The Luxe Nomad founder: We didn’t use an agency, we used Instagram and my sense of humour
The founder and CEO of luxury hotel booking portal The Luxe Nomad, Stephanie Chai, talked about her experience of starting her own business at a youth-focused event in Singapore yesterday, sharing how she used Instagram to build the brand and struggles to manage her millennial employees.
Stephanie Chai at Millennial 2020: ‘We’re in the age of individualism’
In an entertaining session at the Millennial 2020 conference in Singapore, the former model and TV presenter for 8TV, NTV7 and Channel NewsAsia was asked by her interviewer, Straits Times journalist Grace Sung, to reveal the lessons she has learned from starting her own business.
Chai, who launched The Luxe Nomad in 2012, listed managing people among the most difficult things about going it alone. “And I’m sorry to say it but millennials are just… in a different arena,” she said, recounting the time recently a 25 year-old woman was reduced to tears after Chai told her to “pull her socks up.”
“They [millennials] need to be handheld a bit more, but of course we do need them in our team. I think managing a team is very different compared to five-10 years ago,” said Chai, who founded online wedding portal Wedding Guide Asia before starting The Luxe Nomad.
Chai: “I downloaded SnapChat, but deleted it five minutes later”
“Managing people is not easy. And I’m generally ok with people, but it was like having 10 children. You have to be deeply nice to all of them. But you can’t be too nice, because they’ll take advantage,” said Chai, who shared that she worked two days a week modelling before entering the startup world.
On marketing to millennials, Chai said there was a need to be “individualistic”, adding that the luxury travel sector had the tendency to be “robotic” in how it communicated with young people.
“We’re in the age of individualism. Whatever you do, and however you voice it, it has to have personality,” said Chai, who said that in the early days of her company she did not hire an agency to help with communications.
“We did it by ourselves. Just using my sense of humour on Instagram,” she said.
The Luxe Nomad has 108,000 followers on Instagram, Chai’s social media platform of choice.
“I like Instagram. I downloaded SnapChat, but deleted it five minutes later. Instagram is very good for travel. And blue is the most liked colour, and the most likely to convert, so use lots of pictures with blue,” she advised.
The best time to post on Instagram is 8am, 2pm, 10pm,” Chai shared. “That’s when people are on their way to work, just had lunch or about to go to bed.”
“You don’t need to be an expert photographer, you just need to tag and credit people. Sometimes Facebook’s still good, but now you need to pay for it,” she said, referring to the fall in organic reach of marketing posts on Facebook.
Chai revealed that The Luxe Nomad is working on an app to reach the 20% of the website’s visitors who are 18-25 years old but can’t yet afford to make a large purchase.
You don’t always need ‘an agency’ to sculpt a brand….you need an imagination. It just so happens that the role of an inspired agency is to provide an endless supply of it, on demand.
50% of advertising a brand like this is great photography…and they’ve got it. The other 50% is seduction….and that is where they fall short. I don’t see how a villa at $2,500 a night is ‘affordable luxury’….maybe Im not the audience…..maybe it’s just out of touch with the current market sentiment.
ReplyNo Britta, you’re spot on. Promoting a $2500 villa as affordable is downright tone-deaf, if not blatantly out of touch.
ReplyI am shocked by the [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] (FYI Chai a millennial is anyone born between 1981-1996 not just in their twenties)
Managing a team is not rocket science. Inclusive, empathetic leadership is at the core of every great team. The motivation and atmosphere of a team are a direct reflection of the motivation and leadership choices that a leader projects. Perhaps [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]
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