In this podcast episode, Willynn shares her insights and experiences on how to overcome the 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. 

About our guest:

Chief Marketing & Partnerships @ Piggyback (and also Co-Founder at NextBlock)

Having immersed herself in the vibrant worlds of both the public sector and the dynamic startup arena for over a decade, Willynn now assumes the helm of steering her family's enduring business into the digital age. Rooted in the classic B2B2C landscape of wholesale and traditional minimarts, she infuses it with the vitality of digital evolution and strategic growth. 

In addition to this, she holds the position of Co-Founder at NextBlock, a hyperlocal social app that build meaningful connections within the neighbourhood. Despite her numerous responsibilities, she likely dedicates any available free time to maintaining her well-being while managing the demands of raising four children (and two chihuahuas).

In today’s episode, we discuss :

• Willynn's Background
• Customer segments that NEEDS vs WANTS in marketing
• Make it super easy for your customers to buy
• Create open conversation channels with your customers so they can feedback easily
• Save time from making mistakes by talking to people in your business
• Offline way of acquiring customers still WORKS!
• Using gamification as a tool to retain users
• Experiment your ideas & hypothesis
• Using data to identify the first user segment in Next Block
• How to deal with the challenges of having small data sets
• How to define success in marketing
• Advice for marketers

Where to find Willynn Ng:

LinkedIn

Where to find Julie Ng:

LinkedIn

References:

• piggyback: https://piggyback.sg/
• NextBlock: https://www.nextblock.sg/
• (Book) : Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon Hardcover – 
  by Colin Bryar, Bill Carr: https://www.amazon.com/Working-Backwards-Insights-Stories-Secrets/dp/1250267595
   

Transcript:

0:00
they do offline marketing acquisition uh it's very effective we solve for next
0:05
block we actually did postcard with a verification code we send it over to the uh to the doorstep for the neighbors to
0:11
actually you know signing themselves up on the next block app itself and there is actually our most effective way of
0:17
acquiring user as of now and it also help us to keep the cost low so that's something that we got to know
0:23
um from you know our our the company that we look up to next off in us if not
0:28
we might we might use like social media strategy like very traditional like we throw Facebook uh marketing or even
0:35
Google ads which might not be effective um to the right to the audience within
0:41
our southeast Asia space lab and you it could also be very expensive welcome to winning with data driven
0:48
marketing podcasts this podcast is brought to you by Hua storyi market research I'm Julie your host in this
0:56
podcast and in every single episode we talk to Industry leaders marketers and
1:01
growth experts in Asia about how to use data to enhance the ROI in their marketing activities we bring you real
1:09
case studies while giving you background on how these leaders build their career
1:14
to where they are today joining me today is willing and who is a chief marketing
1:21
and Partnerships officer from piggyback Singapore on top of that she's also in
1:27
web 2 battery marketings often and she's also the co-founder of nextblock Welcome
1:34
Billy hi thank you Julie for having me here today
Willynn's Background
1:39
when I look at your when I look at your experience right I'm just astonished by
1:45
how much things you can juggle at the same time is there any particular secret around you know juggling so many things
1:51
at once I think it's boils down to the belief that what you are really passionate
1:56
about and also a symptom what interests you the most because if you're not interested in do that particular uh industry or not even interested in that
2:04
area or space of things that you're doing uh you will not find any motivation to continue doing it and yeah
2:10
so I I guess it boils down to the belief at the end of the day and also time management which I'm still learning a
2:16
lot from a lot of people around me we would definitely love to actually drill down a little bit into that
2:23
um so when before we start Greg can you tell us a little bit more about piggyback
2:28
sure so piggyback is actually more towards a B2B kind of like wholesale e-commerce platform whd supply to the
2:34
minimize applied to office pantries and some of the b2c household product uh and
2:40
also at the same time we also build the b2c elements of things whereby we also have offline stores like the Mini Mart
2:46
itself to serve the offline target audience within that certain neighborhood so that's something that we
2:52
do and we are trying to build that particular ecosystem and also create this sustainable Commerce kind of
2:58
concept whereby in terms to come uh whether is it a businesses or even individuals can actually benefit from it
3:05
and and I can see that throughout just now we mentioned there are actually three roles that you are currently in
3:12
right when it comes to marketing or uh increasing the market share
3:17
um do you see the similar uh what are the top few challenges that you see across across your role when it comes to
Customer segments that NEEDS vs WANTS in marketing
3:23
marketing challenges I guess it's like right now how do we actually build a certain kind of like uh
3:29
strong followers because consumer nowadays they don't really have loyalty they are more price conscious especially
3:34
during this uh very tough or crunch period like the recession so they are more towards the price point similarly
