Created by Kash Dhanda and presented at the JP Morgan Future Leaders exchange in Hong Kong. Speaker Bio: "With twin passions for strategic innovation and design, Kash Dhanda leads the Ezra Digital team in its mission to change the way clients see themselves and their customers. Specializing in digital strategy, web design, and digital marketing, Kash has worked with clients in a dozen different industries, including technology, medicine, education, and architecture. In addition to founding Ezra Digital, Kash is a certified Innovation Instructor with the LUMA Institute and has delivered two-day intensive workshops around the world for businesses and non-profit organizations. At work, he spends his time developing strategy, providing creative direction, and working collaboratively with clients. At home, he spends his time playing (and occasionally even winning at) poker, trading cryptocurrencies, and discovering new worlds in virtual reality

1. Confidential Customized for J.P. Morgan Version 1.0
Growth through
Marketing
& Innovation
Prepared by: Kash Dhanda

2. About Me
Kash Dhanda
● Founder/CEO/Creative Director of Ezra Digital
○ Digital strategy and digital marketing for
everyone from startups to mid-sized
businesses
● Lead Instructor with The LUMA Institute
○ Innovation training for Fortune 500
companies like BNP Paribas, Accenture,
Autodesk, etc
● Previously:
○ Account Management at Level
Interactive (Digital Marketing Agency)
○ Co-founder of Upside Sounds (Electronic
Music Concert Promotion)

3. Our Agenda:
1 Why Digital Marketing Matters
Why it’s worth paying attention in
this session. (5 minutes)
3 How Innovation Happens
(Quick) overview of how to
systematically innovate, in
marketing and elsewhere (20
minutes)
2 Sales Funnels, Analog and Digital
A structured approach to growing
your business. (25 minutes)
4 Hands-On Application
Generating innovative marketing
ideas rapidly in small teams. (1.5
hours)

4. Our Objective
Build comprehension of digital
marketing strategy so that you can
effectively guide a team, an agency, or
your own research efforts in order to
grow your business.

5. Why Digital
Marketing Matters

6. Digital Marketing is
Growing, Rapidly
Businesses across the world are increasing digital spend
rapidly, regardless of industry or customer type.

7. Digital Marketing
Reaches Digital
Customers, B2C and B2B
This shouldn’t surprise you, but all businesses (and more
importantly, customers) are moving online in ever-growing
numbers. Digital marketing is the way you reach this online
audience.

8. Digital Marketing is
Cost-Effective
Traditional marketing channels are really, really expensive
relative to digital marketing. Whether you’re working at an
enterprise or a small business, digital marketing is more
budget friendly.
This isn’t just about cost: this is about measuring the impact
of your spend. Digital offers unparalleled insight into what
works and what doesn’t.

9. Digital Marketing
Delivers Results
Tens of thousands of businesses have grown using digital.
Conversion rates are better, customer acquisition is better,
revenue is better. In short: it works.

10. Sales Funnels

11. Traditional
Marketing Funnel
Structure

12. Performance
Marketing Funnel
Structure

13. Performance
Marketing Funnel
Structure

14. 1st Phase
Acquisition: generating awareness of
your company and getting people to
listen

15. “Marketing is a contest for
people’s attention.”
- Seth Godin (Entrepreneur and Author)

16. Performance
Marketing Funnel
Structure

17. 2nd Phase
Activation: getting your customers to
act, whether that means engaging with
your brand or actually buying something

18. “Make your marketing so
good people would pay for
it.”
- Jay Baer (Entrepreneur and Author)

19. Performance
Marketing Funnel
Structure

20. 3rd Phase
Retention: getting your customers to
continue using your products/services

21. Importance of
Retention
90%
Company A Retention Rate
95%
Company B Retention Rate
72%
More Customers for Company
B over 10 Years Relative to
Company A

22. Performance
Marketing Funnel
Structure

23. 4th Phase
Referral: getting customers to tell other
potential customers about your business
by creating evangelists

