Chameleon Collective & Snap Finance: A Journey to Digital Reformation
Challenge:
In 2020, a year of unprecedented challenges, Snap Finance found itself at a pivotal juncture. With crucial members of their leadership, including their CMO and the head of their life cycle team, making exits, they were faced with the dire need to fill key roles. Snap Finance’s corporate messaging and branding was dated and unfocused, resulting in a lack of qualified candidates submitting resumes for the company’s open positions. But the challenges didn’t stop there. The evolving landscape of consumer behavior required Snap Finance to not only reinvent their digital presence across channels but also to refresh their marketing and process workflows to drive sales, engage customers, and ensure seamless compliance.
Approach:
Understanding the intricate complexities of Snap Finance’s challenges, Chameleon Collective dove straight into the heart of the matter. Our preliminary deep dive into the workings of Snap – encompassing team dynamics, their operational blueprint, and technological infrastructure – aimed to rejuvenate customer interactions, propel conversion and retention rates, and encourage the right candidates to apply for essential roles in the company.
Lead:
In the wake of unexpected leadership departures during a particularly transformative period, Snap Finance found itself at a crossroads. The exits of pivotal roles such as the CMO and the head of their life cycle team created a palpable void. To bridge this gap, Chameleon Collective tapped into its expansive network, bringing onboard a seasoned CMO with a noteworthy history in the financial services sector. This CMO, with a background of working with reputable names in financial services, immediately rolled up his sleeves to steady the ship. Utilizing his insights and a deep understanding of the sector, he took measured steps to ensure Snap Finance regained its footing. Further fortifying the foundation, the CMO looked ahead, crafting a comprehensive strategy for Snap Finance. Drawing from his breadth of knowledge, he laid out a clear path that considered the evolving consumer behaviors and underscored the importance of a strong digital presence. The roadmap he charted was designed not just to meet immediate needs but to ensure Snap Finance remained at the forefront of the changing financial landscape. This strategic initiative ranged from revamping marketing methods to optimizing operational workflows, all while ensuring compliance and maintaining a focus on the customer. As his strategies began to bear fruit and the company’s direction became clearer, he facilitated the transition of the CMO role to a successor. Recognizing his invaluable contributions and strategic acumen, Snap Finance then transitioned him to an interim Chief Strategy Officer role, where he continued to play a pivotal role in the company’s growth trajectory.
Deliver:
In our endeavor to foster Snap Finance’s growth trajectory, the Chameleon Collective embarked on a series of strategic initiatives clustered around three primary areas: Marketing and Communication, Data Optimization, and B2B Engagement Our first step in revitalizing Snap Finance’s engagement was a comprehensive revision of their customer journeys, with a keen focus on SMS and email protocols to address app abandonment. To further elevate their email engagement, we carried out extensive testing around the frequency of sends and subject line efficacy. Recognizing the need for tailored communication, we introduced audience segmentation based on their purchasing categories. This nuanced approach allowed us to craft targeted emails, resulting in deeper resonance and improved conversion rates. Additionally, we revamped Snap’s brand image through PR efforts in key FinTech spaces and laid out crisis communication strategies, ensuring alignment with Snap’s legal and compliance frameworks. Central to our marketing and communication efforts was the addition of a Creative Operations Manager to Snap’s team. This crucial role ensured that the company’s creative endeavors efficiently met the challenges brought about by rapid growth, facilitating harmonious collaboration across departments. We tapped Chameleon’s creative team to help scale their capacity to meet demand but focused on developing Snap’s internal team resources. Analyzing Snap’s operations revealed inconsistencies in their data utilization. We worked hand-in-hand with Snap to redefine their data mapping strategies, ensuring accurate audience segmentation. By doing so, we streamlined their communication workflows, highlighting potential audience segments that were previously overlooked. This methodical approach resulted in enhanced communication precision and an established structure for addressing future growth challenges. Understanding the significance of B2B partnerships for Snap Finance, we co-designed an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategy. Focusing on high-value accounts, we deployed custom campaigns and content, bolstered by incentive-driven strategies to foster deeper B2B engagements. This approach not only solidified Snap’s presence among franchise networks but also reignited relationships with previously overshadowed B2B prospects. Our collaboration with Snap Finance culminated in guiding them through a data breach in 2022 using the crisis communication playbooks we had previously developed, supporting their senior management during this challenging period.
Recruit:
A significant part of the recovery process was to fill the leadership voids and enhance Snap’s workforce. As an immediate solution, we placed an interim CMO, who identified the gaps and crucial roles in the rapidly scaling organization. With our recruitment expertise, we supported Snap in their hunt for the right talent by screening talent provided by their recruiting team, all the while assisting in refining their brand presence on key recruitment sites.
Snap Finance thrived post-pandemic, bolstering its presence in the BNPL sub-prime financing niche with revamped strategies.
Impact:
The partnership between Chameleon Collective and Snap Finance bore impressive results, significantly in a tumultuous time. With revamped marketing strategies and streamlined processes fortified by our writer, brand, and design guidelines, Snap Finance observed a notable growth trajectory. Our focused efforts ensured that Snap wasn’t merely bouncing back post-pandemic; it was thriving. Snap Finance’s website, during the peak Black Friday week’s YOY, saw an astounding rise in customer applications, dwarfing their previous records. Moreover, our account-based marketing campaigns generated active leads that accumulated a massive pipeline for Snap originations. The testament to our impact was not just in numbers. Snap’s executive team praised Chameleon Collective as an “invaluable partner”, attributing their growth in 2020 and 2021, and the achievement of their origination targets significantly to our efforts. We didn’t just provide them with strategies; we enabled them to expand their team, fortify their brand, and establish themselves as a recognized leader in the Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) sub-prime financing niche. Snap’s interim leadership rewrote their process playbook, set up their Project Management system and created a system that allowed their small in-house Marketing team to thrive independently. Snap had always modeled themselves after a ‘start up’ Fin Tech mentality and with the Chameleon’s help, we established a path towards growth, turning them into a serious company with serious earnings. In sum, the Chameleon Collective’s collaboration with Snap Finance wasn’t just a conventional consultancy. It was a journey, a shared effort to redefine the digital norms, and to propel a brand to newfound heights in the face of adversity.
