The Future Landscape of FintechJoanne Bradford & Getting More Women Into The Boardroom - A Sit-down With Joanne Bradford D.F.A. #19
and How to Leverage Commercial Register To Acquire Institutional LPs Data Part 2
Spotlight on Joanne Bradford: Pioneering FinTech & Championing Women in Leadership
Joanne Bradford, a trailblazing figure in the tech and financial sectors, is currently a board member at Super and Kahoot!, but her transformative journey with Honey, a startup focused on automating online discounts, remains a standout chapter in her illustrious career. At Honey, she merged innovation with financial insight, setting new benchmarks for the industry. Prior to that, she served as COO and CMO of SoFi. I’ve been really excited to interview Joanne for a long time because of the tremendous impact the two companies she’s led have had on not only the startup ecosystem but, quite simply, the average American web user. Honey has over 10 million users worldwide, and so few executives can speak to fintech marketing in the way that Joanne can.
Beyond her professional acumen, Joanne’s a staunch advocate for women in leadership. In this interview, she delves deep into actionable strategies to bolster female representation in boardrooms, emphasizing the need for diversity in decision-making. Furthermore, with her rich experience spanning giants like Microsoft, Yahoo!, and SoFi, Joanne offers sharp insights into the fast-moving FinTech landscape. Join us as we navigate Joanne's unique blend of expertise, passion, and vision.
1. Consumer Engagement: From Honey's consumer-focused approach to Sofi's financial solutions, you've been at the forefront of engaging customers. How do you see consumer engagement shaping the future of finance and investment?
Consumers don’t want “Robo everything”. They want to trust a company, understand why the company exists. At Honey and SoFi, it took time to get consumers to believe in the brand and trust the business models. The rise of TikTok and explainers has helped consumers to demystify finance and money.
2. Marketing Strategies at Sofi: During your tenure as CMO of Sofi, you drove growth through innovative marketing strategies. Can you share some insights into how you leveraged technology to achieve this success?
At Honey, we were trailblazers, we advertised on Barstool’s Call Her Daddy, did sponsored posts with [social media influencers like] PieDewPie and MrBeast before they were giants in the media landscape. We took risks, big corporations would not advertise with influencers and podcasters, we embraced it. The communities loved our brands, every kid in the world learned about Honey from MrBeast.
At SoFi we really worked on community development, hosting dinners and happy hours for our early members. We sent every member a t- shirt when they refinanced a loan. The last yar I was there, we sent out over 300K t-shirts and hosted 10,000 people at events.
The early Word of Mouth from those efforts carried us. Everyone said it wouldn't scale, but I said it would matter and we could find scale easily once we had super fans.
3. Fintech Innovation: With your unique perspective on fintech innovation from your experiences at both Honey and Sofi, what do you see as the future of fintech, and how should investors position themselves to capitalize on emerging trends?
Fintech will never be done innovating. Money is used by everyone. There is always a new clever angle to how money is exchanged and used. In my life I have seen credit cards, points, mobile usage, invoicing, trading have all changed dramatically. Consumers adapt - I hate going to a bank, think about how much banks spend on real estate! There is so much opportunity. I’m so glad I took the risk on my FinTech career.
4. Transition to Board Member Roles for Women: Joanne, as a successful leader in the industry, you've likely seen the challenges and opportunities women face in transitioning to board member roles. What advice and strategies can you share for women looking to make this transition, and how can organizations support them in this endeavor?
The number one piece of advice I have to become a good board member is get in the boardroom in your day job. See the dynamics at play. If you are experienced enough to be in your company's board room, then you can start looking for board roles.
I love working with early stage companies as a board member. It’s exciting and dynamic to support founders in growth and fundraising mode. But it’s not for everyone. There is nothing glamorous about it. While non profits are fine starting points, mostly they want your donations vs your strategic input.
Get some training - There are great board governance training resources in the world. A board mentor told me the job of a board member is to make sure the strategy and the CEO are in good shape and stay out of the operational weeds as a board member. It is good advice.
5. Shifts In Perspective: What is one thing that you think 22-year-old female professionals today believe that you think 22-year-old female professionals in 2003 did not believe, and how does that impact the investing environment?
I think, today, a 22 year old today believes in boundaries and themselves.
6. Career Lessons and Insights: Your diverse roles and achievements offer a wealth of lessons and insights. Can you share some specific aspects of your career that have been particularly impactful, and how they might apply to investment strategies?
Ask for more responsibility. I always got more responsibility when I asked for it.
Ask for an explanation of why things are done in a certain way, most of the time people didn't know why and were open to changing.
If you have an idea, write it down and share it with your company, I was always surprised at how many of my ideas actually got done.
Most people complain vs solve.
On investing -
Market momentum matters - never, ever work or invest in a declining industry.
11 Investment Firms and New Pricing Options (!)
As Lead Zeppelin grows to 11 investment firms and numerous other clients, there are now new ways to drive demand for your investment firm. Instead of working with Lead Zeppelin for the previous 7-month minimum, you can now work with Lead Zeppelin for a 3 or 1-month pilot project. Want to play a riff with us? Now you can.
The way investment firms work with Lead Zeppelin is simple. Clients choose a plan, and receive 1-2 investor meetings per day, typically LPs or family offices. To learn more, feel free to book an intake call.
