Chief Marketing Officer, Mindvalley, Marisha Lakhiani, Shares Top Tips & Trends Everyone Must Know
“When I was young I was always intrigued by how people were able to exchange a product or service for money.” Today’s woman dreamer, Marisha Lakhiani, based in Malaysia, is the Chief Marketing Officer of Mindvalley. With a lifelong passion for independence, Marisha started her journey selling dresses on Ebay at university, then building her career in the exciting world of marketing. We are excited to share her expertise on the top trends and tips everyone must know.
1) Tell us your story. You are currently the Chief Marketing Officer at Mindvalley amongst many other roles as an advisor, mentor, and investor. How did you know you wanted to go into the business and marketing world, and how have you built your career/found your passion?
When I was young I was always intrigued by how people were able to exchange a product or service for money. At 10 years old I started creating my own t-shirts with paint and embellishments, and sold it to my mom’s friends and family at 300% markup. It felt like a super power, I was independent. I could afford to buy any toy I wanted without asking my parents for money.
When I went to university, I started selling things on eBay. I would go to bazaars and hunt for trendy dresses and accessories. Then. I listed them on eBay with a picture of a celebrity or model wearing the same outfit, and sell them at 400% mark up. I was making enough money to enjoy my student life, and didn’t have to depend on my parents to send me money for my daily expenses.
I discovered marketing when I joined Mindvalley, and I was hooked. I love that marketing is both art and science, and it combines behavioural psychology and design to influence peoples decisions and actions. I feels like a super power, and use it in everything I do - how I communicate my ideas, how I lead my team, how I scale Mindvalley and how I grow in my career.
2) You are quite the marketing expert, having consulted on several projects, and will be speaking at Adworld 2021. What are your top tips and trends for those looking to grow their marketing efforts?
There are a few things brands need to really pay attention to.
Firstly I would say, advertising alternatives like influencer marketing. With Apple's IOS 14 new privacy changes, advertisers are going to take a big hit, and businesses that are heavily reliant on Facebook and Google advertising need to find alternative channels to reach out to new audiences. In this case Influencer marketing could explode, and brand should already start exploring this option before the market becomes overly saturated and competitive.
Secondly I would say, personalisation and AI. If brands really want to stand out they need to personalise their marketing and this means their content, products, targeting, emails and more. Many surveys show that 80% of customers are morel likely to engage with a brand if it offers a personalised experience. Big brands like Netflix and Amazon are great examples of brands that used personalisation to boost adoption and consumption.
Third would be conversational marketing - being able to employ chatbots like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Telegram to engage your customers. These chatbots have evolved so much and there are hundreds of interesting use cases on how you can create a 1-1 experience of your customers that feels unique and special. Brands need to start creating these conversations that replicate human interaction and next level personalisation.
Fourth is Instagram. Instagram is a great predictor of marketing trends. Whether its 15 second formats like Instagram Reels, or mobile shopping like Instagram Shop, brands should try to be early adopters of the latest instagram features as these will soon become mainstream and be integrated into other platforms. You can see this happening already with platforms like Linkedin and Youtube also implement stories following Instagram.
Fifth - have you heard of no code software? This is becoming huge right now, making it easier for business to build tools and automations without a developer. Zaapier, Airtable and Voiceflow are empowering small and medium business owners to manage their CRMs, build websites, and automate operations cheaply and effectively.
And last but not least is user generated content. Brands need to put their customers on the forefront. UGC (user generated content) is a power tool to attract the Gen Z and Millennial audience. Just showing how your customers use your product and using them in your marketing creates trust and relatability. You can be really creative with this, get your customers to create social media reels, YouTube videos, sponsor certain use cases, and show how people trust and enjoy using your product.
3) As a #Dreamcatchers platform, we have to ask, what is your next big dream?
Two of my biggest passions are Mobile Apps and Growth Design. I really want to build an app to solve the world’s food wastage problem. A lot of people aren’t aware, but roughly one-third of the food produced in the world gets lost or wasted, and this is a whooping 1.3 million tonnes. This amount is more than enough to feed the 815 million hungry people in the world (4 times over). I already have the idea and the business plan on how I am going to save this problem, but the only thing that is stopping me right now is timing.
Thank You Marisha for Sharing Your Story with us! We are excited to have you in our global women’s network!
BIO: I'm a marketing innovator with a proven track record in driving the strategic vision and tactical execution of that vision. My forte is in combining the art, science, and technology of marketing to deliver cutting edge solutions that put growth and scale on autopilot.
At Mindvalley, I’m responsible for $150Million in revenue and manage all the key marketing functions including product launches, product marketing, membership, B2B, localization, performance marketing, creatives team, marketing tech, and all brand channels.
Before this, I was the managing partner of a mobile app called Stempl - a mobile loyalty app designed to give SMEs a foothold in the mobile marketing space. We took Stempl global and localized it in 5 different markets.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, mentor, advisor, and investor, that’s extremely passionate about scaling businesses and driving innovation and growth.