24. “People influence people.
Nothing influences people
more than a
recommendation from a
trusted friend. A trusted
referral is the holy grail of
advertising”.
- Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook CEO)

25. Digital Sales
Funnels

26. Performance
Marketing Funnel
Structure

27. 1st Phase
Acquisition: generating awareness of
your company and getting people to
listen

28. Types of Digital Acquisition
1 Search Advertising
Intent based marketing to people
who know what they need but
don’t know you.
3 Social (Ads & Influencer)
Audience based marketing using
demographics, interests, and
other creepy data.
2 Display Advertising.
You probably shouldn’t be doing
this because of banner blindness.
4 Search Engine Optimization
For those with more time than
money in well acknowledged
niches.

29. Key Acquisition
Metrics
Cost Per Click Customer
Acquisition
Cost
Customer
Acquisition
Rate

30. 2nd Phase
Activation: getting your customers to
act, whether that means engaging with
your brand or actually buying something

31. Types of Digital Activation
1 Landing Pages
Customized web pages that speak
to your campaign
3 Lead Magnets
Driving engagement by delivering
something of value
2 Content Marketing
Thought leadership and
reputation building through text
and video content

32. Activation: Content
Upgrade with Backlinko
Essentially, if you’ve written a post on ‘10 Tips to
Grow Your Small Business’, you could create a
content upgrade, like the one displayed below,
enabling readers to access another 5 tips if they
enter their email address.
When Brian Dean tested this tactic on Backlinko,
his conversion rate of readers to subscribers
increased from 0.54% to 4.82%, a 9x increase

33. Key Activation
Metrics
Conversion
Rate
Cost per
Conversion
Pages per Visit

34. 3rd Phase
Retention: getting your customers to
continue using your products/services

35. Types of Digital Retention
1 Remarketing
Marketing new or existing upsells
to visitors/customers.
3 Email Automation
Personalization at scale through
email marketing.
2 Email Marketing
Connecting with customers
through their inbox, regularly.

36. Digital Retention:
Cincom Email
Automation
Cincom, an enterprise software solutions company, launched
a behaviour-based content campaign. First, they added a
relevant tag to anyone who clicked a link within a newsletter
(e.g. “Sales enablement”). Then progressively profiled those
who clicked on multiple links, sending tailored emails with
follow ups, calling when they reached maturity.
The results: 256% improvement in the campaign open rate,
1513 potential opportunities identified on current list, 18
new sales leads/week.

37. Key Retention
Metrics
Customer
Lifetime Value
Customer
Lifespan
Churn Rate

38. 4th Phase
Referral: getting customers to tell other
potential customers about your business
by creating evangelists

39. Types of Digital Referral
1 Contests
Encourage sharing of your
message by gamifying marketing.
3 Viral Marketing
No such thing as a viral video.
Only viral networks you can tap
into.
2 Affiliate Programs
Create an army of evangelists by
paying people for sending users
your way.

40. Digital Referral: Nike on
WeChat During Shanghai
Festival
● Scanning codes gave users Nike+ fuel points and
the opportunity to play hidden missions
● WeChat’s voice messaging function was also
used to guide participants, creating an immersive
experience
● Fans could win prizes, meet sports stars and
access rich exclusive content on the Nike
WeChat page
● The number of registered users grew from 1,256
on day 1 to 22,000 on day 5

41. “Business has only two
functions: marketing and
innovation.”
- Peter Drucker (Business Genius)

42. How Innovation
Happens

43. Innovation is a growing, global, social and
economic imperative
1 Business leaders rank innovation
(creativity) as the 3rd most necessary
skill in their organization.
3 81% of fortune 500 companies have
appointed an individual responsible
for driving innovation.
2 China’s government is pouring
billions of dollars into research and
development. Their current five-
year plan calls for indigenous
innovation

44. We are entering a new
age in which everyone’s
ability to innovate will be
as important as their
ability to read, write, and
do arithmetic.

