We have a conversation with Joseph Drani, the Chief Marketing Officer at Tubayo Travel and he gives us a look in to the strategies that contribute to the brand’s growth such as the monthly and increasingly popular Market Day as well as many more.
Q: So to the world, who is Drani ?
A: Drani is a 24 year old gentleman from West Nile, I graduated with a Bachelors in business administration, from Makerere Business School and am currently working with Tubayo, a start up company in Uganda and Africa’s biggest travel marketplace. I also have a side hustle; an online watch business which also contributes to my income.
Q: With your seemingly strong business acumen, what position do you occupy at Tubayo?
A: I am the marketing lead, so I’m in charge of marketing strategies and campaigns, our brand growth, strength and positioning in the market. We are a team of 3 people and we work together to create Tubayo’s digital and offline impact.
Q: Could you give us a background on how you got into this field ? To rise to the marketing lead role in Tubayo?
A: Where Tubayo started from, birthed from an idea by Mr. Namanya Brian. He shared it with Boris Mugisha who also happened to be my very close friend when in school in our second year. So we boarded as people who believed in the vision and the goal that Mr. Brian had. We didn’t have designated roles originally, we all did generic duties like, “make sure these posts are up, make sure people are downloading and signing up on the app.” As time went on and the company started scaling, and got structure, the work increased so it was necessary for us to get positions so that there’s direct work and accountability.
Sitting down, I was asked what I could do. They asked me, “you’ve been part of us and we’ve been all over the place, so if we could give you a role, what can you do?” So I had to analyse myself. The fact that I have an online watch business, it was also digital marketing that I was doing and I loved to influence people. You know as a salesman, you influence people and their purchasing decisions. You help people change their mind and they side with you. So with this, I decided to do marketing. Adding that marketing is hugely influenced by social media and I’m passionate about social media, I knew that this was the role for me. So that’s the genesis of my marketing journey with Tubayo.
I’ve been learning on the job because I have no prior background with this field but it’s great to have a space and a CEO who is also passionate with a strong marketing mind. He’s been nurturing me to grow as a marketer and it’s helped me learn more as time goes on.
Q: You’ve spoken of not having a marketing background, and having majored in Business administration while at university, would you say there are other factors of your background that contributed to where you are today?
A: Well, from the beginning, my name is Muwendo Joseph Drani. Muwendo is from my mother’s Kisoga end, but I don’t think I’ve met any Basoga that have this name as it was a circumstantial name from birth from the different situations my mum went through to bear me so with this, my grandparents decided to name me Muwendo to mean “God is great.”
Drani is from my father’s side, it’s my real name by the way as many people think it’s a nickname, and it’s from the West Nile, Lugbara tribe in Maracha. But I didn’t grow up with my father or have a paternal relationship with him as they split when I was younger. I’m closer to my mum as she’s who I’ve been with all my life.
Educationally, my mum used to teach at a school in seeta namilyango called Namilyango Junior Boys school and where I went for Primary school. I then proceeded to Namilyango College School for 6 years, both O and A level. I secured a government scholarship that took me to Makerere Business School where I did Business Administration. On top of that, I am pursuing marketing courses just to grow my skills and get better at what I’m doing. It definitely helps and is building my career.
Q: As marketing lead, how can you say Tubayo managed to secure its first 100 actively paying customers? What strategies were used?
A: First, one thing we believe in here at Tubayo is Love. It’s our culture and we value it. We believe that when someone loves something, they will do anything for it. From that, we drew strategies that directly would help to tap into someone’s emotions and feelings. When someone hears Tubayo, what do they feel first? We decided to tap into that. What do you do to make them feel good when you say Tubayo?
So working backwards, we made a placard, we call it the Tubayo Key, this was back at campus and MUBS has a lot of students so we thought, this is a new brand and we want people to relate with it. We want to spread the Tubayo gospel. We started sharing on Instagram and since Instagram was the thing then, people loved appearing on the Tubayo page. Some say they’d feel cool. We would walk to random people and take pictures with them holding the key. We got to a point when we stopped moving around and people would call us just to take a picture with the key. We would have to carry it to them. The brand started moving and the awareness spread. People started loving us. So today when you say Tubayo, people see something cool. A brand for the youth, urban and basically cool people. Happiness, joy are core emotions that have represented us. We now find that the people we used to do the photoshoots with are grown now and all of them are our classmates at campus. They’re now working and have networks so they keep recommending Tubayo to most of their people. Even to their parents and older people. It’s been word of mouth from the start. So from tapping into one’s emotions, to tapping into their network.
Q: Moving around all the time must have reduced for you as time went on, so what’s the average day in the life of a Tubayo Marketing lead?
A: Okay, I usually wake up at 5am, do some simple workouts because what I’ve read and works for me is when you work out early in the morning, blood circulation is faster around the body and this boosts your mood and energy in general. You become more lively and active.
I take a shower then have breakfast after, just something simple to get me fueled for the day. By 7:30 I’m ready to step out and head to the office.
When I get here, I have to search for the number of users we’ve gained overnight as that’s my lead key performance indicator. Everything I do is directed to raising our users and engagements. Once I’ve established that, I ask myself, “what can I do today, that can add more than what we got the day before?” That determines and sets the tone for the day. After I come up with a to-do list with attached timelines, this was a routine set in stone by the COO, Boris and CEO,Mr. Brian who are strong advocates that everything we write comes to life as it’s a directive towards getting things done. I get started on these roles throughout the day
At about 1:30, we head for lunch and by 2, we make sure we’re heading back to the office. In the afternoons, I usually have meetings with people that would have to interact with Tubayo. These are usually people from all over, media and more.
