Aysenur: 0:00

You don't go to your partner and say that, hey, you can trust me, I'm not cheating on you. You need to show it right with your behavior.

Joeri: 0:06

Hello everyone and welcome to the Web3 CMO Stories podcast. My name is Joeri Billast and I'm your podcast host, and today I'm really excited to be joined by Aysenur. Aysenur, how are you?

Aysenur: 0:21

How are you, Aysenur? How are you? Thank you, Joeri. Thank you, I'm doing well. How are you?

Joeri: 0:25

I'm good. Actually, I'm looking outside. The sun is shining here in Portugal, so I feel good and I feel on the show. Already for some time we were planning to do it, aysenur, and today we made it happen. Guys, if you don't know Aysenur, our full name is Aysenur Yukselal Aji. I hope I pronounced it right. Almost. Thank you, Aysenur. So, guys, if you don't know her, she is the vice president of marketing at Bitstamp, and I met her colleague, heather, at Paris Blockchain Week, and then I met Aysenur in Barcelona and then today, finally, we are on the podcast, Aysenur. Welcome Maybe. Yeah, for people that don't know, you give maybe a little bit of your background.

Aysenur: 1:13

Yeah, of course. Thank you very much for the invitation, first of all, and also for your kind introduction. Hello everyone. My names is Aysenur. I am the marketing VP at Bitstamp. My crypto journey started in 2018. Before that, I was working in the financial industry, on the traditional side, banking. Then I switched to the blockchain and it totally impressed me, and from blockchain I switched to crypto and, yeah, for three years I have been at Bitstamp working together with the Bitstamp colleagues to push the mainstream adoption of crypto, especially nowadays. It's getting quite important. Yeah, it's me.

Joeri: 1:52

Yeah, well, great to have you. Yeah, it's interesting the vibe I came back from the Web Summit. There was not really a Web3 track, I would say, but a lot of Web3 side events and I met a lot of Web3 people, so that was amazing. I feel that is really a new fight in the market, so it's positive. Now my first question would be about, of course, bitstamp. I have you mentioned already experience in fintech, crypto marketing, but now, yeah, how did that shape your approach to marketing a bitstamp globally?

Aysenur: 2:27

yeah, I think that's a great question to start. As I mentioned, that's my background in. I'm coming from the financial industry, both in the fintech, cutting case technologies and definitely it helped me a lot while I'm doing marketing in cryptos and working with strong brands with this cutting paste, cutting case technologies more than a decade helped me a lot to learn more about the consistency in terms of your messaging and also the data-driven decisions in terms of the strategies, and they are really so much important while you are doing marketing crypto space. At Wittstamp, we have more than 5 million customers and, of course, when you are serving in that level of customer size, your service quality, your security and offering the right product definitely is important for earning and keeping the loyalty of your customers. But it's also important to keep your promise with your brand when you are doing marketing At Bitstamp.

Aysenur: 3:20

The core of our brand. They are security, transparency and simplicity and we don't want to take them like buzzwords. We have them in our DNA and when we are doing marketing around these important brand pinners, we just want to make sure they are. We are communicating actively around these messages and we are consistent about it and therefore we keep them in the front and center of our marketing campaigns and our marketing approach.

Aysenur: 3:47

The other important stuff that I would say crypto is a super fast-paced environment. Therefore, being agile and making data-driven decisions is super, super critical. Sometimes I get questions from the markets, which sometimes are super regulated crypto exchange, and sometimes they ask me how, in that environment super fast-paced environment, with the regulatory approach you continue to give services and get decisions and move on quickly on the marketing side. I have to say we have very strong frameworks. We have had checks. Definitely we have controls, but we don't really make them super bureaucratic. We just want to make sure that they really work and we get the right decisions based on the right approach, because on the marketing side, you need to be on the right channel with the right message at the right time. So therefore, it's very important to be agile and moving according to that.

