first is brand sentiment, knowing what your customers are saying about you, whether positive or negative, so that you can pulse check in terms of whether you're faring good as a brand in the market. And then, you know, seeing if you have budget for it, social media tools, great for that.
00:41:23
Speaker
Uh, brand share, are you your customer's top of mind choice? Um, and, and, and whether they are organically evangelizing your brand for you, that's how you know. Um, and then the other two would be acquisition or retention. So for the acquisition that I would say looking at just how much of customers are growing in your market in terms of the market that you're marketing to. Um, and the retention is just knowing that, you know, how much of product adoption is happening and in customer staying with you and adopting different lines of products.
00:41:51
Speaker
Um, because that would then tell you, um, that they, that the product is actually giving an added value, you know, to their lives is making their lives better. Um, and it's, yeah, essentially you would know that it's working right. That the formula and the metrics is working. Awesome. Uh, the four key debt for the four key metrics that you look into my last question, what is the one marketing burger resources that you would recommend?
00:42:22
Speaker
You know, before I answer which title, this is something that I would tell a lot of people, but only because this has been something that's been asked to me quite recently a lot, right? So I would say, don't read a book just because for the sake of reading it. Go for a title that inspires you or provokes you, right? And it doesn't matter what that is, just a title that really, really grabs your attention.
00:42:47
Speaker
Um, if it comes to marketing, honestly, there are two books, uh, a bit of a wildcard here. So there's this book called the 22 immutable laws of marketing. This book was published all the way, I think in the early nineties, right? I was probably so young, so, so young.
00:43:03
Speaker
And I would say that this book is perfect for a blend of marketing veterans to remind us of the commandments of marketing. It's a good refresher and it's something to keep us in line and check to make sure that we upheld ourselves to that standard. And for those who are looking for a career in marketing or who are new and just need something that is not over complicated, not drowning in jargons and not overwhelmed, this is a perfect starting point.
00:43:28
Speaker
For those who are a little bit more seasoned, may I offer the title of Made in the Future? This was a gifted book to me, I think very recently, but I think this is marketing in the modern day. And we're talking about changes in media content and everything. Customers buy, sell perceptions and processes in logic. And
00:43:52
Speaker
This is great for all marketers who want to thrive in a very competitive landscape when you are fighting for attention with all other businesses. And this is kind of the book that tells us the transition between the marketing styles of Kodak and Apple. So read that book. I think it's so great because it gave me so much perspective.
00:44:14
Speaker
The second one is something I haven't checked out before. I'm definitely going to look over that one. You love to give bonus. Thank you, Nina. One final, final question. Where can folks find you if they want to reach out and learn more about what you're up to?
00:44:28
Speaker
Uh, this is not a trick question, right? No, no, no, not a trick question. Well, uh, I think the best place to connect, you can find me on LinkedIn, uh, Jia Nina. And I think you should be able to find me because I haven't come across anyone within my name, I mean, personally. Um, so yeah, I like connecting with people. Uh, if you ever want to change ideas, you know, bounce off certain, certain concepts or just connect and talk about industries, whether it's payments, crypto, anything. Yeah. I think LinkedIn is the best place to do it.
00:44:59
Speaker
Amazing, amazing. Thank you once again for being here. Thank you so much, Nina. This has been very awesome learning. I know this has been a great conversation and thank you so much. I really enjoyed it.
00:45:12
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening. If you find this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts. 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.
00:45:44
Speaker
uh