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Grow any FMCG Business with data, research and innovation
54 Plays1 year ago
This podcast episode is about how to use data to enhance the ROI in marketing activities, especially for FMCG businesses. The host, Julie, interviews Willynn, a chief marketing and partnerships officer from Piggyback Singapore, a B2B wholesale e-commerce platform. Willynn also co-founded NextBlock, a hyperlocal social app that connects neighbours and businesses.
Willynn shares her insights and experiences on overcoming marketing challenges in both B2B and B2C segments, such as price loyalty, customer retention, and competition. She explains how she uses data and research to guide her marketing strategies, such as email marketing, gamification, and user acquisition. She also shares some case studies from Piggyback and NextBlock, such as how they use postcards to acquire users, how they use Next Coin to increase user engagement, and how they use hashtags to test new features.
Willynn also talks about the essential skills and resources that marketers should have, such as the attitude to learn, keeping updated with the latest trends, and working backwards from the customer. She also recommends a book by Jeff Bezos called Working Backwards, which is about how Amazon innovates and grows.
In today’s episode, we discuss :
00:00 Teaser
01:39 Willynn's Background
03:23 Customer segments that NEEDS vs WANTS in marketing
07:03 Make it super easy for your customers to buy
12:10 Create open conversation channels with your customers so they can feedback easily
16:51 Save time from making mistakes by talking to people in your business
19:05 Offline way of acquiring customers still WORKS!
21:04 Using gamification as a tool to retain users
24:15 Experiment your ideas & hypothesis
27:00 Using data to identify the first user segment in Next Block
29:20 How to deal with the challenges of having small data sets
31:40 How to define success in marketing
34:51 Advice for marketers
This podcast episode is informative and comprehensive, as it covers various aspects of data-driven marketing for FMCG businesses. It also provides some practical tips and examples that can help marketers improve their performance and ROI.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
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.
00:00:22
Speaker
We bring you real case studies while giving you background on how these leaders build their career to where they are today. Joining me today is Willing Eung, who is a Chief Marketing and Partnerships Officer from Piggyback Singapore. On top of that, she's also in Web2 Web3 Marketing of Willing, and she's also the co-founder of Nextblock. Welcome, Willing.
Managing Multiple Roles
00:00:50
Speaker
Hi, thank you Julie for having me here today. When I look at your experience right, I'm just astonished by how much things you can juggle at the same time. Is there any particular secret around juggling so many things at once?
00:01:07
Speaker
I think it's voiced out to the belief that what you are really passionate about and also at the same time what interests you most. Because if you are not interested in doing that particular industry or not even interested in that area or space of things that you are doing, you will not find any motivation to continue doing it. And yeah, so I guess it voiced out to the belief at the end of the day and also time management, which I'm still learning a lot from a lot of people around me.
00:01:33
Speaker
We would definitely love to actually drill down a little bit into that.
Piggyback and Sustainable Commerce
00:01:38
Speaker
Before we start, Greg, can you tell us a little bit more about Piggyback? Sure. Piggyback is actually more towards a B2B kind of wholesale e-commerce platform. There will be supply to the Minima, supply to office pantries, and some of the B2C household products.
00:01:54
Speaker
And also at the same time, we also build the B2C elements of things whereby we also have offline stores like the Minima itself to serve the offline target audience within that southern neighbourhood. So that's something that we do and we are trying to build that particular ecosystem and also create this sustainable commerce concept whereby in terms to come, whether is it the processors or even individuals can actually benefit from it.
Building Consumer Loyalty with Data
00:02:20
Speaker
And I can see that throughout, just now we mentioned there are actually three roles that you are currently in, right? When it comes to marketing or increasing the market share, do you see the similar, what are the top few challenges that you see across your role when it comes to marketing challenges?