3:40
like for example if I took a uh uh right share kind of um car itself I don't care
3:46
whether this particular car it's from grab from whatever Rideshare company but as someone can bring speed to A to B uh
3:53
point A to point B at the lowest cost in the um ehg fits into my purpose so
3:58
similarly in terms of the marketing aspect of things uh how much we actually invest in terms of the channels or in
4:04
terms of the resources as long as people are willing to actually you know get the price for the bulk of it like for
4:11
example it's cheap it's convenient yeah and they will actually go for it in terms of that and also this will
4:17
actually have to fit into their personal account like interest whereby I only purchase that thing whether is it a need
4:23
or the one it's a question mark you depends on individuals so we need to actually use certain kind of like data
4:28
sets to actually see is there like a really a need like for example I'm actually doing wholesale warehouse so
4:34
sometimes when I sell to like alcoholics like um alcoholics drinks itself if you
4:40
are someone who actually drinks almost single day all I need to do is actually place that particular ad right into your
4:46
face as and when to actually create that particular awareness that to tell you that I'm actually selling this I don't
4:51
need like to invest a lot of like marketing course in terms of acquiring you because this is like part of your
4:57
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
5:04
as part of things it would be a long long tail kind of stuff whereby I need to actually order their awareness I need
5:09
to throw in some cups like perks like for example if you buy two cartons you get like a cheaper and faster account in
5:16
the very cost thing and this way actually fits into your one like oh it's upcoming like festive season I want to
5:23
actually treat my relative to some form of like drinks and I will get one to give them the variety kind of stuff so
5:29
that's something that um we have to actually take a look at the trends and then also see how we can actually
5:35
um you know approach that it oh I I wonder Jonah a little bit into
5:41
this topic right um so you mentioned two target segment just now a Target segment where in terms
5:47
of the drink itself is really a neat uh versus another Target segment is a one so how do you go around actually
5:53
identify this target segment and how do you go around actually giving them the personalized
5:58
um the personalized ads or channel in this case I think it's boys don't do like the B2B
6:04
or B to C people that we're speaking to so for B2B it's more constant so they will actually have the business uh like
6:11
they are operating almost every single day so it's voiced out to the variety of um items that they can actually push out
6:18
to their customer to create a value chain in terms of their customer pull for them for the B2 uh B2B businesses
6:24
but for the bid to see right it's kind of like very different um so we need to actually understand what are their key interests by seeing
6:31
their card size what do they actually cut the most um of um the time itself and the frequency of them purchasing from us
6:38
whether are they like a new customer how would they actually got to know us and uh how frequent do they actually come
6:45
back so that's something that we will always assess to see how we can reach out to them if it's a repeat customer
6:50
all we need to do is to keep them on our mailing list and then share with them our existing promo and then from there
6:56
to actually you know drive them back to the platform again I see is there any case studies that you
Make it super easy for your customers to buy
7:03
can help us to actually visualize this a little bit further so for the okay so currently previous uh
7:10
we actually do a very traditional way of doing things so we don't really have a website we only use like uh those called
7:16
the ordering app let's say it's take dot app so from there on right it's a very I
7:22
would say not a marketing friendly because you cannot push EDM out through that particular platform and all so
7:28
there's a lot of um things that you need to actually uh really like put it on Excel spreadsheet that assess it through
7:34
through the period of things so we're normally when we actually saw like the customer doing repeated orders We'll add
7:40
them into a mailing list or reach out to their on a web personal note to see that hey hi you actually shop with us like
7:46
this is the third time within the month is there any way that we can actually uh get some feedback from you and also uh
7:51
see how we can if I do this at the same time to ask them that hey would you want to be on mailing list because example we
7:56
have the PDP issue we need their consent um yeah which the current manual way of
8:02
doing this is not really um feasible so but we are also improving that that's why we're also building the app uh not really the app but the
8:09
website itself as a rent it is tapping on government grants available government grants yeah so that's
8:14
something that we are like doing it on a very constant basis and um from there we actually saw that when we actually get
8:20
people like we give them the red personal like a personal license they'll
8:26
be more prompt to HD um you know shopping advice those next and but the price pointing to make sense so solar as mentioned they are not
8:34
but they are more price loyal kind of thing so we need to actually you know
8:41
um give them that particular Personal Touch Plus at the same time the right price point so he has to go like
8:47
together and we actually saw that there will be more prompted g-shop with us more because they will feel very um
