Page 50 - IBT August 2021 Issue

FinTech
By Marjiya Baktyer Ahmed
Efficiently
Innovative
Sheikh Aminur Rahman, Chief Marketing Officer of Nagad
postulates that to remain effective and impactful the product
must speak for itself
Can you tell us about your
2-year journey with Nagad?
What has been a professional
challenge at Nagad that has
contributed significantly to
your growth as Chief
Marketing Officer?
When I first joined Nagad, my
biggest challenge came from my
industry peers. Despite being a
career marketer it was not easy to
ignore other Marketing experts
when they did not believe in
Nagad’s potential. But I like
tackling challenges. I knew there
was a huge untapped market for
Nagad given that at the time about
60% of the population was
unbanked. A lot of companies tried
to tap into this market for over a
decade. The problem was, they only
followed the market leader which
obviously didn’t work. We didn’t
want to follow anyone, rather we
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August 2021
population and the same segments of
customers. We are providing services not
only to the unbanked population but also
banked corporate people to ensure
convenience. We can say, we are serving the
same customer base with different usage
patterns.
The blessing of digital financial
services (DFS) like Nagad cannot be
overstated in the current COVID-19
scenario – how has the pandemic
shaped the marketing strategies of
Nagad?
Modern marketing success depends on one
thing – the agility of the company. When
COVID-19 hit the country we were not at all
surprised because Nagad was ready ahead
of time and we had some marketing
preparations at hand. We moved fast and in
the right direction – from day 1, we ensured
content creation mobility. If you look at our
contents during the first wave, it was
evident. Our contents and their contexts
were highly aligned with our message- “Stay
home, stay safe’. Not only that, we
successfully communicated the thought that
Nagad is the tool that enables you to stay
home and carry on with your daily tasks.
Nagad has recently launched a
marketing campaign under the slogan
of
‘Deshi Nagad e Beshi Labh’ – can you tell us
wanted to create our own recipe for success. The main what was the thought process behind the
ingredient for the secret recipe of success is – Innovation. campaign and what features of Nagad is
Today as the CMO, I can proudly say, Nagad has reached a being promoted via the campaign?
certain level where the people of Bangladesh have accepted In our last campaign during February to
Nagad as their choice for daily financial transactions. June this year, we massively promoted
Nagad’s easy account opening process. We
gave our audience a solid reason to believe
You have a diverse background in marketing from that each service of Nagad comes with an
telecommunications to fintech and now to Nagad Why
have you chosen such diverse sectors? Have you additional value. Our cash-out charge
noticed any common user behavior in these sectors? through Nagad App is the lowest in the
I was working in the Telecom sector, but it was highly country, our send money, and bill pay
saturated with very good market penetration. Whereas the service are free of cost, we come up with
MFS sector had only one major player and a large untapped exclusive mobile recharge offers and
market. I knew the opportunity to grow and contribute here merchant payment offers. The outcome of
was huge. I always believed in impact. Nagad has had an the campaign was fantastic. Our
impressive impact on the people of the country and also on the communication successfully enticed the
economy. Our services helped users to have financial freedom audience and we got plenty of positive
and assisted our reactions. 130 Million+ Nagad Accounts
agents in supporting their families. Nagad has changed were registered and the Daily Transaction
millions of lives and being a part of this gives me great amount dramatically increased up to BDT
satisfaction. I decided to move to the Fintech sector so that I 750 crore. But we did not want to stop there.
can contribute to the sector and my country more. We constantly kept tracking the newly
MFS/DFS customer usage patterns are totally different from acquired Nagad users and we discovered
Telco customers. Although we are talking about the same that there is a decent number of existing
users who do not use all the services of Nagad. So we devised
this campaign under the slogan of “Deshi Nagad e Beshi Labh”
where we wanted to talk to our inactive users, remind them of
all the advantageous services of Nagad. Like before, we
promoted our top 5 services to implant the idea of using
Nagad Account regularly.
Nagad has some of the lowest cost-charges in the MFS
sector. How is it allowing Nagad to remain
competitive?
Not only from a cost-efficient perspective Nagad is also
competitive from every viewpoint. From its inception, Nagad is
playing an incredible role to popularize mobile payments
with advanced technology and that also helps us to be
through its state-of-the-art and innovative service developed
cost-efficient. Using the super quality technology our cost of
doing business was slashed down to the lower level and also
helps to reduce the cost even under the existing
revenue-sharing model.
What do you think is the secret recipe to success in the
digital era of marketing? From your previous
experience, would you say that bullet proof marketing
strategy exists or is it just a myth?
needs one core element – ‘Product Truth’. You can have a
If I have to be completely blunt here, Bullet Proof Marketing
yearlong marketing plan and flashy campaigns, but solely
depending on marketing won’t give you long term results.
Through marketing maybe you can make an average product
viewed as a good product. But you cannot make a substandard
product viewed as a good product. The fastest way to kill a
brand is to market an inferior product. Sooner or later
consumers will find out the product truth. Marketing is very
important, but only a great product can make it invincible.
If I have to add something in terms of secret recipe – whether
your business has just been launched off the ground or you
have been around, but you are getting ready to launch a new
website or print a poster to promote a new product or service,
you need to be prepared – ahead of time – with three key
ingredients to make sure a fine recipe is in place. I say it is a
not-so-secret recipe because we all are pretty familiar with
these three basic elements. Firstly, understanding your market.
Secondly, understanding your product and lastly,
understanding your marketing message.
UK-based Global Economics Ltd. has handed Nagad, the
“Most Innovative Digital Finance Service” award of
2021 – can you talk us through this win and how you
envision further propelling this success?
I think such an esteemed recognition was possible because of
the kind of culture Nagad has. Our culture revolves around
innovation. We encourage each and every employee to take
challenges and not be afraid of making mistakes. Every day
we try to do something new – whether it is in terms of our
content or product. I’m very grateful to our Top Management,
as they always nurture this innovation culture. Of course,
recognition pushes us to go forward and I can say this has
inspired us to reach greater heights in the future. We will
continue to innovate and change lives for the better.