00:02:39
Speaker
I guess it's like right now, how do we actually build a certain kind of strong followers? Because consumer nowadays, they don't really have loyalty. They are more price conscious, especially during this very tough or crunch period, like the recession. So they are more towards the price point. Similarly, for example, if I took a rideshare car itself, I don't care whether this particular car is from Grab, from whatever rideshare company,
00:03:05
Speaker
But as long as it brings me to A to B, point A to point B at the lowest cost, it actually fits into my purpose. So similarly, in terms of the marketing aspect of things, how much we actually invest in terms of the channels or in terms of the resources, as long as people are willing to actually, you know, get the price for the buck of it. Like for example, it's cheap, it's convenient.
00:03:27
Speaker
Yeah, and they will actually go for it in terms of that. And also this will actually have to fit into their personal account like interest whereby I only purchase that thing whether is it a need or the one is a question mark. It really depends on individuals. So we need to actually use certain kind of like data sets to actually see is there like a really a need. Like for example, I'm actually doing wholesale warehouse. So sometimes when I sell to like alcoholics, like alcoholic drinks itself, if you are someone who actually drinks almost single day,
00:03:57
Speaker
All I need to do is to actually place that particular ad right into your face as a moment to actually create that particular awareness that to tell you that I'm actually selling this, I don't need like to invest a lot of my marketing cause in terms of acquiring you because this is like part of your lifestyle. This is like a need that you need to drink almost every single day. But if it's a one, then for the marketing as part of things, it will be a long, long till call staff whereby I need to actually
00:04:23
Speaker
other than awareness, I need to throw in some cup of like perks. Like for example, if you buy two cartons, you will get like a cheaper and faster cup of delivery cup thing. And this way actually fits into your one like, oh, it's upcoming like festive season. I want to actually treat my relative to some form of like drinks and I would want to give them the variety cup of stuff. So that's something that we have to actually take a look at the trends and also see how we can actually, um, you know, approach that.
00:04:53
Speaker
I want to draw down a little bit into this topic, right? So you mentioned two target segments just now. A target segment where in terms of the drawing itself is really a neat versus another target segment is a one. So how do you go around actually identify this target segment and how do you go around actually giving them the personalized ads or channel in this case?
B2B vs B2C Marketing Strategies
00:05:16
Speaker
I think it's biased out to like the B2B or B2C people that we're speaking to. So for B2B, it's more constant. So they will actually have the business, like they are operating almost every single day. So it's biased out to the variety of items that they can actually push out to their customer to create a value chain. It does have their customer pool for them, for the B2B businesses. But for the B2C, it's kind of like very different.
00:05:42
Speaker
So we need to actually understand what are their key interests by seeing their card size, what do they actually cut out most of the time itself and the frequency of them purchasing from us. Whether are they like a new customer, how would they actually get to know us and how frequent do they actually come back. So that's something that we will always assess to see how we can actually reach out to them. If it's a repeat customer, all we need to do is to keep them on our mailing list
00:06:08
Speaker
and then share with them our existing promo and then from then to actually drive them back to the platform again. I see. Is there any case studies that you can help us to actually visualize this a little bit further?
00:06:21
Speaker
So for the, okay, so currently previous, we actually do a very traditional way of doing things. So we don't really have a website. We only use like those called the ordering app. Let's say it's tick.app. So from there on, right? It's very, I would say not a marketing friendly because you cannot push EDM out through that particular platform and all. So there's a lot of things that you need to actually really like.
00:06:46
Speaker
put it on Excel spreadsheet that assesses it through that period of things so weird. Normally when we actually saw the customer doing repeated orders, we'll add them into our mailing list or reach out to them on a reference to the note to see that, hey, hi, you actually shopped with us like this is the third time we did a mod, is there any way that we can actually
00:07:03
Speaker
get some feedback from you and also see how we can identify to this.