Joeri: 4:34

Absolutely, and you actually touched upon a bit of the second question I wanted to ask you because, yes, the regulatory environment is important. A lot of things are moving, certainly in Europe, but also the rest of the world. What are maybe some of the unique challenges or opportunities in Mark III for a cryptocurrency exchange in this kind of environment?

Aysenur: 4:57

Yeah, definitely, I think that's a great question. If you ask me about the challenges made a couple of years ago, I would definitely say the regulatory uncertainty is definitely the biggest challenge because there are different regulations across different jurisdictions and it really makes tricky to apply a consistent marketing strategy or a constant messaging in terms of your activities. But today I feel more optimistic, as you said, that, especially as of next year, migrate is going to be effective and that will provide a more unified approach in terms of the regulatory framework and definitely it will help us to maximize our marketing activities. The other challenge, I would say market volatility probably I think it's relevant to everyone who is the marketing in this ecosystem the rapid changes in the market and its impact on customer behavior and the marketing effectiveness is quite important. So therefore, like my answer to the first question, being agile and adopting your strategies quickly based on these market volatilities is definitely so much needed and, yes, sometimes it's a challenge, definitely. The other challenge, I would say the skepticism and the education gap. The other challenge, I would say the skepticism and the education gap. Crypto is getting, I think, more visible, especially nowadays that we are approaching almost 100K, but still, technology-wise it's still complicated and people really struggle to understand why and how it works. I think still, that gap is bringing a challenge in terms of the mainstream adoption especially, but we shouldn't be so much pessimistic. Right, there are also opportunities in the market, as you mentioned that. So, regulation, yes, it was a challenge, but on the other hand, it's also an opportunity. This is how I see, as a marketer, but also as a company as Bitstamp, how we see that we are operating so much based on the regulatory requirements at Bitstamp and we have the gold standard, which we're really proud of. We have more than 50 licenses globally and recently we also granted a new license in Europe for our upcoming derivatives product, and that definitely gives confidence to our customers, but also to us bringing the trust clear to the markets in terms of our marketing activities, the trust clear to the market in terms of our marketing activities. So therefore, I also see the regulatory clarity and regulatory applications benefits and opportunity in terms of bringing the trust, in terms of giving the confidence to the market and driving the more adoption to the market.

Aysenur: 7:17

The other opportunity may be the community engagement. So see how we met each other. We met in an event and it was a. It was. It came through a community. So I really we met each other. We met in an event and it was it was. It came through a community. So I really find it very interesting.

Aysenur: 7:28

The crypto community, web3 community, is so much connected to each other. If you have something in your mind, you can ping to another person from another exchange or from an asset issue, so they're always connected to each other. So I think that is really. That is really fabulous, and as Bitstamp, we don't see our customers, we don't see our community, just only a member of community. We see them as ambassadors of our brand, so that helps us to transfer the message from our side across the community. The other opportunity maybe is, I think, important to mention that, yes, the first Bitcoin paper is published in 2008 and Bitstamp has been providing services since 2011. But still, it's a very young industry, right, and as marketers, we have a lot to build from scratch. I think that is very exciting, so I see that also as an opportunity as well.

Joeri: 8:21

Yeah, I love that. The community building. Yeah, bitstamp is already there since a long time, can you imagine, and of course, there are other changes. It's important to retain also and engage your users, because that's why we do an important part of marketing. So tell me about how you're integrating customer lifecycle management into your marketing strategy.

Aysenur: 8:45

I'm so glad that you brought customer life cycle management because I think it's very important. In my career, in the previous phases, I also specifically focused on CRM and life cycle management part, so therefore I really know that how it is important. And when it comes to marketing, there are neutral pillars the brand marketing, product marketing, social media events, pr but life cycle management is also very important because you trigger a journey to your customers. With advertisement campaigns, you run performance marketing activities, you want to take the attention of the target audience and bring them to your platform, but once they get that decision, once they get the idea and decide to start their journey with you, it's a long journey. So it's important to walking this journey with your customers hand in hand and therefore the customer lifecycle management, I think, plays an important role, especially like the exchanges, like the central exchanges, like Bitstamp, we have responsibilities, things like KYC, aml processes.