8:52
pricey and how should I put it across like more embarrassed to say no to us like those likes and how I'm actually
8:58
watching you we are like friends now so you have to shop with us kind of thing
9:03
interesting I didn't what you describe here is actually uh a lot of the fmcg
9:09
business actually facing this right so uh fmcg itself uh ultimately a lot of
9:14
the goods that we receive everything is offline um but at the same time uh you are you
9:20
are using the different ways to link the on the offline to the online contact in
9:25
this case so can you talk a little bit deeper into in our past conversation we spoke about
9:30
how you are taking the traditional business per se and actually moving it to the modern era and you mentioned
9:36
about brand loyal and price loyal can you talk to us a little bit about the journey and uh and what's your key
9:42
learnings over here it's definitely tough because um does our colleague our teammates over
9:48
at the offline store the mini Marts itself they fight tough to actually you learned a new technology like learned
9:54
how to use a POS instead of doing like a very traditional way like those called casual receipts that we kind of like uh
10:02
Outcast it to us like stand so they find it it's kind of tough to actually you know navigate through the Technologies
10:08
and the right in nature start so but it's a repeated uh kind of like uh training and then telling them that it's
10:14
okay to make mistake and all and to make them to uh you know learn more things so that they can also at the same time
10:20
benefit in their personal life that they can actually use like WhatsApp to communicate with their so-called family members because for some of our
10:26
communication Channel we use WhatsApp as the main core um communication like channels like to
10:32
actually talk to our teammates to actually update anything about the uh worksheet and everything else so that's
10:37
something that we we saw that there's initial resistance because they just says that oh I have been doing this for
10:43
like the past few months Furious it's perfectly fine why are you like trying
10:48
to reinvent the whole world but as we all know um the non-digital audience will start
10:54
to phase out at times when the times come so all of our audience will be very tech savvy especially our future gen
11:02
will be more tax heavy than us as the future gen goes it will only be like how
11:07
many types that they can use right now we have a i a v r a r kind of thing in
11:12
terms of cup we are not sure what kind of Technology will actually come forward yeah so that's something that we we saw
11:17
in nature with standard but it's always about like being very patient with them um that help us through and also at the
11:25
same time for this is more efficient Mark towards the extent we also tell them this was also increase level efficiency they do not need to actually
11:31
manually count the stock they can actually take a look at what is the inner system and then they just do a
11:36
render sampling check it's easier that they because the number will not
11:42
um we're not like pivot like to Too Much from the from the system count to a
11:47
certain extent so that's something that we told them that you also can cut down more time lesser time to do uh manual
11:54
work but spending more time to do like maybe more relaxed stuff so that's something that we actually share with that as a as a form of like a benefit of
12:01
form of Advantage uh it does up their job school which they are more receptive to actually you know handle it yeah
Create open conversation channels with your customers so they can feedback easily
12:10
um so so on top of giving them the objective rationale we also want to give them the uh the psychology incentive
12:16
itself on how that the convenience their life in training gotcha um so in terms of
12:24
um the marketing strategy that you have used in the past right is there any most effective marketing strategy that you
12:30
have used before that you can share with us so for B2B I feel that it's more towards like giving them the particular
12:37
updates on what we are doing so for B2B probably I feel that uh um based on edms
12:42
right uh email marketing it's actually more effective to reach and keep in touch with them because sometimes the account manager or national care
12:49
managers you know just uh you know went over to another company you know is it from a job car thing and it's uh the
12:55
transition is very tough to actually get the new Personnel who take over the old one to actually understand what are the
13:01
catalogs that we are offering and all so with the EDM they have a constant kind of like updates on what we are doing
13:06
what we are changing what's our new product and how they can just tap on the current half like uh the promos itself
13:12
that we are offering it kind of like I would say cut down lesser time for them
13:18
to Transit into that particular neutral for the for our business lab for the B2B part that we are doing so we I feel that
13:25
for email marketing side of things uh it's actually more effective and also at sometimes sometimes when we don't really
13:30
have the time to catch up right some uh some people are more face-to-face kind of person uh email marketing or a text
13:36
message can actually you know put them back and remind them that hey we are just doing this in terms of this
13:41
recession kind of period you want to order from us perfect to actually put them out to a reminder and bring them back to us so I feel that for B2B uh
13:49
what works for us is actually email marketing got it and how do you identify uh email
13:55
