EP #62: Digital communication lessons from Nigeria’s leading pension funds administrator, Fidelity Pension Managers

EP #62: Digital communication lessons from Nigeria’s leading pension funds administrator, Fidelity Pension Managers

About this Podcast
The pandemic has forced brands from all industries to rely on digital channels and platforms to maintain strong communication with their customers. Traditional brands have also adapted to this need for change by building effective digital communication strategy that engages effectively with their customers.
To understand the role of digital communication in the pension fund administration, we caught up with Oluwadamilola Ayinde, Corporate Communications Officer at Nigeria’s Fidelity Pension Managers.
Fidelity Pension Managers is one of the licensed Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) in Nigeria. They aspire to be a leading and innovative PFA that manages pension assets transparently and profitably. Their mission is to provide safe and rewarding pension services for a happy retirement.
Oluwadamilola shared insights on:
  • What is digital communication and what’s its importance in today’s world
  • Why pension companies use digital communications to engage with their customers
  • The different digital communication platforms and how to reap the benefits of each platform
  • Creating a game-changing and engaging digital communication strategy
  • How to build an effective email marketing strategy that customers are receptive to
  • How to get the best out of your email marketing activities
Tune in to gain insights on how you can extract the best out of each of your marketing channels and platforms to build a robust digital communications strategy.
Episode Transcripts

Glory Onuoha (host): Good evening everyone. Welcome to the very first podcast, powered by Netcore Martech. I am here live from Nigeria and here we have Mr. Oluwadamilola Ayinde from Fidelity Pensions. Please introduce yourself.  

Oluwadamilola Ayinde (guest): Thank you very much for having me here, I really appreciate it. My name is Oluwadamilola Ayinde. I’m the Corporate Communications Professional for Fidelity Pensions Managers, and I’ll be here to discuss the topics you’ve invited me for, which has to do with the Rule of Digital Communications in Pension Fund Administration. 

Glory Onuoha: Thank you very much for sitting down with me. So we’ll just get right into it.

Oluwadamilola Ayinde: Okay, I guess before we started probably once we knew exactly what pension is right before we would probably get some into digital pension communication. So people keep asking, what is a pension? Well, for me, it’s just simply a retirement fund, for that’s actually an employee piece, the percentage, and then an up piece and then a percentage, falls in the form of retirement. And in Nigeria, the industry is gated by the National Pension Commission as income. And what happens is the employee gets 80% of this basic income while the employer pays 10% making beats and percentages for pension. And of course, that’s what pension is. And then if patients want administrator pension form under St. Joseph’s in Nigeria, and if patients want an industry job, that’s a PFA, it’s actually a licensed national organization by the National Pension Commission. Actually, these investors and patients form in retirement savings account. 

Glory Onuoha: So, Digital Connections consists of connecting people and organizations across online channels. So what is the role of digital communications in Pension? 

Oluwadamilola Ayinde: The role is very important. I mean, it’s just like any organization you actually need to understand the communication or do some communications have to be very important in the sector, just like any relation. So I’m the one the pension sector has to do with the “why is the digital communication platform being used by the fidelity pension companies?” So it starts with the first question, we want to use these applications to build our parameters. 

Glory Onuoha: But before we go further for digital communication let’s break it down because it can give people more real-time insight into how this thing works?

Oluwadamilola Ayinde: True. Okay. I think you actually, first of all, mentioned that it’s a clear process of connecting with people and organizations in terms of how to communicate using online platforms. So for me, it’s simply, online digital media is simply the platform for talking to your target audience in their business space. So it’s about interaction because digital communications is a two-way process. Many people don’t know; maybe don’t understand that communication should be to the process when you’re shouting. Many of them end up as soon as not responding, it’s a one-way communication, but when it’s feedback, that’s where communication comes in. And that’s where digital comes in, where online platforms, incidents are being used to communicate with people. So in my perspective, that’s actually what digital communication is all about? So I guess I see this way.

Glory Onuoha: I totally agree. So why do pension companies use digital communication? 

Oluwadamilola Ayinde: Fidelity Company actually uses this communication just like any of a large organization. For us the first question is why do you want to use it? So the festival it’s about building the brand. You need to let people know you are there. Okay. You need to let them know that you are there as a pension company. So the second thing is that you want to drive conversations. In driving conversations you need to get people to talk about you. You need people to know that you exist. You also need to create a reason why people use digital negations if you also need to create unique customer experiences. If you have companies you want to run, do you want people to know about this? It’s very important to use a regular communication channel. In crisis management, the first place people go to is the Internet when it comes to a crisis. So you want to also use digital communication platforms for that. Of course, you want to say the case; your customers buy your products and services, which is very important generally. 

Glory Onuoha: Okay. So tell us about more digital communication platforms. How do they appear? 

Oluwadamilola Ayinde: Okay. In the digital communication platforms, there are so many things that keep evolving in terms of what platforms you use, what are your generic ones, outrage. First of all, video marketing is also very important. That’s a platform we prefer; there are lots of video marketing channels we use such as YouTube and all of that. Definitely paid search in terms of social media platforms, search engine optimization, and of course, we might see email marketers and that people need to understand that it’s very important to get into.

Glory Onuoha: That’s all digital marketing needs. Okay, so what strategies do pension companies use?

