Common Thread Collective

Director of Retention, CTC Global Accelerator

No Limit Email

I oversee Ops, HR, Finance, Marketing & Sales, so the agency’s founders can have their lives back

- Conducting training for other retention marketing agencies, so their strategy expertise can be their differentiator
- Consulting for other retention marketing agency leaders on growing their business
- New product development and creation of new revenue streams for the agency
- I came into NLE to introduce a completely new level of strategy that changed the way the industry does retention marketing.
- Trained and led some of the smartest retention strategists in the world, to deliver top-tier strategy to 8 figure DTC brands, including Raycon, Nutrition Kitchen, Lovisa, Carnivore Snax and more

General Manager

Lead Retention Strategist

Path Digital Solutions

Took point for all client services and operations within the agency

• Managed end-to-end delivery of all ops for Shopify and WooCommerce store builds/optimisation, Klaviyo and ActiveCampaign email marketing automation builds/optimisation, Manychat/Intercom chatbot builds/optimisation
• Supported lead consultant in conducting training sessions for clients and their teams
• Conducted ongoing weekly training for in-house team members and partner agencies
• Grew email marketing division of strategists, copywriters, designers and Klaviyo specialists
• Boosted company's delivery systems by transitioning from fully custom solutions to more streamlined productised services

Head Of Marketing Strategy

Led all agency and client sales and marketing programs

• Oversaw all projects, working with multi-disciplinary team of web developers, graphic designers, project managers, customer success managers
• In charge of developing marketing tech stacks and ensuring seamless flow of data across platforms and software.
• Took charge of training internal team to ensure all staff in Singapore and overseas are ahead of the curve
• Championed the implementation of chatbot marketing as a new service offering, resulting in increase in average deal size
• Collaborated with partner agencies such as Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Marketing, Facebook advertising, Public Relations and more.
• Led sales and marketing alignment for client teams, working with business owners, marketing teams, sales teams, customer support teams and logistics teams to create a frictionless user experience and efficient hand-off

Content and Marketing Automation Manager

Managed copywriting for websites, emails, ads, social media, long-form content and videos

• First hire of the agency, growing the team from 1 to 9
• Advised clients on digital marketing strategies through lead generation campaigns, using a variety of martech tools
• Charted business plans with senior management to ensure alignment all company objectives were met
• Created SOPs for new hires and workflows for internal project handoffs, increasing team efficiency by up to 10%

Copywriter

jo'voix

Spearheaded all content marketing projects
• Led a team of remote content writers to execute content marketing programs for brands and service providers in the health & wellness space for ecommerce and B2C brands
• Consulted founders and orchestrated demand marketing strategy together with client marketing teams. This included marketing managers, content writers, creative teams and media buyers for amplification
• Trained Jo-voix's writers in copywriting, copyediting and using content to drive an inbound marketing strategy for clients

Lead Copywriter

Fitness Movement

• Launched a new business arm for corporate health retreats, creating a base of freelance fitness trainers from scratch, building relationships with hotels and corporates
• Grew partnership base by up to 10%, using cold outbound and in-person networking
• Helped secure sponsorships for physical bodybuilding fitness events

Sales And Partnerships Executive

Pink Parlour Singapore

Marketing for 6 branches across Singapore
• Launched online>offline subscription ecommerce programme for traditional nail,waxing,spray tan packages. Reduced customer churn by almost 5% within 90 days of implementation
• Managed influencers and assisted with brand partnerships as part of evergreen marketing strategy
• Created content optimised for SEO and worked with designers for organic social
• Stayed on top of online customer support tickets and liaised with Operations Manager/beauticians on the ground to improve customer experience
• Worked with external vendors – paid search, paid social and branding to ensure a holistic marketing strategy

Marketing Communications Executive

DBS Bank

Corporate Banking Analyst

When was the last time anyone questioned the financial outcomes of retention marketing activities?

Going by the logic:

Every action you take must have a future expectation of results...

Nothing should be left to best practices or "experience".

This is the baseline of all good marketing.

And no one should ever settle for less.

Yet this is pretty typical for many agencies...

Trust-me-I'm-an-expert "strategy".

Nurturing customers, meeting the customer where they're at in the journey, personalisation.

Makes sense in theory, but what’s the incremental lift?

Is it the most efficient use of your limited resources?