marketing as the is there any Benchmark or metrics that you use to validate that
14:00
email marketing is actually the one of the more effective channels so for asteroid also we always put in
14:06
the call Direction button like for them to actually you know uh to track the
14:12
performance of that particular email marketing other than the open counts to the database that we send out to uh we
14:19
also put in the call to action and most of the time the code actually is like a promo code like a new promo that we are
14:24
doing so that we can just try based on that so it uh this is something that we find that it's effective and also at the
14:29
same time for the other hand uh it's actually more towards a fomo that we are mentality that we are building let's say
14:35
that this particular promo only ends like let's say second August so they have to utilize it within a restaurant
14:40
span of time and for businesses it's a constant thing because they are always operating it is whether the price point
14:47
fits into ideas or not and from there on we have some form of like negotiation uh but they they will you know we use that
14:53
promo code to actually check out call to action interesting so you mentioned uh a couple
15:00
of times that uh they are price conscious right actually no matter B2B or b2c so how do you ensure that
15:06
actually um they will let you know when they see that your price is higher instead of just going directly to your competition
15:12
so we always have this very open conversation that the cancer reach out to us to actually see whether they can
15:17
further negle because we always understand for a business to actually you know um survive in this um recession
15:24
contribute right it's the support we give one another business support one
15:30
another they can actually grow together to that extent of things so we always adopt this particular um open
15:35
conversation kind of like um mentality you know so they also know that we also
15:41
have this open communication card thing like that they can actually uh shape us if it's not the right price point and
15:47
for us right because it's a fncg thing so the price pay is about the same it's just that which one built the red ball
15:52
with them or you know uh give them the variety because other than the price point is the variety thing that we're
15:58
actually enticed and because they always find that it's easy to deal with one instead of like multiple kind of like um
16:05
suppliers or wholesalers so so uh so being able to take the
16:10
convenience easily by dealing with just one vendor instead of multiple is one of the key value prop that you are working
16:16
you're you're offering so we always tell them that we do the heavy lifting for them so we lions with
16:22
all the suppliers and all the wholesalers and then we put it together and they just have to order from us or
16:27
if we do not really have and uh things that they need right uh they can change just ping us to tell us that what were
16:33
they actually looking out for is there any drinks that they are looking out in terms of this particular season because
16:39
some of them were actually Korea like cocktails that's best seasonal paste so sometimes they want like ginger out that
16:45
might not be available like in a large amount kind of thing so that's something that um yeah we will always have this
Save time from making mistakes by talking to people in your business
16:51
open communication constant communication with them got it um so I want to switch you a little bit
16:58
so in terms of your current or your past marketing rules right I'm curious um do
17:04
you how much data or research do you leverage uh when it comes to guiding
17:09
your strategy or solving uh the business problems that you face and if possible it will be great if you can share with
17:16
us some case studies so for the past right I guess it's more towards like getting the very
17:24
um user uh acquiring user at a very short time frame using data and how can
17:30
we actually do it uh the research marketing research that we conducted actually help us to validate a lot
17:35
because in this very competitive market uh especially southeast Asia
17:41
um competitions is very intense so sometimes we already reference what our competitors actually doing and what
17:47
actually works for them and whether we can replicate and also improvise on how we can actually cut short our so-called
17:53
uh our rather say growth hack it does our strategies so in the past let's say
17:58
for example for next spot we actually replicate uh something that um our so-called the plus the company that we
18:04
look up to call next door in us which is a listed firm um they used to do they are at least 10
18:11
years old but from how they reach from year 0 to year 10 they went through a
18:17
lot of pathway Love Mistakes so the team over the co-fine team one of my
18:23
co-founder Daryl he actually spoke to um people with um from next door and understand what they have been doing and
18:29
what is the past mistake that they connect um they have actually you know our face and what challenges and what
18:34
works for them and the key point is we take what works for them into our
18:39
current particular southeast Asia Market and replicate it in terms of uh to see whether we can actually you know focus
18:45
on what works for them and to see whether this book for us over here and in this case we can't grow heck we don't
18:52
need to actually take 10 years to reach from now to maybe where they are right now we use like minifiers to achieve
18:59
whatever they have achieved within 10 years so that's something that uh it kind of helped us in terms of this uh
Offline way of acquiring customers still WORKS!