Aysenur: 9:44

We have long onboarding processes, which are necessary and important for the sake of our customers, for their safety and also for our responsibility to the regulators and to our customers. So we start our customer lifecycle activities once our customers get the decision and click on the button yes, I want to open an account with them. Or we know when they on the button yes, I want to open an account with them. Or you know when they download the app. We work with them during that journey, hand in hand. Explain now why we need to do all these onboarding processes, what it means for them, how they can go through these processes easily and in a quick way for them. So we provide tutorials for them, we provide the educational content, interactive guides, to make that process really easy and secure for them before they start their crypto trading experience.

Aysenur: 10:34

Whilst onboarding completed, we have also engagement activities. So we continue our lifecycle activities in terms of the activation campaigns, in terms of providing guidelines to our customers how they can start doing deposits or buying crypto, etc. And, of course, loyalty. Life cycle management brings loyalty as well, so it's very important. So we go through the data, we understand our customers' behavior and we segment them based on their behavior, based on their preferences, based on their history, and we continue to offer the right products and communicate the right messages to their way of lifecycle management. So, therefore, I think it's very important and this year we decided to also activate a new CRM lifecycle management campaign In the data.

Aysenur: 11:18

When we analyze our customer-based data. We realized that the customers who started their journey in the early phase of Wittem they are super keen to adapt themselves to our new products and we were like, yeah, okay, we see there's a big loyalty there. Let's start celebrating these trading anniversaries. And we started to activate trading anniversary celebration campaigns. It's just a small thing, but when I go to events or when we go to social media, we see that how people are impressed and how people really like that. People are coming to me in the events, in front of the events, and saying that, wow, I can't believe that last week I received an email from you. That's my talent, you're at Witsound. Oh my God, I'm slide.

Joeri: 11:58

That's amazing when you have that. Yeah, that's what I like to do With the podcast. You say I come to an event like it happened at the web summit. It happens now more and more everywhere that you will come to me. Oh yeah, you're the guy from the podcast. This is because I put my Web3CM Stories podcast on my name badge, so then they see this and then they go and talk with me. So that's really.

Joeri: 12:19

I love that when people come to me and they tell you a story, like one time I was in Austin and this guy came to me tell you a story. Like one time I was in Austin and this guy came to me and he wasn't to my podcast but he said oh, yuri, you mentioned our company in one of your episodes and all the team was so grateful that you did that. Thank you so much. And then I didn't know him, but he had my Belgian accent. I think he had a gym to me. Oh, yes, I heard him as your voice. I mean that Immensely overvoiced and that's just an anecdote, but it's nice to have that kind of feedback.

Aysenur: 12:46

Exactly, it's happening. Space-to-space communications was the important right for building the engagement in this ecosystem.

Joeri: 12:53

Absolutely. Now, you mentioned you were measuring stuff in your dashboards, so how do you measure actually success in product marketing for a platform like Bitstamp where, like security and reliability are critical?

Aysenur: 13:09

The trust, consistency and adaptability. I think they are the important pillars for us and we build our strategy based on that. We are a trusted brand and we build our strategy on that, and when you position yourself as a trusted player in the market, you have to prove that right. So you cannot, for example, you don't, go to your partner and say that, hey, you can trust me, I'm not cheating on you. You need to show it right With your behavior. So this is what we are trying to do at Vita, because we have it in our DNA and we support it in our messaging campaign. When we are doing these activities and based on the results, we are doing surveys, we are also taking the response rates of our customers and, based on that, we want to get the feedback and understand, in terms of the success, how it resonates to our audience when we are communicating it.

Aysenur: 13:59

For example, after the FTX crash in the market, all of a sudden the being regulated, being secure, being trusted, became so much important that before then it was like just beat the cool in the town, but all of a sudden, all these keywords they became so much important and, as Bitstamp, we decided to do a marketing campaign based on these pillars because you were like, okay, this is our time, now, right, this is what we have been building for a long time, and maybe in the beginning it was not really well understood.

