Marketing Chameleon with Hana Sabastawi | Director of Marketing & PR

Hana, we want to get started with the first question regarding general marketing and PR. I want to get your perspective and opinion about the role of storytelling when it comes to branding and building a reputable brand.

The storytelling, is the part of the brand that we don’t get that much involved in it other than promoting it because, usually, it’s the origin of the brand, the way the brand started or created.

For example, one of the really big restaurants, they started in a small cake shop that they grew.

The storytelling, usually, it’s the history of the brand itself.  So, creating the, it needs minimum of 10 to 15 years, like, as they say, a journey to start, your storytelling. But, usually, we then we don’t get that much involved in it. We promote it. We tell people to know that we’re old, that our brand is really, solid based. But, usually, it’s related to the origin of the product or the service or the history of the chain or the beginnings of the business owners or this business.

How do you think as a marketer and a professional in marketing, would be able to paint a compelling picture for their brand?

Well, mainly, I’ve tried to highlight that the product or the service was adapted to people’s needs. We tried to do an added value to people to satisfy them. Storytelling usually, it’s within, like, a journey and After a journey, you start Storytelling.

Usually, the startup business doesn’t have this because you need to listen. You need to communicate with your customers to start developing your service or product and to have a story & build.

Should brands be as honest about the original story? Does honesty play a big role into people appreciating the brand, or should they address something that people will want to hear?

People trust that you’re transparent, you’re telling them details, you’re telling them that we put effort, we were not perfect, we’re trying to be perfect, we’re trying to satisfy you, the engagement and telling people what you’re doing. It for sure, an added value to the brand, especially the credibility like I said.

I love that you talked about credibility and honesty. As a director of marketing and PR, would you turn a public relations disaster into a triumph?

First of all, what you really do is…, we try to solve as management committee.

We solve the problem right away. Then I usually publish this problem, letting people know it, the actual problem, what exactly happened.

Plus, I also, publish whatever, solutions, that, this customer is satisfied right now, the compensation that was done, all the steps. And then also letting people know internally what we have done to make sure that this disaster will never happen again. By the way, I build a lot of campaigns on my SWOT analysis.

What are my weaknesses? Because, you know, in marketing, we just look for campaigns like no matter what. And if we don’t have a new product or service or launchings, what we do is we just try to brand awareness.

When you talk about weaknesses and mistakes, do you think an apology as a brand and as a company will take you a long way as in will your clients appreciate your honesty and humility in apologizing?

We always apologize. We always compensate, because it’s the negative reputation goes 10 times faster than the positive one. So, if the person is satisfied, in future, this person will always recommend me. This company do care… They do they do listen. It’s not just they sell the product. They have the best after sales service, which is really in these days, one of the important things. It’s really important the after sales services. If you didn’t have a very strong, customer after sales service, no retention, no positive word-of-mouth then all your effort is just gone.

As a marketing director you mentioned a very important point that marketing is about the whole picture, about the whole organization. How can the marketing team ensure that every other department is aligned with the brand and the marketing goal that is set or established?

Involvement and follow-up. They have to be involved in everything. For example, I have different locations. I have a weekly inspection to each and every location. They make sure that although the forms are up to date, the new logos are used, the systems and the kiosks are all good. The flyers the old flyers or roll ups are removed or are still there, the promotions. Every, employee in the branch knows what offers are existing right now. So, this is the follow-up and the existence in each and every state, any activities that’s done. Plus, you have to make sure always that everything you’re doing for your branding is up to date.

I used to have a tracker with a check checklist for my employees to go to each and every branch to make sure my flyers, my roll ups, all the employees, seniors or juniors know about my promotion and know the prices. Plus, we used to do a, test calls for them, mystery shoppers to make sure that they are all aligned. They know up to date the prices because some of the times, that was a weakness that each and every time, you get a different price. So, what we have done is we have trained them on the prices, make sure that they know the price as well. To ensure quality, because it was a weakness, we got a lot of complaints that each and every time I call to ask about this thing, they give us a different price.

We see that you’ve worked in different industries such as real estate, retail, the medical sector as well. How will you be able to apply your marketing skills and marketing experience, to fit these different industries despite the fact that they might have different client base and then the needs and requirements?

Marketing is just finding the targeted audience. Just reaching… no matter what kind of audience, it’s easy or you have techniques to just reach these people, different techniques. Each and every country have different technique, but I used to change the language. I used to change the visuals. I used to change the tools. Because, for example, in Kuwait, the social media was extremely effective, 6 to 7 years back. In UAE and Saudi Arabia, it wasn’t. The outdoors was very effective. Now the outdoors started the last past 2 years. In Kuwait, the outdoors started to be very effective.