Q: How many users does Tubayo have currently?
A: Currently, we are at 20,000+. I can’t give you a definite number for sure but we’re above 20,000 active users. But anyone who uses the internet can be a Tubayo user. Some people use it without signing up so we don’t really track them but we see the impressions.
Q: Do you remember the day you got the highest sign ups and how many users were there?
A: The highest number was when we got 500 users in one day and that was when we used to move about and do party buses. This was one of the strategies that actually helped us to tap into people’s emotions. Many campus students like to party and be out and about, so we hosted party buses and we had 7 buses of campus students heading to Nkozi. This was the biggest we have ever had in one day as they had to sign up to book the experience.
Our next user target is to have over a million users sign up in a day.
Q: Considering the fierce competition in today’s travel and accommodation field, how would you say Tubayo’s Unique Selling Point is?
A: We are centered on Africa and understand the African market more than our known competitors like Airbnb and booking.com. Those are the ones that people really know. We know that, you as a Ugandan would rather use Mobile money than VISA to pay for an experience or accommodation. We aim to ease life for our users . Then we enable people to pay in the various currencies of their choice which other sites don’t do. Another thing is Tubayo is an experiential app in that it’s not just accommodation but we offer unique experiences that you won’t find elsewhere. They are unique to Africa in that both Africans and those from outside Africa will pay to experience. Africa is so exciting and has a lot to offer such as the amazing climate, the food, people, African music and more; there’s so much our continent offers and Tubayo is the go to for all these unique experiences. This definitely puts us in a better position than our “competitors” because in truth, we are just focusing on our people, on Africa so this is our zone.
Q: We’ve seen a few stand out marketing angles from Tubayo such as the market day, and even a song! Before we get into the market day, could you tell us about this song?
A: Now, because people do love the brand, there are these young youths that decided to put out a song about Ugandan tourism, as well as Tubayo because you know, we are there. They made a song just to talk about the beauty we have here and how you can travel around easily. They got “Tubayo ” as the title, and we’ve used it in many videos as well as on trips. It wasn’t a company initiative, they actually introduced it to us when it was ready, they called us to the studio and wanted us to listen to it first. We were wowed. Next thing you know, it’s up on all the streaming sites.
Then about the market day, which actually is happening tomorrow, it’s for the Tubayo community. We have two kinds of people; the users and the hosts. The hosts earn through the platform by listing their homes, events and businesses. Each person on top of ranting on Tubayo, has other things they are running in their lives. So we needed a channel to support users that have things outside of hosting where everyone can come together to showcase as well as support other people . This is the Tubayo love culture. We give people the opportunity to sell more, to network with people of great value as well as an opportunity to just interact with people in similar fields as we learn from one another. As a vendor, people’s lives are always transformed after each market day. We are trying to see how to offer more value to our community members and market day is one of them. It’s getting bigger.
Q: There are many community based businesses in the country, but Tubayo stands out with Market day which has helped evolve a number of businesses. What inspired the originality of this idea?
A: Tubayo is all about growth and growth comes from communities. As the communities grow, so does the country. We started on an individual basis and now we are in the community so it’s fulfilling to know that we are contributing to our country’s growth and development. As one business grows, so do the rest. Plus there’s a lot of blessings that come from doing good, as We at Tubayo believe God sent us to fulfill His purpose.
Q: Earlier you mentioned that “Instagram used to be the site to use” as a marketer in an ever evolving business world, what social networking site works best?
A: I think it depends on your niche and target audience. If you’re targeting youth, naturally you’re drawn to Instagram. As we target the “corporate” world, then the shift is to Twitter and LinkedIn. Not to forget the OG, Facebook which most people at least once used. I think it’s important that you hit three sites, minimum but go all out because I feel like in this numbers game, all the stops count.
Q: As marketing lead, you bend towards PR , what are the main principles that you follow as you build successful customer relations?
A: Well first, I’d say it’s important to meet and satisfy customer expectations. First impressions matter and continuous impressions set the feelings in stone. I have to ensure that our users feel happy, using the product or service I am providing. These are my core principles towards approaching Tubayo’s public relations.
Q: And how about motivating and maintaining proper relations with your marketing team so as to receive outstanding results?
A: Well, I ask how they’d envision us as a billion dollar company. How would they feel when we’ve attained success and they’ve catered for all their needs and are financially established and secure? So we see the bigger picture and keep it in front of us always. As Tubayo, we aim to be a 60 billion dollar company so we keep our goal at the forefront. We motivate each other to stay steady towards that hence achieving our goals as a team.
Q: If you could talk to any historical figure, who would it be and why?
A: (laughs) this one is interesting but I think it would be Napoleon Bonaparte. Historically, he is put out as a bad person because of the damage that was caused from his reign, but then if you look beneath that and look at his character, he was very influential, a great orator as he changed so many people’s thoughts. He had all the traits of what one needs to be successful. Most of his wars were successful, even though yes there was great damage, the strategies are what would help make you become a great salesman and a winner.
So if I could meet him, I’d just tell him, “You know what, just guide me, what would it take to be greater? To have people remember me even for generations after?” Yeah, that’s definitely the figure I’d speak to. To focus on the good in what he did is what I think would help most people win when applied.
The Tubayo Market day happens tomorrow at Motiv, Bugolobi and is proudly powered and sponsored by Omwoleso. Both start up and already established companies and businesses shall be there to showcase as well as sell what they offer and is an opportunity to network with like minded individuals as well as various personalities.
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