At the 7-figure mark, trying to break 8-figures, this is an ever more crucial time.

That's what CTC's Global Accelerator Program solves for.

1. Better alignment with traditionally siloed growth <> retention teams.
2. Better agility to support a very dynamic marketing calendar.
3. Better analysis of activities that impact your P&L.

Together with Growth Strategists, Retention Strategists make this work.

At CTC, we always sign our names on the bottom line.

Because we know that’s what it really means to win.

If this speaks to you, let's chat and see if we'll be a good fit for each other.

Josh Tay

Early Bird: Pre-orders & Restock

A Shopify pre-order & partial deposit app to help you capture a customer's commitment to buy now, not just than an expression of interest to buy later.

Run pre-order campaigns with real-time analytics to secure cash flow early and avoid lost sales.

Capture partial deposits as a commitment to buy and forecast demand before committing to inventory.

Back-in-stock email notifications & pre-order email sign-ups to capture expressions of interest as an early leading indicator.

1-min interactive demo: https://www.shopside.com.au/apps/early-bird-pre-order-back-order-app-for-shopify#demo

Co-Founder

Shopside

Our life's work is to build a collection of products where we'll always proudly be our first customers. Building them through compounding knowledge and network.

DiUS

Sold by the founders and the team's customer-centricity, I joined DiUS to work on one of their ventures Powersensor as their first dedicated marketing hire.

Powersensor is Australia's first inverter agnostic solar monitor, retrofittable and DIY install. Providing homeowners and businesses real-time energy data - from aggregate view down to an appliance level.

My role was part of the broader company-wide redundancy in May 2023.

Growth & Product Marketer

Vygo

Sold by the founders' conviction to deliver a better learning experience for students around the world, I joined Vygo as their first PMM hire. 

My role was part of the company-wide redundancy in Jan 2022.

Product Marketing Manager

Hot Pot Club

A 6-month bootstrapped project for myself to get hands-on experience in aspects beyond Marketing.

**Left our Shopify store online as a place to test Shopify apps we're building**

• 2 months of research and setup, 3 months (6 runs) to sell out all Starter Kits without any monetary discounts (5-figures revenue).
• Got hands-on experience in GTM, Positioning, Pricing, Packaging, Business Finance & Operations
• We broke even our investment early on, but couldn't scale due to inflation, lack of capital, and lack of internal alignment.
• We ended up learning lots about Voice of Customer, Product Procurement, Supply Chain & Logistics.

━━━━━━━━

We are Brisbane's first complete DIY Hot Pot Kit (Australia, actually):
https://hotpotclub.com.au/

Delivering everything you need for this East Asian food experience to your door.

Think of hot pot as an Asian fondue. Our kits are simple to set up, easy to clean after. It's hot pot made easy. Whether it's for a romantic date night at home, an easy weeknight dinner, or an entertaining dinner party menu.

Our organic broths are slow-cooked with local ingredients. No MSG and Vegan-friendly.

━━━━━━━━

We see Hot Pot Club™ as more than just delivering food conveniently to you. 

As local hot pot restaurants with decreasing qualities (and services) become increasingly expensive to eat at, it's about crafting and delivering a different (not just better) hot pot experience. 

From the very first customer touchpoint, to throughout the purchase process and afterwards.

Beyond Mondays

Deep question cards for team building.

Originally a 6-month bootstrapped project for myself to learn about Product Design, Manufacturing, and selling without reliance on ads.

Sold out my first batch during COVID, then continued to sell digital PDFs on Etsy:
https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/BeyondMondays

Kept the website live to test our Shopify apps:
https://beyondmondays.com/

Maker

YNC Agency

Joined YNC Agency to help launch a SaaS product they were building, with the expectation of the beta product to be launched in August 2020.

The agreement was to help with their agency's work, on Account Management and all things Growth & Product Marketing in the interim.

Unfortunately, their product’s beta version was never finished, so I resigned to look for other growth opportunities after waiting for a year.

Mainly worked on pre-market fit startups:
• Mobile app for automating recurring Bitcoin purchases: https://amber.app/
• Product management tool to build better products with less risk: http://primary.app/
• Whiteboard your next marketing plan using data: http://getfocus.co/

Growth Marketer

Josephmark

Joined Josephmark as their first Growth Marketing hire, as an experiment to incorporate Growth into their existing service offerings.

