The Innovation Team at Partena Professional is on a mission to disrupt the payroll industry with Payabl’. It’s a brand-new app which allows employees to decide when they receive the salary they’ve already earned instead of waiting until the end of the month.

This flexibility gives employees financial peace of mind and prepares employers for the future of HR, in which personalization and autonomy will play key roles.

We were asked to provide product marketing support and help bring Payabl’ to the market in the second half of 2020.

Bridging the knowing-doing gap

To tackle this challenge, we went from strategy all the way to implementation:

Strategy

• We analyzed the market to determine the target audiences and identify their pains. The Brand Persona Template and Customer Journey Map Template guide you through those steps. 
• We explored the direct competitors abroad (similar solutions) and indirect competitors in Belgium (manual advance payments and short-term loans).
• Based on that input, we formulated value propositions for Payabl’ and defined customer gains and USPs. The Value Proposition Canvas helps to create a product-market fit for your innovations.
• We finetuned and validated the value propositions through qualitative research, for example, during interviews with HR professionals.

Implementation

• All the insights were used to come up with a sales story and create materials such as battlecards and slide decks.
• We also translated everything into marketing materials such as a dedicated landing page, social and display campaigns, emails, a product video, blogposts, etc.
  
  

An important challenge throughout these steps was to keep all relevant stakeholders from other teams like Innovation, Campaign Marketing, IT and Legal informed and involved in the project.

Leaving our fingerprint behind

A first sign of traction in the market was the extensive press coverage Payabl’ received by Het Nieuwsblad, Trends, Het Laatste Nieuws, RTBF, De Tijd and L’Echo, among others.

In addition, Partena Professional was recognized as HR Service Provider of the Year in Europe during the Corporate Livewire Awards and received the HR Tech Award 2020 – all thanks to Payabl’. They’re currently also in the running for the HR Excellence Awards, Corporate IT Awards and CIO of the Year Awards.

Of course, the most important results are a first enthusiastic client who is fully up and running, a second one whose onboarding is scheduled and a sales pipeline filled with interested leads from different industries. Payabl’ will not only generate revenue directly but is also expected to lead to cross-selling opportunities for the other services offered by Partena Professional.

Insights and learnings from the project

Challenge the status quo: dare to question the way things are done (like salary payments at the end of the month) and think further than incremental innovations and improvements. Sometimes people don’t ask for something simply because they don’t know it’s possible.

Get your hands dirty: if your project is limited by the available budget, you can go a long way by trying things yourself before outsourcing to an agency. And if you need final touches from an external party, your detailed input will drastically reduce their effort and costs.

Adopt a growth mindset: a first round of creatives performed rather poorly, so we decided to change the angle and start from scratch. It’s key to continuously monitor the performance of your campaigns and iterate accordingly.

Are you also full of great ideas, but not sure how to bring them to the market? Reach out!