Modern Marketing Tools vs Traditional Methods
00:07:07
Speaker
At the same time, to ask them that, hey, would you want to be on the mailing list? Because in Singapore, we have the PDPA issue. We need their consent. Yeah, which the current manual way of doing this is not really feasible. So, but we are also improving like this one. We are also building the app, not really the app, but the website itself as it went. It is tapping on government grants, available government grants,
00:07:28
Speaker
Yeah, so that's something that we are like doing it on a very constant basis. And from there, we actually saw that when we did get people, like we give them the right personal, like personal lives call service, they'll be more prompt to actually, you know, shop with us those like stand by the price point to make sense. Also, as mentioned, they are not
00:07:48
Speaker
friend loyal but they are more price loyal kind of thing so we need to actually you know um give them that particular personal touch plus at the same time the right price point so he has to go like together and we actually saw that they'll be more prompted to shop with us more because they will feel very um pricey uh how much i put in the class like more embarrassed to say no to us like those likes and they how i'm actually watching you we are like friends now so you have to shop with us
00:08:18
Speaker
Interesting. I think what you describe here is actually a lot of the FMCG business actually facing this, right? So FMCG itself, ultimately, a lot of the goods that we receive, everything is offline. But at the same time, you are using the different ways to link the offline to the online contact in this case.
00:08:40
Speaker
So can you talk a little bit deeper into, in our past conversation, we spoke about how you are taking the traditional business per se and actually moving it to the modern era.
Transitioning to Digital Platforms
00:08:50
Speaker
And you mentioned about brand loyal and price loyal. Can you talk to us a little bit about the journey and what's your key learnings over here?
00:08:58
Speaker
It's definitely tough because our teammates over at the offline store, the MiniMuts itself, they find it tough to actually learn a new technology, like learn how to use a POS instead of doing like very traditional way like those kind of cashier receipts that we kind of like outcasted those likes then. So they find it's kind of tough actually, you know, navigate through the technologies at the right initial start. So but it's a really big kind of like
00:09:26
Speaker
training and then telling them that it's okay to make mistakes at all and to make them to learn more things so that they can also at the same time benefit in their personal life that they can actually use WhatsApp to communicate with their so-called family members because for some of our communication channel we use WhatsApp as the main call
00:09:50
Speaker
So there's something that we saw that there's initial resistance because they just say that, oh, I have been doing this for like the past.
00:09:59
Speaker
few months, few years, it's perfectly fine. Why are you trying to reinvent the whole world? But as we all know, the non digital audience will start to phase out at times when the times come. So all of our audience will be very tech savvy, especially our future gen will be more tech savvy than us. As the future gen goes, it will only be like
00:10:21
Speaker
how many tech they can use. Right now, we have AI, AR, AR car thing. In terms of how we are not sure what car technology will actually come forward. Yeah.
00:10:30
Speaker
So that's something that we saw initially with the NAPAT. It's always about being very patient with them that help us through. And also at the same time, for this, it's more efficient, to a extent. We also tell them these words also increase level efficiency. They do not need to actually manually count the stock. They can actually take a look at what is in the system, and then they just do a render sampling check. It's easier that way because the number would not
00:10:56
Speaker
um, we're not like pivot, like too, too much from the, from the system count to a select stand. So there's something that we told them that if you also can cut down more, um, lesser time to do, um, manual work, but spending more time to do, like maybe more relaxed stuff. So that's something that we actually share with them as a, as a form of like a benefit, a form of advantage, uh, it does up their job scope, which they are more receptive to actually, you know, uh, handle it. Yeah.
00:11:24
Speaker
So on top of giving them the objective rationale, we also want to give them the psychology incentive itself on how that can convenience their life in training. Gotcha. So in terms of the marketing strategy that you have used in the past, right?
Email Marketing and Client Engagement
00:11:42
Speaker
Is there any most effective marketing strategy that you have used before that you can share with us?
00:11:47
Speaker
So for B2B, I feel that it's more towards giving them the particular updates on what we are doing. So for B2B, I feel that based on EDMs, email marketing, it's actually more effective to reach out and keep in touch with them because sometimes the account manager or National Key account managers just went over to another company as if from a job car thing. And the transition is very tough to actually get the new personnel who take over the O1 to actually understand what are the catalogs that we are offering and all
00:12:17
Speaker
So with the EDM, they have a constant kind of updates on what we are doing, what we are changing, what's our new product, and how they can actually tap on the current stuff like the promos itself that we are offering. It kind of, I would say, cut down lesser time for them to transit into that particular new job for our business, for the B2B part that we are doing.