Unfortunately, I felt the timing wasn't right for this experiment, so I resigned to look for other opportunities after 6 months.

• Worked with the Commercial Director in exploring new revenue streams for Tammy Hembrow's Fitness app, Tammy Fit, as my main account.

• Analysed and reported on the full customer lifecycle results for Tammy Fit.

• Worked with the Product Manager and Content Writer to assist with new feature launches, Product roadmap, and backlog prioritisation.

• Collaborated with Josephmark’s developers on website & app tracking.

• Developed the social content and community strategy for Tammy Fit.

• Developed and executed the paid social strategy for Tammy Fit.

• Collaborated with the Content Writer to update and execute Josephmark’s
marketing strategy for brand awareness, outbound, and recruitment purposes.

• Provided marketing strategy recommendations for some of Josephmark’s
joint & owned ventures.

• Client liaison and account management.

Youfoodz

My initial role was to work on paid social and project management for the Performance Media team. 2 months into my role, I was assigned to lead the social media team.

In my short 8 months at Youfoodz, as a team we were able to consistently achieve incremental growth in weekly sales volume and revenue records. But this did not save us from cash flow issues - My role was part of the company-wide redundancy in June 2019, due to a failed product launch with no prior research done beforehand.

• Worked with the Brand & Marketing Manager to refine our social media strategy across all platforms to better align our activities with business goals. 

• Co-led the social media team with the Brand & Marketing Manager, providing guidance and mentorship to the team. 

• Refined the team's workflow and processes.

• Planned and executed Youfoodz’s paid & organic social media campaigns (for D2C, Retail and B2B).

• Oversaw budget allocation for all social media activities, including ads. 

• Identified new D2C audience sub-segments and their Jobs-to-be-done. 

• Experimented with new revenue streams: B2B deals (employee well-being package, gifting) and office catering.

• Analysed and reported on all paid social media campaigns and assisted with the reporting for organic social media activities.

• Managed creative briefing and media assets for all Performance Media activities (social, search, display, and programmatic).

• Reported on customer trends based on data and insights from social media activities, customer support tickets, and online desk research. Applied them to our ad campaigns and content.

• Conducted Competitor research.

Performance Media Specialist

Entain Australia - Home of Ladbrokes Australia and Neds

Joined Ladbrokes as their first social media strategist, to lead the team, set up processes and internal alignment between Brand, Content & Performance Media.

Towards the end of my probation I realised what they needed was a Product Marketer. I joined Youfoodz shortly after. 

• Developed a social media strategy across all social platforms.

• Developed structure and processes around the team’s workflow, providing mentorship to the social media team.

• Reduced cost per new user sign-up by 69.23% through social ads (our sole KPI was on sign-ups, not even deposits.)

• Broke monthly new user sign-up records by experimenting with advertising new gambling events, even after the introduction of new regulations.

• Worked with the Head of Content to set up KPIs for various content pillars.

• Provided guidance on social listening and community management.

• Brand management and legal compliance.

• Conducted online, influencer and Competitor research.

• Oversaw budget allocations and optimised spending.

Social Media Strategist

Gather insights & feedback at scale: ponder.land | Product & Growth Marketing

Documenting our journey building products that we’ll always proudly be our first customers. Building them through compounding knowledge and network.

--

Product Marketing was always an afterthought in many of my previous roles. Ads were expected to spearhead business growth.

Frustrated by the lack of focus on business fundamentals, I transitioned from PPC to Growth, then to Product Marketing to take on these aspects.

I'm now a huge advocate for marketers to gain experience across all business aspects through their own side hustles. To go beyond being a "T-Shaped Marketer".

This way we can be the bridge between teams, and guide everyone to contribute to business growth as a collective movement.

--

Some of the brands I've worked at/on:
Youfoodz, Ladbrokes, Tammy Fit, BCF, The University of Queensland, Flight Centre Travel Group, and Michael Hill.

--

Links:
How I proposed to my gf via a Facebook ad in 2016: http://bit.ly/FBAdsProposal

Substack - Personal Highscore, A Founder's Journey: https://josiahlau.substack.com/

Bringing Asian Aussie Founders together: https://bit.ly/AsianAussieFoundersLI
(Not updating it currently)

Past & current projects: https://linktr.ee/josiahlau

taplio

The Battle

Josh Tay

Josiah L.

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?