Aysenur: 14:28

But now is the time and we came out with a new campaign and we called it Proudly Boring. We start talking about the license that we have, how we provide the secrets to our customers, and he said that, hey, we are not a cool kid on the blog, we are just here. We have been here for a long time, since the Bitcoin price was $4. And, yes, we are boring, we know it, but we're proud of it. And that message resonated so well with the market and we started to see a huge increase in terms of our new customer acquisition and the app downloads, and it was also authentic, right. So, in terms of the measurement of the success, so the feedback of the customers, and also its reflection in terms of the OPRs, in terms of the performance and the KPIs, this is how we measure.

Joeri: 16:28

Yeah, I love that. By the way, before I was into marketing, I had a business analytics company, so measuring is something really important. To do it and also to take action upon that, and I love that. When you talked about this campaign, it's always a challenge I people and then to try to explain that in a marketing or in a user-friendly message I would say, yeah, do you have any tips or any experiences with that? Because it's a complex blockchain can be complex for most people. How do you then create these user-friendly marketing messages?

Aysenur: 17:09

No, that's still a definite. I agree with you. It's still complex and I think people have in their minds they have some barriers, although I think every day, people start to see a lot of information about Bitcoin, especially nowadays. It's on media at the moment, even the traditional media as well, not only in crypto media, but still I think people really want to understand why, what makes so much special Bitcoin or crypto, why people continue to invest that and when you started to ask these questions, you really need to understand right. Technical complexity is.

Aysenur: 17:50

Therefore, we are trying always to all these legal terms or in terms of our technical, our product technical features. We can basically talk about all these features from technical point of view, but this is the only language that we understand, right. So, as marketers, our job is to get all this knowledge and translate it to the customer's language. Yes, there's a techie group, the audience that we are targeting. There is a super crypto-centric audience, but there is also an audience who are keen, who want to learn more, but they don't really know all these terms and they feel overwhelmed.

Aysenur: 18:25

I remember that last year, when we conducted a research regarding the, or especially the newbies who are curious about crypto, they were seeing that I feel lost. When I look at about the information about the crypto, I feel overwhelmed. I don't understand and but I want to learn. So, for example, let me tell you that we're launched a more centered platform on our website and we tracked all the time what are the keywords that people are looking for, what they really want to understand and learn more, and we feed that platform with the fresh content based on their requests, for example, based on the questions that they're asking. So we are trying to identify it. Or we also identify our products based on different customer groups, for example, pro traders. We provide more complex, more technical products and we transfer our messaging based on their language. But if we are also targeting people who are curious about crypto, therefore we need to provide them in a more simplified way, easy way services and translate it into that language. But that's how we are trying to balance.

Joeri: 19:29

Yeah, I love that Isn't how we are trying to balance. Yeah, I love that, and also I must say I have done more than 200 episodes. The way that you explain it is, I think, really podcast listener friendly, I would say, because you're speaking a language that people can understand. But now you mentioned WebAgile already a few times. The world is changing fast, certainly in crypto, in Web3, blockchain, ai is there. So how are you adapting? How are you adapting your marketing strategies, staying agile in this world with a lot of new trends and emerging technologies all the time?

Aysenur: 20:06

Yeah, I think this is quite important, as you said. I mentioned it a lot and I would say this is one of the strengths that we have in my team, which I'm really proud of, because we really quickly identify where we need to look at and understand and quickly take actions. I have a diverse team in different regions, but I think we are super capable to do that. As I said, I'm really proud of that. I would say, for doing that, the first key is the data-driven decision. You need to close the monitored data. You really need to close the monitored user behavior, market trends and the performance metrics in real life. That definitely helps us to identify how the campaign, how the marketing activities that we are doing they are working or, if they are not working, how we can pivot them. For example, if we see a sudden surge in an interest around a specific asset or technology, we'll just adjust our messaging or our campaigns to align with that interest, for example.