00:12:38
Speaker
So I feel that for email marketing side of things, it's actually more effective. And also at the same time, sometimes when we don't really have the time to catch up, right? Some people are more face-to-face kind of person. Email marketing or a text message can actually, you know, put them back and remind them that, hey, we're actually still with these. In terms of this recession kind of period, you want the order from us? Kind of thing to actually put them to a reminder and bring them back to us. So I feel that for me to be what works for us is actually email marketing.
00:13:06
Speaker
Got it. And how do you identify email marketing? Is there any benchmark or metrics that you use to validate that email marketing is actually one of the more effective channels?
00:13:19
Speaker
So for us, we always put in a call to action button like for them to actually, you know, to track the performance of that particular email marketing other than the open calls to the database that we send out to. We also put in a call to action and most of the time the call to action is like a promo code.
00:13:37
Speaker
like a new promo that we are doing so that we can actually try based on that. So this is something that we find that it's effective. And also at the same time, for the other hand, it's actually more towards a formal mentality that we are building. They say that this particular promo only ends like, let's say, second August. So they have to utilize it within a very short span of time. And for businesses, it's a constant thing because they are always operating. It is whether the price point fits into theirs or not. And from there on, we have some form of negotiation, but they will, you know,
00:14:07
Speaker
We use that promo code to actually check our code direction. Interesting. So you mentioned a couple of times that they are price conscious, right? I think no matter B2B or B2C. So how do you ensure that actually they will let you know when they see that your price is higher instead of just going directly to your competition?
00:14:27
Speaker
So we always have this very open conversation that they can still reach out to us to actually see whether they can, uh, for the legal, because we always understand for a business to actually, you know, um, survive in this, um, recession country, right? It's the support we give one another.
00:14:43
Speaker
business support one another. They can actually grow together to that extent of things. So we always adopt this particular open conversation kind of like mentoring also. They also know that we also have this open communication kind of thing like that they can actually share with us if it's not the right price point. And for us right, because it's a FNCG thing, so the price point is about the same. It's just that reach one, build the rep ball with them or give them the variety because other than the price point is the variety thing.
00:15:13
Speaker
because they always find it is easy to deal with one instead of multiple suppliers or wholesalers. So being able to take the convenience easily by dealing with just one vendor instead of multiple is one of the key value prop that you are offering.
00:15:33
Speaker
So we always tell them that we do the heavy lifting for them. So we lie with all the suppliers and all the wholesalers and then we put it together and they just have to order from us or if we do not really have any things that they need, right? They can actually just ping us to tell us that what were they actually looking out for.
00:15:49
Speaker
Is there any dreams that they are looking out in terms of this particular season? Because some of them will achieve career like cocktails, there's rest seasonal pace. So sometimes they want like ginger out, there might not be available like in a large amount kind of thing. So that's something that we will always have this open communication, constant communication.
00:16:09
Speaker
Got it. So I want to switch here a little bit. So in terms of your current or your past marketing roles, right?
Data-Driven Marketing Strategies
00:16:17
Speaker
I'm curious, how much data or research do you leverage when it comes to guiding your strategy or solving the business problems that you face? And if possible, it will be great if you can share with us some case studies.
00:16:33
Speaker
So for the past try, I guess it's more towards acquiring users at a very short timeframe using data and how can we actually do it. The marketing research that we conducted actually helped us to validate a lot because in this very competitive market, especially Southeast Asia,
00:16:56
Speaker
competition is very intense. So sometimes we already reference what our competitors are actually doing and what actually works for them and whether we can replicate and also improvise on how we can actually cut short our so-called, or rather say growth hack, it does our strategies. So in the past, let's say for example, for Nixbok, we actually replicate something that our
00:17:18
Speaker
the company that we look up to called Nextdoor in the US, which is a listed firm, they are at least 10 years old. But from how they reach from year 0 to year 10, they went through a lot of
00:17:34
Speaker
So the team over, the co-founder team, one of my co-founders, he actually spoke to people from next door and understand what they have been doing and what is the past mistake they can make. They have actually, you know, our face and what are our challenges and what works for them. And the key point is we think what
00:17:52
Speaker
works for them into our current particular Southeast Asia market and replicate it in terms of to see whether we can actually, you know, focus on what works for them and to see whether these work for us over here. And in this case, we can't grow heck. We don't need to actually take 10 years to reach from
00:18:09
Speaker
Now to maybe where they are right now, we use like many fighters to achieve whatever they have achieved within 10 years. So that's something that it kind of helped us in terms of this particular thing. Like for example, Nixle shared that they do offline marketing and acquisition. It's very effective. We saw for Nixplod, we actually did postcard.
