Being part of the daily lives of Europeans, we’ve always kept busy solving different problems for people – travellers, friends, expats, parents of study abroad students, who send monthly allowances for free and instantly.
Innovating personal money management and making modern payments accessible for everyone is part of our mission. On the way to achieving it, we’ve accumulated lots of know-how and experience that we wanted to convert in the form of practical education. We wanted to encourage young people to get busy thinking how to come up with ideas that improve our society.
This is how the Masterclass in Community Marketing came to life – to give hands-on experience to participants and to be a platform which takes their professional future into the evergrowing field of digital marketing.
At iCard, we are very much focused on great user experience and we regularly take the time to uncover ways to improve. To get the right insights, we are regularly having discussions within our corporate community of 9 different nationalities, we talk to our users, and now we could work with, mentor and learn alongside the 16 excellent masterclass participants.
Developing talent through collaboration
What we wanted for our masterclass participants was to gain useful knowledge and skills, which could serve them well in the future.
We onboarded the most enthusiastic and talented people out of so many applicants. They had interests in marketing and were curious about what the real work environment looks like. Some were still university freshmen who took the summer days to get up to speed with reality. Others were already bachelors or masters in marketing. We were looking for a positive attitude. We wanted to see a strong desire to learn and motivation to dive deep into the Fintech space.
Students were attracted by the interactive mix of seminars, practical content creation, team-play, engaging social communities, brainstorming marketing ideas and a final strategy project. At the same time, we wanted to explore new ways and ideas, which could potentially enrich how our communities are developing.
Our team learned a lot from the fresh perspective of our students. We got reassured that well-structured activities, with awesome mentorship, insightful presentations and tight deadlines could boost motivation and unlock performance. Some students had doubts it’s possible to finish some of the tasks on time. Then, a few hours later, and surprisingly on time, they had a complete Excel sheet full of approaches, personas, messages and even some visuals.
We do not believe it when we hear it’s impossible. If we did, iCard would not exist and would not have reached nearly 1,000,000 users.
We believe together, alongside useful technology, we can positively change the world. The way to do it is by giving, by sharing knowledge and building up human potential.
This is exactly what attracted all the masterclass participants and none of them quit.
What happened during the Masterclass?
At the start of the 2-month program, we decided that the most talented person will be offered a long-term position in iCard’s marketing team.
What happened at the end of the 160 hours of study and practice was a surprise, even for the masterclass mentors – our invaluable colleagues Giuseppe Bonamonte (Community Manager) and Pavel Panayotov (Marketing Projects Manager).
We will let you into the surprise after sharing how the masterclass went.
The multitude of seminars exposed our students to various marketing concepts:
- Community marketing basics
- Content marketing
- Social media marketing
- Email and push marketing
- Project management
- App store optimisation
- Successful partnerships
- Effective communication
- Building your personal brand and
- Design resources for non-professional
The practical part included creating strategies, creating content and communicating with different social media communities where iCard fits relevantly.
We even had some fun outdoor activities which kept the spirit up.
To relax, our students took advantage of the fun zone of our office, which offers 4 bowling lanes, pool tables, darts and table football.
But not just relax. Working out was the preferred activity for some people and they enjoyed our gym before or after the daily sessions.
How did the Masterclass end?
Excellent!
The culmination was seeing the live showcase of 8 awesome long-term community marketing strategies, presented by teams of two.
We had an honorary guest at the graduation ceremony – our CEO, Mr Yavor Petrov, who congratulated the students for withstanding this 2-month challenge successfully.
He was also there to share the moment of surprise!
Initially, we announced 1 position at iCard marketing department. At the end, we offered positions to 2 people, while 4 other masterclass students got an invitation to join other departments.
What does the future hold for us?
It was an honour being surrounded by young and bright people, and seeing their immense progress in real-time, even when coming from no marketing background.
We really felt the Masterclass was a win-win format for all participants, just as we planned it – a 2-month program that will serve as a career kickstart. One of the students already got a job as a finance intern at a large international company.
For this reason, we plan to organise even more free academies like the Masterclass in community marketing, and hopefully, the situation with covid-19 will soon allow it.
We want to open up more opportunities to grow talent by exchanging practical knowledge for the desire to learn by doing.
Feeling motivated to take on our next challenge? Be the first to know by following our emails, social media channels and our blog.