Oluwadamilola Ayinde: Okay, in terms of strategies, let me tackle it from a generic point of view. Most specific to any pension companies, so different companies have different strategies in such cases, they have their own business goals right? Well, the first thing is to actually identify that goal. Once you have a strategy as an organization, in terms of implementing the digital communications strategy, you need to identify your goals. That’s the first thing. The second thing is you actually also understand the situation in terms of meeting those goals, right. Then you need to make the other one if you need to, get insights into your target audience from the backend, the analytics, what are they doing, where are they, how do you target these people using platforms? Then the fourth one is, you need to select the most appropriate digital communication tools because there are so many digital communication tools; choose the most effective one for your line of business. Let me bring it to the quick pensions sector. So different pension companies use different platforms, but generally, we use a lot of video marketing. We do a lot of such improvisation in the pension sector. Before you went for the website to drive traffic to websites, it’s a no-brainer, they’ll say platform that you each use. And then, of course, social media platforms, which is a part of digital communication, are very important for real-time information and all that, but everything also ends it’s on the foundation of email markets because email marketing as a platform where you can use insights, each order things you can actually use the marketing to create conversations for other platforms like websites to social media and all that stuff. So as a pension company, those are the ones that we actually use and of course let’s not also forget that everything balls down to strategy. 

Glory Onuoha: So tell me Oluwadamilola through more lights on this and to see new markets in all of us to be able to expand so that your audience can understand the importance of email marketing, how far like for the pension companies do their integration. How have you been able to reach out? How are your audiences responding to emails? You know, put some light on email marketing.

Oluwadamilola Ayinde: Okay. So in terms of how we get the best out of email marketing as an organization, so initially, you know, email marketing used to be all about, let me just send emails out there. I’ve sent you the notes. I don’t care speaking of generic point of view, I don’t care if people open that mail or not, so for now what has happened with me personally is that we’ve not been able to see that digital marketing is key because the market, when we communicate from our point, from my point of view, it’s most, to me, communication, because what happens is when you send that email, I used to see insights into different teams that help you communicate like us. So that’s the kind of devices we are using to actually open those emails or what time is the best time to send those emails? What has happened when we use this email marketing and reviews use the strategy and that strategy has to do with objectives to watch the trends? Then also defining what clear costs KPIs that we actually need to meet? And then of course in terms of designing the perfect designs that are optimized for mobile and also taking out the right content, because it’s all about having the right content strategy and calendar. And then apart from the calendar, what kind of information do you want to pass out? What’s the main thing you’re sending out to clients? So in terms of that aspect, it’s what we’ve used more effectively. What we’ve also done is that we’ve used the on occasion MarTech to actually get the best out of inner markets. So in getting the best, we’ve been able to see its user-friendliness, we need you to see how you set the team for email marketing. So you know that to increase your email open rates, because you don’t want to just send out emails to people who just haven’t got any books, you want to get more people who don’t open that.

Glory Onuoha: Yes there are lots of emails that go into spam 

Oluwadamilola Ayinde: Exactly. So, I mean, it all depends on a lot of factors like the quality of the content, also it also boils down to understanding the audience exactly. And of course, email segmentation, which is a no-brainer because you don’t want to send the wrong emails to the wrong side. So when you segment emails, it’s easy to actually get the best out of that email and also increase open rates which are variable. 

Glory Onuoha: So Oluwadamilola we are moving to final words, so tell us that you’ve mentioned MarTech, and how MarTech has helped you excel in the channels of communication. And I know that tech specialists are currently using email as well, differently. So their communications, I want you to tell us how MarTech has helped your communications with your clients?

Oluwadamilola Ayinde: Yes. Okay. So in saying of using a MarTech platform by Netcore, it’s made email marketing a lot easier because first of all, the obligation is user-friendly, it’s easy for learners. I mean, it’s not just an obligation. That’s only when a desk can use other people in other aspects of the business to actually go there, understand how it works and get the most out of me. So the first thing is it’s user-friendly. The second thing is that once you log in on your phone, you create, you implement your already existing strategies, and you can always treat the tactics based on using the application and the sponsor application. So I’m changing your toxic soup. All you have to do is, all one has to do is use the analytics aspects of the MarTech platform. So there’s an analysis aspect that has made me understand rather than making me doesn’t understand what the audience really wants, right? When would they want, what kind of content to do once it gives real-time information? Once you send that information to who received the email, when they open it, at what time they open it, and all of that. So it’s given that real-time information, I was actually helped. I’ve not experienced any downtime on the platform. And then of course, that it’s even helped me out more effectively as a digital marketer, even if that’s just my secondary role. So as a digital marketer, it gives me more insights into generalist aspects, and improves myself as a person. So overall in terms of the business, it’s definitely added in terms of, because what’s happening is that it’s actually increased the conversations, it’s giving more people, these meters more hair. So people listened to us more and they were able to give more prompt feedback. I mean it’s common knowledge that more people use Gmail’s convincer Yahoo, people get worried about some emails not being delivered and all that. We’ve seen an improvement in that since we signed up at the MarTech platform.

Glory Onuoha: Okay, thank you very much. Thank you for telling us the trends and to very good lights on the pension industry and how digital marketing has helped you out the pension companies. Pension companies are able to reach out to your audience. I know also you mentioned that digital communication is a two way thing, not just wishing not to, but all your audience actually responding to the emails that you send to them, your emails are getting clicky, you know, seeing your different products, actually getting interested. You know it got to the company it’s like Oh I’m just saying this product I can put up. Thank you so much. And yes this is constantly the end of today’s episode. And it was lovely hearing from you. And you can add the final words to us.

Oluwadamilola Ayinde: Thanks for having me. It’s been a nice experience, talking about this topic, like I tell people that MarTech is there for us, it actually gives you real time information on feedback and I keep saying that digital marketing can be much easier with the MarTech platform for digital communications. So, thank you very much for having me.

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