19:05
this particular thing like for example Nicks all share that uh they do offline marketing acquisition uh it's very
19:12
effective we sold for next block we actually did postcard with a verification code we send it over to the
19:18
uh to the doorstep for the Neighbors 3G you know signing themselves up on the next block app itself and there is
19:25
actually our most effective way of acquiring user as of now and it also help us to keep the cost low so that's
19:30
something that we got to know um from you know our our the company that we look up to next talk in us if
19:37
not we might we might use like social media strategy like very traditional like we throw Facebook uh marketing or
19:44
even Google ads which might not be effective um to the right to the audience within
19:50
our southeast Asia space lab and you it could also be very expensive
19:55
yes uh for our audience references right can you tell us a little bit about next
20:01
block sure no problem so this one is actually uh the other startup that I'm actually working on together with my three other
20:07
co-founders so Vig a neighborhood hyper Local app whereby we connect neighbors together and also at the same time to
20:13
build a very vibrant ecosystem within their particular estate so you can see us as the I would say a very hyper local
20:21
social app as per se so we connect with the stakeholders within that particular neighborhood ecosystem like for example
20:27
the neighborhood businesses the public agencies and other than the neighbors
20:32
and we are currently in Singapore and uh expanding to Thailand uh and Singapore we are like 50k users strong and growing
20:40
got it uh so a lot of times that people most of the business actually directly
20:46
skewed towards okay let's let me use a digital medium um to actually acquire users but what
20:52
you're saying is that uh actually you find the most effective channels is actually doing
20:58
the offline thing the postcard sending to keep your course of Acquisitions low and it's actually very effective
Using gamification as a tool to retain users
21:04
yes it does of the user acquisition part but user engagement retest is the different ball Game yes
21:12
yes and so uh sorry excuse me uh you mentioned um
21:20
retention and retention itself is a different ballgame so um can you tell us
21:27
a little bit about uh what's the biggest challenge you face when it comes to user retention and what are the marketing
21:33
strategies or the strategies or growth strategies you use uh to actually uh
21:38
potentially solve them are they for user retention it's actually more towards like how they uh
21:45
the user stickiness to the um the things that we are doing let's say for example next spot how do we attribute that users
21:51
taking us how can we get them to contribute to the app uh contribute to the community and all so there's various
21:57
way that we have tried doing in the past like for example we incentivize them but it doesn't really help out the long term
22:03
basis so we actually create like features to actually increase the user engagement rate on the app so for next
22:09
part we have this particular thing called export coin it's a gamification process that we actually put in place so
22:15
that when people contribute to the app right uh they will actually get a reputation point that will either uh how
22:21
I say uh slice them into like the various level the more you contribute the higher of the level that you will
22:26
actually go and that particular level itself right we're actually um be relevant in terms of the number of
22:32
next block coin you earn per minute let's say I'm actually a level six user every single minute I earn six next
22:38
block coin so I have a Max cap of like actually I was bad by in uh in uh three
22:44
hours time three I can earn like around like 1000 plus half like next point and when I actually claim this coin I can
22:50
actually change it to some form of like rewards so this is like a whole chain that we are uh promoting not really
22:56
promoting but uh in still in terms of our strategy to actually get people to be more engaged on the app itself so
23:03
there will always be a formal mentally whereby I cannot lose that then I I need to contribute more I need to post things
23:10
more well so at the same time you go you get to know like more things about your neighborhood because it's not just you
23:15
posting also your neighbor will be posting the same thing or posting something relevant that's in the neighborhood that you might interest you
23:22
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
23:28
partners that we work with they have some form of like need to expired product they put it up on the platform
23:33
itself as a formal rewards like for example you can claim like two packets of uh like near to expired cheap strike
23:38
for two thousand points and for people that actually you know into sustainability they were they were just
23:43
you know um claim their coins to uh as in utilize their college claim for the particular
23:49
two packets of um potato chips kind of thing at the same time for the business point of view it's like okay we have a