00:18:30
Speaker
With a verification code, we send it over to the doorstep for the neighbors, the AG, signing themselves up on the next block app itself. That is actually our most effective way of acquiring users as of now. And it also helps us to keep the cost low. So that's something that we got to know from the company that we look up to next door in the US.
00:18:51
Speaker
If not, we might we might use like social media strategy like right traditional like we troll Facebook marketing or even Google ads, which might not be effective to direct to the audience within our Southeast Asia space. And it could also be very expensive. Yes. For our audience references,
Exploring Nextblock and Hyper-Local Marketing
00:19:14
Speaker
right? Can you tell us a little bit about next block?
00:19:17
Speaker
Sure, no problem. So this way is actually the other startup that I'm actually working on together with my three other co-founders. So VIG, a neighborhood hyper-local app whereby we connect neighbors together and also at the same time to build a very vibrant ecosystem within their particular estate. So you can see us as the, I would say, a very hyper-local social app, as per se. So we connect with the stakeholders within that particular neighborhood ecosystem. Like for example, the neighborhood businesses, the public agencies, and other than the neighbors.
00:19:47
Speaker
And we are currently in Singapore and are expanding to Thailand. In Singapore, we are like 50K users strong and growing. Got it. So a lot of times people, most of the business actually directly skewed towards, okay, let me use a digital medium to actually acquire users. But what you're saying is that actually you find the most effective channels is actually doing
00:20:12
Speaker
The offline thing, the postcard sending to keep your cost of acquisitions low and is actually very effective. Yes, it does have the user acquisition part, but user engagement retention is a different ballgame. Yes.
00:20:31
Speaker
Sorry, excuse me. You mentioned retention and retention itself is a different ballgame. So can you tell us a little bit about what's the biggest challenge you face when it comes to user retention? And what are the marketing strategies or the strategies, growth strategies you use to actually potentially solve them?
00:20:55
Speaker
I think for user retention, it's actually more towards like how the user stickiness to the things that we are doing. Let's say for example, how do we attribute that user stickiness? How can we get them to contribute to the community and all? So there's various ways that we have tried doing in the past. Like for example, we incentivize them.
00:21:16
Speaker
But it doesn't really help on a long-term basis. So we actually create like features to increase the user engagement rate on the app. So for Nixbot, we have this particular thing called NixbotPoint. It's a gamification process that we actually put in place so that when people contribute to the app, they will actually get a reputation point.
00:21:33
Speaker
that will slice them into the various levels. The more you contribute, the higher the level that you will actually go. And the particular level itself will actually be relevant in terms of the number of next block coins you earn per minute. Let's say I'm actually a level 6 user, every single minute I earn 6 next block coins.
00:21:53
Speaker
So I have a max cap of like three hours whereby in three hours time free I can earn like around like thousand plus, half like next block coin. And when I actually claim this coin, I can actually change it to some form of like rewards. So this is like a whole chain that we are promoting, not really promoting, but instill. It does our strategy to actually get people to be more engaged on the app itself.
00:22:17
Speaker
So there will always be a formal mentality whereby I cannot lose that, then I need to contribute more. I need to post things more. So at the same time, you get to know more things about your neighbourhood because it's not just you posting. Also, your neighbour will be posting the same thing, posting something relevant in the neighbourhood that might interest you.