So, each and every market have a different tool. So mainly to adapt, I know how to reach. It’s just who’s my targeted audience. I change my tools to reach my targeted audience. That’s simple. In each and every sector.

How would you be able to think and modify the marketing tools? As you, mentioned that, different cultures or different countries or regions have different requirements or standards for marketing. How would you be able to navigate it as a marketeer?

Numbers, evaluation for each and every campaign. I do evaluation. I’ll see what is the most effective tool. As we discussed earlier, I utilize my budget. I’ll see the best leads, which tool got me the best the biggest numbers, close the maximum sales.

So, it’s just history, previous campaigns. History for marketing, previous, tools, my numbers, my evaluation, on the long run, I just know this tool, for example, SMS for retail is booming. I did XYZ sales within I increased the sales and the, traffic 200% within 200 KDs, which is an SMS campaign.  The assessment and the evaluation for each and end campaign makes life much easier. Sometimes we have a lot of dreams. I really want to go outdoor because the outdoors gives an impression that this brand is paying a lot, is investing, cares about their image.

They need to know that people that they are investing in marketing. That’s a dream for us, but we cannot do it. It’s over budget. Whatever I’m going to get is not enough to cover my expenses. I don’t do it! Sometimes, really, it kills us that we really want such thing, but you always have to utilize, to get the best of whatever you’re getting in your marketing.

How do you get every penny out of your marketing budget?

Each and every campaign, each and every KD you pay, maybe you don’t have history. Maybe this is the first time you’re doing this campaign. But still, I have experience, and I will get more experience what kind of tool I’m goanna risk, and I risk small amount. I just don’t go big to see which tool is the most effective tool for this kind of business. It was the first time to have such campaign. But to have my budget wasted just for that reputation, just to go outdoors, it doesn’t work that way. It does it’s not going to satisfy the business owners in the vineyard because they’re investing in their money, you know, that they worked really hard for this money. I cannot just go and spend it just for my own, you know, the pleasure.

Oh, I want to go outdoors. I want to make the I want everybody to know. I can make everyone know the brand, increase my brand awareness, having my existence in each and every event with a less cost. On the long run, I’ll have this brand awareness. I don’t need it on the spot or spend thousands of KDs for the reputation.

If I have a huge budget, okay, why not? But mainly, what I have for example, fixed budget for 7 countries. And by the way, this brand is a South American brand. I learned how to be protective on my brand. To be honest, I give them the credit. I started really being very protective on my brand, learning how they are protective.

I’m in a different country. I’m handling 6, 7 countries, but the owner of the brand, they used to get involved even in the captions. They used to translate. It’s a different language. They used to translate my social media language, and they used to reject and change and then translate it back and send it to me on weekly basis to see how protective they are.

I learned to be protective from them, to be honest. It’s amazing. It’s amazing how they protect their brand. This price tag color doesn’t match with the booth color, although they are in our guidelines. And these colors are in our guidelines. But imagine the overall loo they didn’t, accept it, and they rejected. To that extent, no nothing to be done. No photography. No videography. Nothing to be done by them because it’s their baby. They know how to present things. They don’t even accept us in other countries to have anything done other than they do it.

Hana, we want to know where is your career campus pointing next?

To be honest, it’s just supporting other companies. Real pleasure is the success in marketing, whether for myself, other companies, business owners, my friends. I think I’m going to keep on being consultant. in marketing, giving the right support to new generation.

I even have a couple of trainings for students in Cairo. They requested me to go and support them in a practical marketing. I I’d love to do that. It’s just marketing. I think I’m so passionate about marketing in my career.

Tell us more about how a person can be protective of their brand ? This is actually really interesting. I’d like to hear more about it.

First of all, in marketing, you have guidelines. You have to go within your guidelines. You cannot just go creative or crazy. It’s just this is your identity. You just cannot go with your identity.

So, you always have to be protective is, again, your reputation. The end users and the other departments have to take care of your brands. It’s not only you. You always have to choose your words with your customers.

You have to engage with your customers. Engaging with customers, it’s your image. You have to be protective while talking to people. Your language the language you’re using, the way you’re satisfied, the way you’re communicating with people. This is all you always have to be protective because one small mistake just, really, it’s going to affect your brand.

So being protective is from A to Z, everything, your guidelines, your looks, your artwork, your visuals, the people you’re choosing to advertise for you. It’s a part of your brand. You cannot just go to any influencers that has nothing to do with your brand or with the industry because if you lose the influencer you lose the credibility. But if you go to the right people, if you have chosen the right people to present your brand, that’s also being protective on your brand.