23:54
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
24:02
better account of life purpose and at the same time you can also increase your brand awareness so and it's about how we
24:09
actually repurpose things to fit in the whole Space interesting
Experiment your ideas & hypothesis
24:15
um talking about gamifications right so we also wanted to be um so sometimes when we are building our app and trying
24:22
to use different features to engage our users right um how do you ensure that say in this
24:30
case the gamifications of features that you push out actually get them to be more engaged and giving you Roi uh but I
24:36
suppose a lot of the features sometimes may not necessarily ended up so positively giving us the ROI right so
24:41
how do you choose an experiment with what features to actually prioritize
24:47
so for that right we also we don't really build the features pyro to uh our
24:52
hypothesis so we do like small tests like for example previously when we are trying to build the marketplace because
24:58
we find that people might not say hi to the neighbors very um like very straightforward it might be
25:03
a little bit awkward for them and for marketplace right it you can actually get to know your neighbor through a form
25:08
of transaction for example I'm giving away this baby cot because it's like it's a baby cut it's kind of like bulky
25:15
so I prefer to give it to a neighbor whereby they just walk over the collected or you know they just come with their industrial trolley and the
25:22
same time I get to know them through this particular of giveaway it's easier to actually say oh you're actually expecting a baby right now oh this Edge
25:29
cut can actually be of a good use kind of thing instead of like when we saw each other in the leaf you say a high
25:34
it's kind of awkward like in terms of the Asian kind of like culture to just randomly say hi good morning to your
25:40
neighbor can't think so when we actually tried to do that Marketplace we didn't really uh you know pipe it for that
25:46
features to be built we test whether is there any use for this particular feature because and then we do not want
25:51
to actually um base our resources in building a white elephant that doesn't make off a good use so we create like um for
25:58
example a hashtag like if I want to buy things or sell things we will hashtag buy and sell
26:04
to see whether it's then the mbhd share this particular hashtag out to all our social media channels and reading the
26:10
app card thing 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
26:16
this from a few to a lot of people using this particular hashtag then we realize that okay there's a need for us to
26:21
attribute this Marketplace feature so then we actually okay parasize that to
26:27
ease the whole form of user experience in terms of uh this particular small test that we we do
26:33
yeah so that's how we actually prioritize things oh very interesting I like how how uh
26:41
seemingly listening to it how you use a simple technique like hashtags to
26:46
actually validate and build it as an experiment that's right oh and this will have to cut it to my co-founders because
26:52
they are more uh resource kind of like uh how as they they will optimize their resources
26:59
gotcha and it and when it comes to say next block right I'm also curious um how
Using data to identify the first user segment in Next Block
27:06
does uh because you mentioned a lot of the different things that you understand about your target segment and how do you
27:11
carry out experiments to test a Melody the hypothesis I'm also curious how do data or research play a role
27:18
um in in this field when it comes to next block marketing so for in terms of that right we
27:24
actually saw we are trying to actually identify who are actually our right target audience at the very initial stage so at that point in time we
27:31
actually realized that um the people who actually using export as an app right to actually help them to actually
27:36
understand the neighborhood are people who actually slowly move out from their parents place when they have their house
27:41
on their own so their dependency on the neighborhood will be higher as compared to when they stay with their parents and
27:48
from there and we can actually saw like some conversation they have like for example they ask for recommendation on
27:54
what's the things that they can really uh like go for for laundry purposes casting we did a neighborhood itself
28:00
because they might be very new and they are trying to ease into this particular new neighborhood that they are in stuff
28:06
so we actually see some kind of like data sets on in terms of the platform and one of the conversations they are
28:12
having to actually see how can we actually improve a user experience in terms of uh the near future kind of like
28:18
features that we're gonna build that's one thing and the other one is actually how can we actually uh engage them furthermore in terms of that aspect of
28:26
things that for example a lot of people actually shared a lot of like Singapore Foodies uh food items within the