Aysenur: 21:03

Another important aspect that having an experimental mindset.

Aysenur: 21:06

So in crypto, you cannot really rely on one size fits.

Aysenur: 21:10

So therefore, I think you need to consistently have the testing mindset in terms of the messages, in terms of the creators, in terms of the ideas in terms of the channels. So, therefore, being flexible and keeping this experimental mindset definitely helps you to be more agile and when you continue to do these experiments and see the results, compared now with the control groups, you can say, okay, that works with that audience, let's pivot to that campaign and continue to support that campaign, or lower the activity with the campaign Y and focus on the others. So that definitely helps us in terms of continuing with our efforts. And I would also say, actually, which is very important, the collaboration we close, the work with cross-functional teams, from product to compliance, bi to finance, to make sure that we align and we can move forward quickly, that we need it. So, therefore, without our collaboration with our load teams, our stakeholders, it's impossible to see with so much people and be agile, because agility in crypto is really being proactive. So therefore, you need to have this collaboration in place as well.

Joeri: 22:16

Yeah, I love that you really have this whole strategy and team in place and you're measuring everything. That really sounds great. Now, people now listening entrepreneurs or marketers, it's maybe are not yet in Web3 or they are wanting to do a project in Web3 or they want to enter the crypto space. Any advice that you would give them Because, as we said, it can seem complex.

Aysenur: 22:43

I have to say, making marketing in crypto is like being a roller coaster, and if you really like that kind of environment, that is the right place. I definitely want to underline that. But the first key is understanding the ecosystem, understanding the products. That industry moves super fast and it's full of complexities and there is a big foundation, strong foundation, about the about this technology. So, resource deeply, not just only learn about technology, but also learn about the audience that you are targeting. Yes, there's a tech-savvy customer group there, but there is also mainstream customers also coming to that market. So it's not, I think, anymore crypto geeks or the tech-savvy audience. So therefore, learning more about the audience as well is also another important recommendation that I would say I would advise.

Aysenur: 23:34

Also, keep the authenticity, because the competition will be getting higher and higher. So therefore, being authentic will become more important in terms of your marketing activities and in terms of your own brand as well. And again, agile, I think being agile, being flexible, that is very important. And again, agile, I think be agile, be flexible, that is very important. And embrace the experimental. As I said, that if you experiment more, if you are brave to do this experiment, I think you started to build a playbook for yourself and for your team, and you can make more out of it. That would be my advice.

Joeri: 24:13

Wow, that's really great advice. I love it, staying authentic and because, in a world where there's so much AI and so much things that you can automate but stay authentic. Also, be sure that you build your personal brand, like I'm doing myself too. You have my own accent in English, so people recognize me because it's authentic. Aysenur, it was such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. Now, if people want to connect with you or they want to learn more about Bitstamp, would you like me to send them?

Aysenur: 24:49

They can reach out to me via LinkedIn, so I'm quite active on LinkedIn. I will be responding to their messages.

Joeri: 24:54

Okay, and of course, Bitstamp. It's easy to find if they want to know more about it.

Aysenur: 25:00

Or watch our website so you can get more information there. We have also a live support channel as well. They can always reach out to our support channel if they want to get more information. And yeah, they can visit our website.

Joeri: 25:12

Great. So, as my listeners know, there are always show notes. There is always a blog article with all your links will be in there. People will also find the picture that we made like in Barcelona in real life. You remember, eisenhorn? It was a pleasure to have you.

Aysenur: 25:29

Thank you very much. It was a pleasure for me. Thank you for having me.

Joeri: 25:33

So, guys, what an amazing episode with a lot of value bombs. So if you think that this episode is useful for people around you, be sure to share this episode with them. If you're not yet subscribed to the show, this is a really good moment to do this. If you haven't given me a review yet, this would really help me, if you give me these five stars, to reach an even bigger audience, and, of course, I would like to see you back next time, take care.