How to Leverage Commercial Register To Acquire Institutional LPs Data Part 2
Last week, we published the first part of this article, a 1383-word guide to how to find institutional LPs using commercial register data. This week, we’re going to go deeper on how to reach out to those LPs and create really smart marketing campaigns that will be highly effective in reaching them. In the first part of this series, we delved into the intricacies of sourcing institutional LPs from the commercial register, focusing on leveraging platforms like HubSpot and Apollo for maximum efficiency.
As we move into Part 2, we're shifting gears to the equally critical aspects of segmentation and personalization, as well as compliance and data privacy. These elements are not just 'nice-to-haves'; they are essential components that can make or break your outreach efforts. Whether you're a seasoned pro or new to the game, the following tactical guide will provide you with actionable steps to refine your strategy on both HubSpot and Apollo platforms. These are two that we see a lot of our clients using. We use Apollo ourselves and most of the feedback we’ve heard on Hubspot from our clients has been positive.
This post is structured a bit more like a support article in the middle section, but there’s a good case study at the end, so if the middle gets a bit too technical for you, just keep scrolling down, okay?
Let's dive in!
1. Segmentation and Personalization
HubSpot:
Creating Segmented Email Lists:
1. Navigate to Contacts: Log into your HubSpot account and go to `Contacts > Lists`.
2. Create New List: Click on `Create list` and choose `Active list`.
3. Set Criteria: Use filters like `Company Size`, `Industry`, or `Location` to segment your contacts.
4. Save and Name: Once you're satisfied with the criteria, save and name your list.
Crafting Personalized Emails:
1. Go to Marketing: Navigate to `Marketing > Email`.
2. Create Email: Choose `Create email` and select a template.
3. Personalization Tokens: Use personalization tokens like `{{first.name}}` or `{{company.name}}` to personalize each email.
4. Segment-Specific Content: Write content that addresses the unique needs and pain points of each segment that you're targeting.
[If this part’s getting too technical, no worries, just keep scrolling down to the case study.]
Apollo:
Creating Segmented Email Lists:
1. Go to People: From the dashboard, go to `People`.
2. Use Filters: Use the filters on the left to segment by `Industry`, `Company Size`, etc.
3. Save Segment: Once filtered, click `Save Segment` and name it.
Crafting Personalized Emails:
1. Navigate to Sequences: Go to `Sequences` from the dashboard.
2. Create Sequence: Click `New Sequence`.
3. Add Steps: Add email steps and use variables like `{first_name}` for personalization.
4. Tailor Content: Make sure the content is relevant to the segment you're targeting.
2. Compliance and Data Privacy
HubSpot:
Data Protection Laws:
1. Go to Settings: Navigate to `Settings > Privacy & Compliance`.
2. Enable GDPR: Toggle on GDPR functionality to ensure compliance.
Data Storage and Management:
1. Data Retention: Set data retention policies under `Settings > Data Retention`.
2. Access Control: Use `Settings > Users & Teams` to control who has access to sensitive data.
Apollo:
Data Protection Laws:
1. Navigate to Settings: Go to `Settings > Compliance`.
2. Enable CCPA: If you're in California, make sure to toggle on CCPA compliance.
Data Storage and Management:
1. Data Encryption: Apollo automatically encrypts sensitive data.
2. User Permissions: Go to `Settings > Team` to set permissions for team members.
By following these tactical steps in HubSpot and Apollo, you'll not only be able to segment your audience for more personalized outreach but also ensure that you're in full compliance with data protection laws, especially crucial for businesses based in California.
Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or need further clarification on any of these steps. Cheers!
Absolutely, Adam! Given that your audience appreciates tactical insights, let's make sure these sections are packed with actionable advice and real-world examples. Here's how you can complete the last three parts of your blog post:
3. Case Study: Lead Zeppelin’s 11 investment Firm Clients
At Lead Zeppelin, we've had firsthand experience with the power of commercial register data in LP acquisition. When we work with any investment firm we typically do not market a fund per se. Instead, we focus on working with an investor persona, whether that investor is an individual LP or in the case of commercial register data, an institutional LP.
In the case of commercial register data, we source it a number of different ways, and we do this in real-time. We use LinkedIn company data, which we typically ingest via the Apollo platform. We will often overlay customer intent data, which usually comes from the Bombora platform - this tells us which customers are thinking of buying what. Combining intent data with firmagraphic data allows you to tell which institutional LPs are not only the right size, but lets you know which LPs might be the most ready to invest.
Using Apollo, we create personalized email campaigns for each segment, focusing on their unique pain points and investment goals.
Within the last twelve months, we’ve accumulated $40M in funding from 8 of the 10 investment firms that we’ve worked with.
4. Measuring Success
KPIs to Track
"Success in any campaign is measurable. Here are some KPIs you should be tracking:
- Open Rates: Aim for at least a 30% open rate.
- Reply Rates: A good reply rate is around 1-5%.
- Conversion Rates: This is the ultimate metric—how many of those clicks turned into committed LPs. From the investment firms that we work with, we see conversion currently ranging from 11 to 33%, from confirmed meetings. Meetings have a show-up rate of 76 to 83%.
Iterating and Improving
Use these metrics to iterate and improve your campaigns. For example, if your open rates are low, it might be time to A/B test your email subject lines. If your conversion rates are lagging, consider revising your call-to-action or offering more compelling content. HubSpot and Apollo both offer robust analytics tools to help you fine-tune your campaigns.
5. Conclusion
In summary, leveraging commercial register data for LP acquisition isn't just a strategy; it's a necessity for investment firms looking to scale efficiently. The benefits are clear: targeted outreach, higher engagement, and ultimately, more committed LPs.