28:31
particular neighborhood itself so from there we actually saw that there's opportunity to engage them further in
28:36
terms of Hosting offline events like at uh some of the local based on neighborhood business like cafes itself
28:43
they actually engage them one thing to get a second thing is actually uh to get them to um shell a bit feedback on how
28:49
we can improve on our app itself and third is actually have that form of community building in terms of like a we
28:55
are just not seeing ourselves on the digital space but we also real people in real life yeah because right now you know a lot of
29:02
technology sometimes they thought there'd be some form of AI person kind of thing yes
29:08
oh interesting uh I like how Niche um the original Target segments that you
29:13
are seeing which is people who actually move up from their parents house yeah yeah because technically if you
How to deal with the challenges of having small data sets
29:21
said uh who can be our Target segment technically you can we can then say it anyone uh that lives in a certain area
29:29
got that um and so you mentioned a couple of uh ways that uh been using uh how to look
29:35
into Data um to understand our Target segment or choosing who is the right target audience right
29:41
um is there any biggest challenge or top challenges you face when you are trying to use data research when it comes to
29:48
marketing and how do you overcome that is the data sets because when we initially start the
29:54
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
30:01
particular data sets whether is it for piggyback or where is it for next spot it can represent the majority of our end
30:07
user that's something that we have in my and we are not sure if this is some form
30:14
um validated to the extent of things so it's the data sets that we actually gather at a very initial initial stage
30:21
whether does this really validate because at a very initial stage you have to make very firm decision on how the
30:27
company is going to grow forward so with only such I would say small amount of
30:32
data it's really uh it's really like heat or hit or miss kind of thing so there's a
30:38
lot of like trying area whether we can actually fight to this particular form of the weather can be like make it a bigger subset uh to or even a more
30:46
refined subset of it like um yeah or or stuff like for example Marketplace uh we
30:51
want to build like Marketplace category we're thinking which category would they be interested and that's why we actually
30:57
take a look at the things that they are selling and all and whether this would be a majority count representation in
31:02
terms of our times to come because yeah if not we have to put very generic or others a subset called others yeah in
31:09
terms of when we do our category kind of like uh planning I got it so you use the combination I
31:16
think you use a combinations of actually uh dough based on the smaller data set
31:21
but then continuously use experiments to try and error and iterate from there uh I can definitely see a lot of companies
31:28
actually have the same amount of challenges rather buy we want to use data and leverage it but but we don't
31:33
have a lot of them that's right yes got it um so I am also curious so how do you
How to define success in marketing
31:40
define um success when it comes to marketing either in piggyback or next blog how do
31:46
you know that you know marketing set of things are actually on the right track so for okay for app wise lightning
31:52
Explorer itself the success is actually the number of users definitely the number of users Acquired and the number
31:58
of active users that's on the platform after a certain period of time so we actually do it like a monthly kind of
32:03
thing to actually see because for neighborhood thing you can't possibly every day to your neighbors to extend her so we also understand that uh that
32:11
particular Behavior it's not realistic if we actually do a DA uh a daily active
32:17
user kind of thing it's not realistic so we actually do it like a weekly or like a monthly half thing to see whether the
32:23
retention engagement is really there then at the same type of piggyback is definitely and they how do I define
32:28
success of that particular marketing campus if you're running it's all about the gnb value how much do they cut out what's the cut size are they gonna
32:35
repeat uh their orders in time to come is there something that we can actually you know ensure that they repeat their
32:41
order in times to account so that's something that will be uh like yeah that's that that's how I define success
32:46
it's definitely the jmd value ND you got it uh and less honing a little
32:53
bit into that on the gmv value of uh is there any specific things it could be an
32:58
activity decision an area of Focus right that you uh that your team you must get
33:04
right to maximize your odds in making sure um that we can maximize the geometry
33:11
um we always I think most marketers actually um have faced the same thing
33:16
how can this particular current user or like buyer or consumer come back