Would you rather have 50 and loyal customers or 10 loyal customers?

10 loyal customers will just spread your news within 2 or 3 years to hundreds of people. Regular customers not going to spread the word-of-mouth. So loyal is retention and word-of-mouth.

According to the, book Purple Cow, the book talked a little bit about the role of brands and companies and how they should perhaps focus on building a loyal customer base. So, what do you think of this statement from the book Purple Cow?

Having your loyal base customer retention. It’s one of the most important things, retention! which also leads to a positive word-of-mouth, especially in small countries, and the social media rumors or whatever is the information spreading really fast. Having the positive word-of-mouth, having the retention is what reflects on your ROI and your brand and your image. It reflects on everything.

Plus having your own touch, being unique, presenting thing in a different way, not being boring, doing things your own way that people would just do it.  That this company or this person or this brand have done this. This is definitely by them because it’s unique. It’s different. So, people will also be, loyal to you because, being unique, being different, presenting things differently.

Even you’re overpriced because people who they’re not price sensitive. These people are really hard to deal with them and hard to be, you know, to keep them loyal and to have their satisfaction. These people, you can have them really loyal if you were different, if you presented things that would be the best, standards or the best way, whether it’s a service or a product.

How do you paint a compelling picture, of the future for our brand?

I have the first thing I really pay attention is the ROI to make sure that the business owners are satisfied. This brand will last, and they’re successful. It’s a win to win situation. How do we make sure that this, ROI is achieved or there’s a lot of points and a lot of things for example, when I do a campaign, how am I going to make sure that the ROI will be satisfactory for me or for the business owners?

By testing the platforms, I use to know which platform generates the biggest leads, less costly, what is really useful. I’d use it in my promotions or advertising in future. Also, the evaluation, I evaluate each and every campaign, tracking the performance for sure and the assessment and optimizing the budget. By doing this in each and every campaign, I’ll make sure that the return on the investment would be, satisfactory for me and the business owner.

Also, generating the maximum leads. I have to make sure that, I generate in my strategy the maximum leads because as we just discussed, generate the leads can be easily with talented people, can be easily converted into actual sales, whether in services or good. And for sure, my brand awareness boost boosting. I have to make sure in my strategies to make sure that my brand, everybody knows about it even just the name. If it’s not the activity or the product itself or it’s a campaign about, I always have to boost my brand. And I have to make sure that the brand awareness spreads within the consistency on the long run. Make sure consistency. That’s a very important thing. Also, in my strategies, I make sure to have the organic leads, the organic, traffic. Whenever I do any strategy, I have to make sure that there’s a part that I will have organic traffic, whether in my, four p’s, but whether being my existence, I make sure to have my organic traffic in any strategy because there’s always organic traffic. Also, the retention in my strategy, I always make sure to have retention, engagement. Engagement is parallel with, development. Whenever you engage, you have development.

Whenever you have happy and satisfied people, whenever you’re just boosting your everything, boosting your brand itself. So, I always make sure in my strategies to take care and make sure that there is a lot of engagement in my campaigns and in my strategy. But these are the main things and the expansion of the market reach, I have to make sure even if my targeted audience, is in within my country, I also try to reach other markets. This will grow my brand awareness in different countries.

Plus, I always try to make sure that the people I’m going to reach is within the region. They can easily reach me. They can have all the tools to make sure that I can deliver to them, make life easy to them the soonest. So, for example, I’m here in Kuwait. I’ll try to expand to other markets in my strategies because I know that we can deliver. We’re capable deliver in 3 days. The product will perfectly reach them in the perfect way. And within our credibility, they know that it’s not going to be like fake or whatever. Usually, this is what I do in in my strategy. It’s very important to pay attention to each and every part of expansion.

Even if it’s going to be something really minor, a sponsored ad, or to reach these people, but I always try to look to other markets within the country.

Hana, we’ve come to the end. We just want to get one final advice from you for new marketing executives entering the market. What’s your final advice?

Don’t grow really fast. You need to learn. You need to go within positions. Each and every position, you have to start a coordinator, then be an executive, then be a supervisor, then assistant manager, then manager assistant. Just go through each and every phase because each and every phase, you will learn a lot whether from operation till you get the point that you can manage a team everything about marketing.

Make sure you are capable for it and make sure the after sales or that it’s going to be done nicely, make sure to, follow-up and be, any make sure, your presence practically in each and every campaign that you do. Make sure that people are implementing the way you created it wants it to go and wants it to be. Evaluate campaigns in future so you would count the successful campaigns that you have done. The more evaluation you do, the more positive numbers and successful campaigns numbers you’re going to have. That’s the advice for the new marketing executives.