Employment Hero's new marketing director on the power of human-to-human marketing

Former Menulog Australia marketing director joins people management software as its experiences rapid growth off the back of COVID-19

Nurturing SMEs through the COVID-19 crisis and recession using a combination of technology, customer insight and content are the cornerstones of growth for Employment Hero’s marketing director, Tasman Page.

Page recently joined the Australian people management software provider, which has scaled up its team by 40 per cent since the start of 2020 off the back of rapid growth. In the last six months, the company has seen a 56 per cent increase in new customers, and reported 75 per cent of new and existing users upgrading subscriptions to access more tools offered via the platform, such as compliance and regulation tools as well as an employee assistance program. The company this week was named as one of LinkedIn's 2020 Top Startups.

Page told CMO one of the key instruments to achieving growth has been the company’s COVID-19 Resource Hub, which has focused on providing relevant information for SMEs to navigate the crisis. The hub includes a guide to JobKeeper and ongoing policy changes, templates for a COVIDsafe plan, employee wellness surveys, a wizard tool for JobKeeper reporting, and access to biweekly webinars covering everything from mental health to managing cashflow.

Credit: Tasman Page


“With everything we are going through with COVID-19 and the recession and the battle businesses are facing, Employment Hero is in a position to help SMEs to get through it,” Page told CMO. “We hear a lot about recession – often, it’s large businesses that benefit from that. For us, it’s about helping these SMEs compete by being more efficient and effective with their time, resources and people. That’s an exciting opportunity for me.”  

Page said he was also attracted to the role because of his past experience scaling up a dynamic online-first business. Prior to joining Employment Hero, Page headed up marketing for Menulog. His resume also includes marketing stints with Dick Smith Electronics, Westpac and Commonwealth Bank.

“When I joined Menulog, there was no Deliveroo or UberEats – they were scaling and growing from a small startup into a high-growth business,” Page continued. “Here, we have 40 per cent more people than we did at the start of 2020. The marketing team is doubling to 14 shortly, and we’ll keep growing.

“This is an exciting time to be in a business. We can hire the right people, put in the right systems and create the game plan.”

This game plan for Page centres firmly around what he’s calling ‘human-to-human marketing’.

“Through COVID, rather than shutting up shop or cutting advertising, this business has leant in,” he said. “We’ve been running 2-3 webinars per week, helping businesses to understand things like JobKeeper, writing blogs. Employment Hero has been doing all of this to the next level.

“We talk about the SMB audience, but internally we are driven down to the people in these businesses and their specific needs. That’s where we are most useful as B2B marketers – solving problems for the person within that business.”  

In this vein, Page flagged plans to bring on an insights manager shortly to help Employment Hero move to human-centred design for content. This role will cover qualitative and quantitative plus ethnographic research, which will be used to create content and inform marketing plans.

“It’s all about how to be closer to the customer,” Page said. “We are now pivoting that hub to be more around helping businesses through the recession. This meaningful marketing is exciting and will drive our momentum and growth.”

For Page, the rising role of empathy in marketing is not just something that’s manifested during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the fact people have less time and resources has made it clear brands can be more relevant to more people if they’re solving problems for them, he said.

“Our product is the answer to business needs to move towards remote-first workforces, for example,” he said.  “But the extent to which Employment Hero is pursuing this vision is different. We’re spending 90 per cent of our time trying to unpack issues in these businesses we are trying to target, rather than talking about ourselves and advertising products. That’s a relatively new thing for B2B.

“We’re making this core to the marketing team. When you have 100s of attendees and more than 1000 people signing up to webinars, it shows that we are having real impact.”

In the back-end, Employment Hero is updating systems to help with scale, with the first step a transition from HubSpot to Marketo on 1 October. It’s also bringing on Bizible for multi-touch attribution, updating its Salesforce instance, and overhauling its website.

“We have made the investment and aim to have it all rolled out by end of the year,” Page said. “Then it’s a big step up for the brand – so watch this space.”  

Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO conversation on LinkedIn: CMO ANZ, follow our regular updates via CMO Australia's Linkedin company page, or join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia

 

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