33:23
again so that's something that we uh the retention part and for you know for us right like it's like the fmcg it's not
33:30
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
33:37
something that we are always constantly putting things in place to see whether we can actually get them to you know
33:43
come back to us again to actually do that particularly fit calf um repeat
33:48
purchase so most of the time when we actually do like a cut size right when we when they cut out right we actually
33:53
tell them that hey eventually cut it out like within a certain time frame from us again you'll get a certain form
33:59
of like rebates or discounts that's why we are also trying to build the rewards program on our new uh website itself so
34:05
that it's easier for us to actually you know um systematically look at it yeah it does of that because
34:12
right now we are really doing like based on uh a very manual Cloud basis because the the tools that we use the resource
34:19
that we use doesn't really help us to you know optimate certain form of um a
34:25
certain form of like uh engagement certain form of campaign got it got it uh so I hear you that
34:33
using loyalty program to ensure retention is one of the key Focus that you will be using to increase the GMU
34:40
itself that's right awesome oh well with that we have actually reached our very exciting
34:46
lightning round I have a couple of questions for you are you ready yes yes
Advice for marketers
34:51
yes let's do it yeah what are some of the most important skills that you
34:57
believe a marketer should have in order to Ace their career uh one thing is that the attitude to
35:03
learn because for marketings right we have so many tools out there and you do not know which are the most
35:08
um relevant one that will fit into your so-called industry so you must have the
35:13
attitude to learn and attitude to keep track of whatever that it's currently in the trend right now yeah because
35:21
whatever that we use in our schools right it might be very old school traditional that is is already faced up
35:26
with we didn't know so the attitude to actually learn new things that's one thing and also at the same time to actually keep updated of what's the
35:32
latest marketing Trend which is very important because what works for now might not be relevant at times like two
35:38
to three months down the road car thing because technology sometimes it's just very fast paced so attitude and keeping
35:45
update of what's going on because yeah not very nice if you are a marketer right and you do not know a we actually
35:51
can do this like right now it's actually a short content curve like era so everything is like short content
35:58
coughing and you I was like what what is that that's not very nice yes
36:04
how do you how do you uh what a wife would you give for those who like to keep track of their marketing train
36:09
where would you suggest they look at um there's all like resources you can actually go on to LinkedIn some of them
36:16
um some of the rest is a marketing person um no they will actually share some form of like um the other things that they
36:22
have been doing and we normally saw see what uh the those like 500 Fortune
36:28
companies and some of the fast grow hyper girls that are on what they are doing so I normally take these two references because you can see it from a
36:34
very structured point of view and something that's non-structured towards an extent
36:41
uh what is the one marketing book or resources that you would recommend I would actually say that for astray we
36:49
should actually take a look at the book by uh Jeff there's more towards like walking backwards it's not really a
36:55
marketing book but you can actually um go through that particular whole flow of entrepreneurial kind of like growth mindset whereby you can actually know
37:02
which are the strategies that is more relevant uh in terms of um which growth stage you are at
37:09
but that's that's the book that actually helped me a lot great we will put the reference link to
37:15
the audience so that they are able to find the book easily on that note um the final question
37:21
um if people want to find you and talk to you and reach out to you to learn more about uh what you're up to where
37:26
should they do that uh they can't you get me on LinkedIn if not they cancel telegram me at my Hender
37:31
itself which is my name I suppose it's our own villain yeah all right again we'll put the link uh on
37:40
on our reference so that our audience can easily connect with you thank you so much uh villain for sharing with us your
37:47
insights no problem thank you so much for being with us yes
37:52
thank you so much for listening if you find this valuable you can subscribe to the show on Apple podcast Spotify or
37:59
Google podcasts also please consider giving us a rating or leaving us a review because this really can help
38:06
other listeners to find the podcast you can find all the episodes or learn more about this podcast at wasp.ei see you in
38:14
the next episode [Music]
38:24
thank you [Music]
38:36
thank you