[Interview] They give you water and teach you how to dig the well. Real growth from in-house enablement that leaves know-how behind.

About Arlalink’s business

Low-cost mobile: Daredemo Smartphone Arlalink provides a mobile service that people who cannot sign a contract with a major carrier, for reasons such as a past credit default, can take out easily and with confidence, without a contract screening. A phone is essential to everyone – for renting a home, for finding work, and for staying in touch with the people around them – and owning one supports a person’s independence. Working with local government, Arlalink has built its own scheme and grown the business. It also runs other businesses, including mobile phone rental for companies.

Arlalink Inc. provides telecommunications services that meet the needs of the times, centred on low-cost mobile.

Its services help solve the social problem of people who are cut off from mobile communication.

To bring its services to more people, it began work across digital marketing in 2022.

At the time, with no foundation for digital marketing in-house, it faced challenges in winning new customers for its services and in hiring as the business grew.

About 18 months into working with NowVillage, how have those challenges changed?

We asked Mr Takahashi, Representative Director, and Mr Shinjo, head of the marketing division, why they asked NowVillage for digital marketing support, what it has achieved, and what they expect next.

“Should we review our contract with the outside agency?” Then came a remark that stopped me short

― What led you to work with us, and what made the difference?

Takahashi: When I met Mr Imamura (NowVillage’s Representative Director) through an acquaintance, the direct scouting service we had outsourced was not delivering, and I was unsure whether to keep investing in outsourcing to attract candidates and new customers.

I mentioned this casually to Mr Imamura, and he simply said, “You could just do that yourselves” (meaning running the direct scouting service and the rest of the digital marketing).

It caught me off guard – or rather, I thought, “Of course!”

I realised I had filed digital marketing under “things I don’t understand” and had never bothered to dig into it.

When you take on something you don’t understand, the hurdle looks higher than it really is. That is why services that charge money by playing on that worry do so well (laughs). But with a certain level of literacy, you should be able to pick up the skills by actually trying.

Even when you know that doing it in-house is cheapest and best, once you think about the time and effort it takes to work out something unfamiliar, you end up outsourcing all of it.

NowVillage, by contrast, runs the digital marketing while sharing the know-how with our staff and actively supporting us in bringing it in-house. We valued the fact that the knowledge would stay with us, and so we started working with NowVillage.

Soaring CPA brought under control. Keeping both the cash and the know-how is the greatest strength of in-house enablement

― Thank you. We have run many initiatives together. Where do you feel NowVillage’s involvement has had the greatest effect?

・Recruitment consulting ・Advertising management ・In-house enablement ・In-house enablement for SEO

Shinjo: Of everything we have done with NowVillage, I feel the effect most strongly in running Google Ads. In January this year (2023) we launched a service called “ Daredemo Smartphone“.

At launch we rode the wave and won conversions at a very low CPA. But about three months later, partly because the service was no longer new, CPA worsened, jumping to more than ten times its initial level.

We had little know-how, and while we were searching for a way to hold down the rising CPA, Mr Tabiraki of NowVillage stepped in to help. His sharp analysis and logical explanations were extremely valuable.

As a result we were able to run the PDCA cycle quickly, and CPA is now stable at our target. CVR is also being maintained at an appropriate level, and branded keywords in particular are being run very efficiently. I feel this is an overwhelming difference.

Takahashi: NowVillage’s strength is that they do this as part of in-house enablement. If we had outsourced the whole thing, it would not have turned out like this.

With outsourcing, cash goes out regardless of the results, the know-how goes out too, and sometimes nothing is left in the company in the end.

Today, though, thanks to in-house enablement, we keep the cash and we keep the know-how, so we can invest all of it in advertising.

When experience and successes stay inside the company, repeatability naturally rises, and I feel that is genuinely effective.

Another big thing for me is that NowVillage does not draw a line at “we don’t do what we weren’t asked to do”. They take the initiative to get our people involved to produce results, and they clearly understand that this is what matters.

People often debate whether outsourcing or in-house is better for marketing work, and I think bringing people inside (in-house) wins. As you build in-house capability, know-how accumulates across the whole company and the value you can offer customers rises. Going forward we want to hire not only marketers but also web designers and engineers (in-house).

Results in hiring too. NowVillage gives you water and teaches you how to dig the well

― We also support your hiring. Have we been able to contribute there?

Takahashi: When NowVillage came in, our hiring activity had not even started, so we were starting from almost zero. Considering that, we now have a steady flow of 100 applications a month. That is enough applicants to select from properly, so I think it is producing results. Being able to build a candidate pool and choose (who to take forward) makes a big difference.

We also consult them a lot on communicating with recruitment agencies. Honestly, we did not know how best to communicate with agencies, so we learn a lot from how Mr Imamura (who came from an agency background) deals with them. I hope we can gradually bring even hard-to-document skills like agency communication in-house.

― What do you expect from us going forward?

Shinjo: Including the SEO work we are now discussing with you, we want to put more effort into raising the overall level of our web marketing and improving results. I think there is still plenty of room to grow, and I would be glad if we could build that up together.

― Finally, what kind of companies would you recommend us to?

Shinjo: I think there are many companies that want to bring digital marketing in-house. Mid-sized companies in particular that want to build teams aggressively and grow revenue as an organisation would be a good fit.

Ambitious companies like that tend to believe they will not grow unless they properly develop their staff and everyone goes on the attack together. In that sense, the demand for in-house enablement arises precisely where companies are determined to develop the people they already have.

Takahashi: Attracting candidates (which NowVillage is good at) is essentially a method for gathering people (customers) whose needs are not visible, so I think it can be applied in any industry.

There is a saying, “Don’t give people water; teach them how to dig a well.” With NowVillage, it’s “they give you the water and teach you how to dig the well” (laughs).

As it was with our advertising, being able to teach things that can be repeated is, I feel, truly valuable.

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Arlalink Inc.

Website: https://www.ala-link.co.jp/

Industry: Telecommunications

Service: Low-cost mobile service

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