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah, and for the rewards part, we also work with our partners, so we actually build that particular whole ecosystem. Like for example, for some of the partners that we work with, they have some form of like near to expired product. They put it up on the platform itself as a form of rewards. Like for example, you can claim like two packets of like near to expired cheap strike for 2000 coins.
00:22:54
Speaker
And for people that actually, you know, into sustainability, they will just, you know, claim their coins to, as in utilize that coin to actually claim for their particles to packets of potato chips, kind of thing. At the same time, for the business part of you, it's like, okay, we have a channel to distribute it out, because if you don't sell it, right, it's a cost, it's a loss to us. So my spell, use it for a battle, kind of like purpose. And at the same time, you can also increase your brand awareness
00:23:21
Speaker
So and it's about how we actually repurpose things to fit in the whole space. Interesting. Talking about gamifications,
User Engagement through Hashtags and Gamification
00:23:31
Speaker
right? So we also wanted to be, so sometimes when we are building our app and trying to use different features to engage our users, right? How do you ensure that, say, in this case, the gamifications of features that you push out, actually get them to be more engaged and giving you ROI?
00:23:50
Speaker
But I suppose a lot of the features sometimes may not necessarily end up so positively giving us the ROI, right? So how do you choose and experiment with what features to actually prioritize? So for that right, we also, we don't really build the features parallel to our hypothesis. So we do like small tests, like for example, previously when we are trying to build the marketplace, because we find that people might not say hi to the neighbors very straightforward, it might be a little bit awkward for them.
00:24:19
Speaker
And for a market place like it, you can't just get to know your neighbour through a form of transaction. For example, I'm giving away this baby cut. Because it's like, it's a baby cut, it's kind of like bulky. So I prefer to give it to a neighbour whereby they just walk over the collected or you know, they just come with their industrial trolley.
00:24:36
Speaker
At the same time, I get to know them through this particular of Gifobi. It's easier to actually say, oh, you're actually expecting a baby right now. Oh, this age cut can actually be of a good use kind of thing. It's the off light. When we saw each other in the leaf, you say, eh, hi. It's kind of popular in terms of the Asian kind of light culture to just randomly say, hi, good morning to your neighbor.
00:24:55
Speaker
So when we actually tried to do that marketplace, we didn't really, you know, pipe it for that features to be built. We test whether is there any use for this particular feature because and then we do not want to actually raise our resources in building a white elephant that doesn't make off a good use. So we create like, for example, a hashtag. Like if I want to buy things or sell things, we will hashtag buy and sell.
00:25:18
Speaker
to see whether it's then we actually share this particular hashtag out to all social media chatters and we didn't add casting and see whether will people actually do this particular hashtag. So when we just saw that there's actually a few, a lot of people are using this from a few to a lot of people using this particular hashtag, then we realized that, okay, there's a need for us to actually build this marketplace feature. So then we actually, okay, prioritize that to ease the whole form of user experience in terms of this particular small test that we do.
00:25:48
Speaker
Yeah. So that's how we actually prioritize things. Oh, very interesting. I like how, how, uh, seemingly listening to it, um, how you use a simple technique like hashtag to actually validate and build it as an experiment. That's right. Uh, and this will have to cut it to my co-founders side because they are more, uh, resource kind of like, uh, how I say they will optimize their resources.
00:26:14
Speaker
Gotcha. And when it comes to, say, next block grade, I'm also curious, because you mentioned a lot of the different things that you understand about your target segment and how do you carry out experiments to test and validate your hypothesis. I'm also curious how do data or research play a role in this field when it comes to next block marketing?
Small Data Sets in Early-Stage Marketing
00:26:37
Speaker
So for interest of that, we actually saw we are trying to identify who are actually our right target audience at the very initial stage. So at the point in time, we actually realized that the people who actually use Nixbot as an app to actually help them to understand the neighborhood are people who actually slowly move out from their parents' place when they have their house on their own. So their dependency on the neighborhood will be higher as compared to when they stay with their parents.
