Empathise
Previse's mission is to get suppliers paid faster, especially those small and medium-sized ones (sometimes referred to as "B2b" versus the conventional "B2B"). InstantPay delivers on this promise every time a large corporate prepays a supplier; however, it only solves part of the problem. Only when every large corporate offers prepayment will the B2B and B2b economies be appropriately supported.
Just over 18 months ago, Previse began investigating an alternative product for small and medium-sized businesses in the UK and the USA. One that is independent of the large corporate - InstantAdvance. In simple terms, InstantAdvance is a Merchant Cash Advance (MCA), except it's the first that isn't tied to a "Point of Sale" system or eCommerce platform.
The Head of Sales and Marketing, along with the Product Owner, developed a multi-channel, multi-campaign approach to test the market appetite for InstantAdvance. Each Campaign would target a specific industry segment or need state. As the product marketing matured, a typical campaign would include the following:
- Segmentation.
- LinkedIn Display Adverts (rarely).
- A direct mail pack (sometimes).
- A sequence of three emails.
- Either a dedicated or a generic landing page, depending on audience size/make-up.
- Display advertising for retargeting website visitors.
- A short, website-hosted "InstantAdvance pre-application" form.
- A standalone WebApp for the complete "InstantAdvance Application" and tools to connect bank accounts and accounting solutions.
- Follow-up outbound telephony.
- An automated email sequence for "maybe later" responses to the telephone call.
In parallel to all this were ongoing A/B tests for landing page layout, landing page content, landing page calls to action, email content, email timing, email subject lines, and SEM campaigns using Google Ads.
The overriding objective – can we identify specific data-driven characteristics or niches where this product could thrive?