47. Looking Methods
Methods for Observing Human Experience

48. “The real act of discovery
consists not in finding new
lands, but in seeing with
new eyes.”
- Marcel Proust

49. Understanding
Methods
Methods for Analyzing Challenges and Opportunities

50. Making Methods
Methods for Envisioning Future Possibilities

51. Marketing
Simulation

52. Your New Job: CMO of
a Travel Company,
World Travel Inc.
As the leader of a large marketing team with a multi-million
dollar budget, you’ve been given the general goal of
improving revenue through superior marketing.
You have a full service team in house, and are capable of
generating any type of marketing campaign you wish.

53. Your Products and Services
Flights, Private and Public
Travel booking for economy and business
class tickets. Private jet rental for luxury
travelers.
Travel Experiences and
Itineraries
Custom itineraries with local guides, tours,
and other exciting adventures.
Hotels and Logistics
5 star hotel bookings and other logistics
management for travelers.

54. Target Audiences
01 | Affordable Adventurers
Backpackers and retirees exploring the world on a
budget
02 | Business Travelers
International travelers, desperate for excitement and
delight in their currently tedious travel schedule
03 | Family Travelers
Overwhelmed but excited families going on vacation or
visiting family together
04 | Luxury Tourists
Individuals or groups traveling in order to see, eat, and
experience the finest the world has to offer

55. Your Objective
How Might We Increase Retention and
Referrals for Our Key Customer
Segments?
What specific ideas might we use to delight, engage, and retain the customers of our travel
company? These do NOT need to just be digital ideas. Consider digital channels (online contests,
apps, email newsletters ideas, webinars, content marketing, viral videos, affiliate/referral programs,
etc) as well as any other ideas that come to mind (e.g. physical meetups, games, conferences, etc)

56. Time to Ideate

66. 1. Identify a design challenge in need of fresh ideas.
2. Make a poster showing a large grid (max. 5 x 5 cells).
3. Designate columns: Categories related to people.
4. Designate rows: Categories for enabling solutions.
5. Form teams. Hand out grids. Introduce the topic.
6. Give each participant a pen and a sticky note pad.
7. Ask them to ideate at the intersections of the grid.
8. Instruct them to write one idea per sticky note.
9. Start the clock. Limit the time to 10-15 minutes.
Quick Guide: Creative Matrix

67. 1. Pictures are worth 1,000 words
2. Fill out every cell in the grid, including the
“wildcard” category
3. Tally the number of ideas per team. Reward
quantity.
Helpful Hints: Creative Matrix

68. Fill in Your Creative
Matrix, Individually.
(Shhhhh)

69. Your Objective
How Might We Increase Retention and
Referrals for Our Key Customer
Segments?
What specific ideas might we use to delight, engage, and retain the customers of our travel
company? These do NOT need to just be digital ideas. Consider digital channels (online contests,
apps, email newsletters ideas, webinars, content marketing, viral videos, affiliate/referral programs,
etc) as well as any other ideas that come to mind (e.g. physical meetups, games, conferences, etc)

70. Discuss Your Favorite
Ideas. As a Group Pick
Your Top 1-2 Ideas

77. 1. Identify a new idea to introduce.
2. Assemble a team and some basic drawing materials.
3. Come up with a name and a tag line for the concept.
4. Write a short summary of the big idea.
5. Include a description of the key stakeholders.
6. List a few features and benefits.
7. Illustrate the concept with a big picture or diagram.
8. Add a timeline for developing the solution.
9. Draft the layout and draw the final poster.
Quick Guide: Concept Poster

78. 1. Make the first draft quickly. Don’t overthink
it.
2. Engage an expert designer for visual
refinement.
3. Display the posters prominently to rally
enthusiasm.
Helpful Hints: Concept Poster

79. Create a Concept
Poster that brings
your idea to life (15
minutes)

80. Tape them up and
let’s present.

81. 1. Creative Matrix for:
a. Marketing, Operations, Sales, HR, Finance,
etc
2. Concept Posters for:
a. Pitching ideas internally, getting support and
feedback
Applying These Concepts

87. Thank you.
Email me with any questions/flattery:
kash@ezradigital.com