00:27:02
Speaker
And from there, we can see some conversation they have. Like, for example, they ask for recommendation on what's the things that they can really go for, for a lot of G purposes, casting within the neighborhood itself, cause they might be very new. And they're trying to ease into this particular new neighborhood that they are in, cause stuff. So we actually see some kind of like data sets on the platform and one of the conversations they are having to actually see how can we actually improve a user experience in terms of
00:27:31
Speaker
the near future kind of like features that we're going to view. That's one thing. And the other one is actually how can we actually engage them furthermore? It does of that aspect of things that for example, a lot of people actually share a lot of like Singapore foodies, food items within the particular neighborhood itself. So from then we actually saw that there's opportunity to engage them further. It does of hosting offline events.
00:27:54
Speaker
like at some of the local neighbourhood business like cafes itself, they actually engage them one thing. The second thing is actually to get them to share a little bit of feedback on how we can improve on our app itself. And thirdly, they actually have that form of community building. It does look like we are just not seeing ourselves on the digital space, but we are also real people in real life. Yeah, because right now, you know that technology, sometimes they thought that we had some form of AI person coming. Yes.
00:28:22
Speaker
Oh, interesting. I like how niche the original target segments that you're seeing, which is people who actually move up from their parents' house. Yeah. Yeah, because technically, if you say who can be our target segment, technically, we can then say anyone, at least in the certain area. Got it. And so you mentioned a couple of ways that have been using how to look into data.
00:28:50
Speaker
to understand our target segment or choosing who is the right target audience, right? Is there any biggest challenge or top challenges you face when you are trying to use data or research when it comes to marketing?
00:29:04
Speaker
And how do you overcome that? It's the data sets because when we initial start, the number of users is very small so that we have very small data sets. And we are thinking whether at a point in time, this particular data sets, whether is it for piggyback or whether is it for next block, it can represent the majority of our end user.
00:29:22
Speaker
That's something that we have in mind, and we are not sure if this is some form validated to the extent of things. So it's the data sets that we actually garner at a very initial stage whether that's this really validated because at a very initial stage, you have to make very firm decision on how the company is going to grow forward. So with only such, I would say small amount of data,
00:29:48
Speaker
It's really, it's really like hit or miss kind of thing. So there's a lot of like trying to area whether we can actually find to this particular form of data, whether can we like make it a bigger subset or even a more refined subset of it. Like, yeah, or stuff. Like for example, Marketplace, when we want to build like Marketplace category, we're thinking which category would they be interested? And that's why we actually take a look at the things that they are selling and all.
00:30:13
Speaker
and whether this would be a majority kind of representation in terms of our time to come. Because if not, we have to put very generic or others, a subset called others, in terms of when we do our category, kind of like our planning.
00:30:28
Speaker
Got it. So you use a combination, I think you use a combinations of actually based on the smaller data set, but then continuously use experiments to try and error and iterate from there. I can definitely see a lot of companies actually have the same amount of challenges whereby we want to use data and leverage it, but
00:30:47
Speaker
but we don't have a lot of them. That's right. Yes. Got it. So I am also curious, so how do you define success when it comes to marketing, either in piggyback or
Measuring Marketing Success in Apps
00:31:00
Speaker
next block? How do you know that marketing set of things are actually on the right track?
00:31:05
Speaker
So for app-wise Lightning Explorer itself, the success is actually the number of users definitely, the number of users acquired, and the number of active users that's on the platform after a certain period of time. So we actually do it like a monthly kind of thing to actually see because for neighborhood thing, you can't possibly every day talk to your neighbors like that. So we also understand that that particular behavior
00:31:27
Speaker
It's not realistic. If we actually do a daily active user conflict, it's not realistic. So we actually do it like a weekly or like a monthly half thing to see whether the retention engagement is really there. Yeah, at the same time for Piggy Bay, it's definitely end day. How do I define success of that particular marketing campus that we're running? It's all about the GNV value. How much do they cut out? What's the cut size? Are they going to repeat their orders in time to come? Is there something that we can achieve, you know, ensure that they repeat their order in time to come?
00:31:57
Speaker
So that's something that we, yeah, that's how I define success. It's definitely the GMV value, money and day for opinion. Got it. And let's hone in a little bit into that on the GMV value of, is there any specific things, it could be an activity, decision, an area of focus, right? That your team, you must get right to maximize your odds in making sure that we can maximize the GMV.
