Surely the statement itself, in the context of the larger conversation, is enough to imply meaning?
I think the VCs for Monzo are not primarily British? And Monzo has been pushing for profitability for several years now, I don’t think they’ve got that strategy wrong.
There’s a difference between being ‘unprofitable’ because you are spending money on growth, and unprofitable because your underlying model is loss making. When Monzo were losing circa £100 million a year just to keep the business running that was clearly an issue, it meant they had to keep raising huge amounts of cash or go under. They pulled back on marketing and customer growth just because rapid growth would have increased the losses - that’s a big issue for any business. I think Monzo were right to address that and I really doubt their VCs were saying ‘don’t worry about it’ - in fact the down round shows at one point it was difficult for them to raise money at all.
But also on that podcast, the idea that down rounds are a bad thing was also blown up a bit, no business is going to constantly have a growing valuation and especially through the phase where you’re establishing a business and it’s model.
The down round was as much to do with investors being extremely nervous during a global pandemic.
Obviously it’s a bad thing It means the company is struggling to raise money.
VCs might think it’s a good thing because it means cheaper shares for them, it’s not exactly great for the business issuing shares at a cut price though.
Have a listen from 1:35 in
Okay I think you’ve misunderstood the 12 comment if that’s the one about 15 minutes in. They say 12 years to liquidity. They are talking about portfolio returns, nothing to do with business profitability.
(I won’t even start on their terrible analysis of Ukraine/Russia, I rage quit about 25 minutes in when they said ‘no one in Germany took a science class’ lol)
Fair enough, but the VC outlook is longer then most think. The other analysis makes me roll my eyes a lot
You could have just replied:
“No.”
I agree, I applied for starling overdraft in the same manner and it just gave a no, and I will never know if it’s because I requested said limit
Despite not being regulatory compliant for a few years
9 posts were merged into an existing topic: Interest rate rises - impact on Monzo
Nothing really here , but it came up in my feed.
Well this makes this place feel like the height of cynicism:
Monzo used relationship marketing to take advantage of low customer satisfaction, connect with their target audience, and turn their customers into loyal followers.
Relationship marketing is a strategy that keys in on customer emotions to build relationships, foster customer loyalty, and increase customer engagement to lead to customer advocacy. Relationship marketing tactics include community building, branding, and referral programs, among others.
And look, we’re a marketing tactic… (emphases mine)
Monzo’s main relationship marketing tactic early on was to build a brand community. This brand community fostered customer loyalty and engagement, gave their customers a sense of belonging, and humanized their brand by bringing themselves seemingly closer to their clients.
Emphasis mine. Wow. Community only really works when it’s a genuine endeavour, not something else wrapped to up “seem” genuine.
They Built Trust Through Radical Transparency
… They started moving toward radical transparency by building a transparency roadmap. They also built a transparency dashboard…
Neither of these things (the roadmap or dashboard) exist any more.
They Provided Proactive Customer Support
No comment, except to note the tense.
Monzo Used Relationship Marketing to Kickstart and Sustain Growth—You Can, Too
Goodness me.
Right, where to start with this abomination?
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Don’t cynically exploit your community. They will turn on you.
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Providing a set of examples of really good stuff that a community-centric organisation used to do, but doesn’t any longer, is not a good look.
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Trying to sell this as a case study without really understanding how community fits into the wider (for want of a better phrase) digital disruption ecosystem is a fail.
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Seeing community as part of marketing is a fail. (I know Monzo does/did do this. But that doesn’t make it right and is a debate for another time…)
This is also a bit sad given that community seems (to me at least) to be a bit of a legacy hangover. It was a reminder of some of the excellent initial work, whereas we’re now in a situation where Corporate Monzo takes away things like the customer counter, depriving the Community of a little bit of joy and a bit of countdown fever to the next milestone (not to mention the buzz and free publicity). When you lose this form of engagement you’ll never get it back…
I don’t see the problem with the article. All those things were marketing strategies, just because they were genuine beliefs and principles, doesn’t mean they weren’t also used as marketing strategies.
Something seeming genuine and being genuine are not mutually exclusive. In fact, as you point out, the two go hand in hand.
I am pretty sure that for every single startup with all their diverse marketing strategies, there’s an obnoxious marketer out there ready to claim that it’s just part of what they knew all along. To me it feels more like Monzo followed an “Agile”, in the true rather than more commonly practices cargo-cult, sense and engaged deeply with the actual customer.
Relationship marketing is a form of marketing that emerged in the 1980s, in which emphasis is placed on building longer term relationships with customers rather than on individual transactions. It involves understanding the customers’ needs as they go through their life cycles. It emphasizes providing a range of products or services to existing customers as they need them.
Yeah, that’s adjacent, not actually what happened, and so vague as to be meaningless.
I couldn’t agree more with @Peter_G
Community is not a “marketing tactic”. Perhaps some view it that way, I most certainly did not, and I’m not afraid to share that I caught heat for it on occasion.
My stance is simple - and that is that product community management is not just about representing your company to your customers, but also representing your customers to your company. And when your customers are saying things that your company doesn’t want to hear? That’s when it’s the most important.
There was a time when this was seen as the highest priority. And sure, businesses grow and evolve and change and face new challenges. But real community is foundational. As in, those efforts must continue to be supported. If they rot, you’re left on shaky ground.
I think whoever is in charge of the Monzo Twitter account has had too many E numbers!
Weird set of tweets in this thread
Have a look at all the polls?
I miss the days when that account was relevant.