DIGITAL MARKETING
Jess Stephens CMO, TrustedHousesitters
As an entrepreneur with two successful start-up exits, and current CMO of TrustedHousesitters, the world’s largest house and pet sitting service, it’s not surprising that Jess Stephens is one of Management Today’s 35 Women Under 35. With experience at brands like Filofax and Smart Focus, Stephens is a vocal advocate of the sharing economy, and the ways in which digital can shape the way communities grow and connect. “I’ve always been in digital marketing, and I’ve carried a piece of advice from my first role with me: ‘If you don’t know about it, go and learn’. So, after several years on the client side of digital marketing, I decided to go and do start-ups. After two successful exits, selling my own start-ups to larger companies, I’m now part of a third, where I’m responsible for transforming the way that we actively market and connect with our member base. I’m looking to take our already healthy run rate and go one step further – to become a movement, rather than just a company.”
FD: What is the most important trend driving innovation at TrustedHousesitters?
JS: What you notice about successful start-ups is that they’re all championed by referral programmes. If you look at big players like Uber and Dropbox, their growth is all down to referral traffic. It’s more than just chucking around digital marketing budgets and hoping for the best, it’s the power of people sharing what you have. If you have a poor service or product, you won’t be able to convince your customers to do this for you. We’re lucky enough to have a great service, so for us fanning the flames of that referral programme is probably the best way to approach digital. This is our main focus for 2018. We have a 9.7
rating on Trustpilot from over 8000 reviews, so how can we can involve those satisfied users in the growth of our brand?
FD: How do you think the sharing economy is growing through digital, and what is TrustedHousesitters doing to stand out?
JS: We’re one of the only members of the Sharing Economy UK Business Forum that truly expresses the sharing economy, as no money changes hands between the pet sitter and the owner; members such as Airbnb, for example, are still dependant on monetary exchange. We previously got a lot of coverage that missed the point a little bit, and said: ‘stay in this amazing location, BUT you have to look after Fido.’ Our message is actually: ‘go on this amazing retreat, AND you get to have these great pets for company.’ It’s a win-win for both the owner and the sitter. The owner gets to go away knowing that the sitter is there, giving them peace of mind. As a platform that is totally reflective of the sharing economy, we are unique.
FD: Are there any industries that you can see really embracing the sharing economy in the future?
JS: You can’t put the sharing economy onto every kind of tool or service, but anything that connects people, car sharing platforms for example, I think will really take off. Through digital, we can connect anything that’s not being used with people who will use it. But of course, the sharing economy needs to be about a mutual community need, rather than a transactional service. An app which lets you find someone who will collect and do your laundry, for example, is not an example of the sharing economy, but often they’re classified under the same umbrella because they’re connecting people peer-to-peer, when peer-to- peer is actually very different. There are a lot of opportunities for the sharing economy to be embraced, but we have
to clearly define what it is and what it represents.
FD: What drives the team?
JS: One thing we’re good at here is not chasing the next new and shiny thing, but focussing on marketing basics that will always be relevant: getting the right audience and creating the right message for them. We break up our channels into introduction, education, influencing, and converting. Different channels are great for different things, and I don’t think we have a silver bullet that will carry over into any other industry, because it’s so specific to our unique product. It’s not the tools that make the difference to marketing; we still have to know what demographics we are looking for, how we can influence those prospects, and how our customers want to hear from us.
FD: What motivates you?
JS: My entrepreneurial background is really helpful. Having completed two successful exits means people respect that I can deliver, and for that reason I think of myself more as an entrepreneur than a CMO. Real entrepreneurial spirit is about the ability to be creative, act fast and fail well if things don’t go exactly to plan. In my day-to-day, I’m totally obsessed with the visual brand concepts as well as the data, and I’ve taken this approach to my whole team. We’re rooted in every decimal point of the data, and what motivates all of us is when we can turn a dial on a campaign and see the real impact we have on our community. Whether we’re letting people travel, or enabling pets to stay happy at home, people are having their lives changed in some way. We are so lucky to be creating something that really impacts people’s lives. Every time I read our reviews on Trustpilot, I’m reminded of why we do what we do. And I think without being a charity it’s the closest you can get to that feeling.
trustedhousesitters.com
9 issue 31 spring 2018
There are a lot of opportunities for the sharing economy to be embraced, but we have to clearly define what it is and what it represents.
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