00:32:24
Speaker
Um, we always, I think most marketers actually have faced the same thing.
Customer Retention in FMCG
00:32:30
Speaker
How can this particular current user or like buyer or consumer come back again? So that's something that we are the retention part.
00:32:40
Speaker
And for us, the FMCG is not rocket size or the things that we are selling, it's not really that niche to a certain extent that they can't get it out from anywhere else. So that's something that we are always constantly putting things in place to see whether we can get them to come back to us again, to actually do that particular repeat curve, repeat purchase. So most of the time when we are doing a cut size, when they cut out, we actually tell them that, hey, we actually cut it out within a certain time frame.
00:33:12
Speaker
From us, again, you'll get a certain form of like rebates, all these calls. That's why we are also trying to build a rewards program on our new website itself, so that it's easier for us to actually, you know, systematically look at it. Yeah, it does all that. Because right now we are really doing like based on a very manual call basis, because the tools that we use, the resource that we use, doesn't really help us to, you know, optimize certain form of,
00:33:39
Speaker
sort of form of like engagement, sort of form of campaign. Got it. Got it. So I hear you that using loyalty program to ensure retention is one of the key focus that you will be using to increase the GMU itself. That's right.
00:33:57
Speaker
Awesome. Well, with that, we have actually reached our very exciting lightning round. I have a couple of questions for you. Are you ready? Yes, yes, yes. Let's do it.
Continuous Learning in Marketing Careers
00:34:08
Speaker
What are some of the most important skills that you believe a marketer should have in order to ace their career?
00:34:15
Speaker
One thing is the attitude to learn because for marketing strategy, we have so many tools out there and you do not know which are the most relevant ones that will fit into your so-called industry. So you must have the attitude to learn and attitude to keep track of whatever that is currently in the trend.
00:34:34
Speaker
right now yeah because whatever that we use in our schools right it might be very old school traditional that is is already faced up with we didn't know so that attitude to actually learn new things that's one thing and also at the same time to actually keep updated of what's the latest marketing trend which is very important because what works for now might not be relevant it times like two to three months down the road car thing because technology sometimes it's just very fast paced so attitude and keeping updated of what's going on because
00:35:02
Speaker
Yeah, not very nice. If you are a marketer and you do not know A, we actually can do this. Like right now it's actually a short content curve like era. So everything is like short content curve thing. And you are like, what, what, what exactly is that? That's not very nice. Yes. How do you, how do you, uh, what advice would you give for those who like to keep track of their marketing trend? What would you suggest they look at?
00:35:26
Speaker
There's a lot of resources. You can actually go on to LinkedIn. Some of them, some of the rest is a marketing person now. They will actually share some form of the things that they have been doing. And we normally see what are those top 500 fortune companies and some of the fast-growing hyper-growth data on what they are doing. So I normally take these two references because you can see it from a very structured point of view and something that's non-structured to an extent.
Connecting with Willing Eung
00:35:55
Speaker
What is the one marketing book or resources that you would recommend? I would actually say that for Australia, we should actually take a look at the book by Jeff that's more towards like working backwards. It's not really a marketing book, but you can actually go through that particular whole flow of entrepreneurial curve like growth mindset whereby you can actually know which are the strategies that is more relevant in terms of which growth stage you are at.
00:36:23
Speaker
So it's not really a marketing book, but that's the book that actually helped me a lot. Great. We will put the reference link to the audience so that they are able to find the book easily. On that note, the final question, if people want to find you and talk to you and reach out to you to learn more about what you're up to, where should they do that? They can actually get me on LinkedIn. If not, they can also telegram me at my handle itself, which is my name as per se. It's Eung Bilin.
00:36:51
Speaker
All right. Again, we'll put the link on our reference so that our audience can easily connect with you. Thank you so much, Villeen, for sharing with us your insights. Thank you so much for being here.
00:37:06
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.
00:37:49
Speaker
Bye!