Friendly, Creative and a Born Marketer!
People of Vox: Spotlight on Nicole Sibaya
At Vox, we believe our employees are the beating heart of our company, with merit and value built into all our available positions. In this edition of People of Vox, we meet Junior Marketing Manager: B2C Nicole Sibaya, who is based in Johannesburg. Nicole’s friendly personality, together with her keen organisational skills and attention to detail, makes her a perfect fit within the Vox Strategic Marketing Department.
Nicole is interested in people and what makes them tick and is creative yet organised, as well as warm and outgoing. She also believes wholeheartedly in Vox as a company, and what it offers to our customers. In short, Nicole fits all the requirements that help to create a brilliant marketing personality!
Having studied Commerce and Marketing at tertiary education level, Nicole was initially unable to get employment in her chosen profession. And so she was thrilled, in 2019, to get a job working in Vox’s Strategic Marketing Department, where she could finally be employed in the arena that she had studied and in which she’s well-qualified.
We find out more about Nicole (‘Noxolo’) and her journey to date – as well as why you could say she’s a bit of a ‘Lionel Messi’ on the netball court!
Finding Her Marketing Happy Place
Nicole studied Commerce and Marketing through Rosebank College. While she was still studying, she also did some part-time work for a marketing agency, in the form of ad hoc promotions: “This confirmed my enjoyment of the marketing profession!” she says.
In 2018, she was employed in her first official job after her graduation, working for a non-profit organisation as a project administrator. Sadly, the non-profit organisation went bankrupt about a year after she’d started with them, and Nicole found herself once again looking for work.
“Fortunately, I only had a couple of months of being at home before I got a phone call from a friend telling me about an internship position at Vox,” says Nicole. “I applied to join the internship programme and was accepted quite quickly. I was so happy, because I thought: Finally, this is in a marketing department, and it’s what I studied!”
Nicole’s start at Vox involved a short, intense training period. She explains: “The person who was assigned to train me actually left the company within just a few weeks of my arrival, so I found myself having to learn on the job, quite quickly, with support from my colleagues. It was a bit of a crash-course experience! But it gave me resilience and taught me how to handle internal processes and approvals.”
Over her first six months, she moved from being an intern to becoming a permanent staff member, and then progressed through various roles including being a Marketing Assistant, Brand Activation Specialist, and now her present role of Junior Marketing Manager: B2C. She had been with the company for about a year when the COVID pandemic struck in early 2020, and says that the early lockdown period was ‘disruptive but manageable’.
“We obviously had to pause our marketing activations and the movement of promotional stock during the strictest lockdown phases,” she clarifies. “The biggest impediments revolved around delays and permit requirements, but the team continued working remotely where possible, and we were glad to resume our marketing activations once regulations allowed.”
Her role today is focused on marketing tasks for the consumer side of Vox Fibre, in other words the Fibre to the Home products, with some additional cross-over into the company’s Fibre to the Business solutions from time to time.
Day to Day Responsibilities
As part of the Strategic Marketing team, Nicole is part of a small and very focused team that liaises especially with the Vox Sales Division. She says her role is largely driven by the requirements of the Sales teams and is fast-paced. The Strategic Marketing team ensures that the Sales employees have everything that they need when reaching out to the public during direct marketing ‘activations’.
“In other words,” she explains, “the Strategic Marketing division helps the Sales teams to shine brightly when they’re out and about and mingling with the public, with Vox’s instantly recognisable marketing collateral, in its bright green and other fun colours, taking front and centre!”
With Nicole and her team members based in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, they cover all of Vox’s Sales areas across the country.
She outlines: “We’re a small but busy unit of five people, covering the whole country for Fibre products. I’d really like to thank my line manager, Blanka, who has mentored me and helped me so much in my growth with Vox as a company, and give a shout-out to my team members – they all make my work life enjoyable and constructive!”
Nicole explains that each team member looks after their own major regions: “My portfolio primarily supports Johannesburg, the North West, Polokwane and Mpumalanga, although I also provide oversight across other regions when necessary. Travel can be part of the job, which I enjoy, and my most recent trips have been to Mbombela (Nelspruit) and Polokwane.
“In addition, as a team we collectively oversee responsibility for direct marketing materials in general, including uniforms that might be required, activation kits, flyers and monthly collateral. We also keep an eye open for local PR article opportunities.”
Nicole writes PR pieces when the opportunity arises and has been the author of a few articles that have been published in local community papers. She especially enjoys writing short accounts of how Vox helps to give back to communities.
As well as the way that Vox gives back to the communities in which it operates, Nicole also values the way that the company uses face-to-face interactions, and also offers customer support around the clock: “I think Vox’s human-centric approach sets us apart from competitors who focus exclusively on online and call-centre engagement,” she notes.
Other practical elements of her job include briefing and managing design elements, creating activation kits, dispatching promotional stock items, producing flyers, drafting PR copy for local media publications, managing supplier relationships (from printing to promotional stock), and carrying out stakeholder management with the fixed network operators (FNOs) that Vox liaises with, as well as Vox’s retail partners.
It’s all about raising awareness of Vox as a brand, and so this also includes various strategic marketing events, such as a Vox AI Insights & Customer Golf Day.
She outlines: “One of our successful joint initiatives included co-branded car wash activations, where Vox and our partners worked together in our lime-green two-piece overalls, adding some fun to the interactions with our customers and potential customers while washing their cars! I definitely enjoy the creative, high-energy nature of activation work,” she smiles.
Nicole is also enthusiastic about recent Sales activations that are related to the Vox Rewards programme. She explains: “Vox Rewards is a discount loyalty programme available to new and existing Vox Fibre to the Home customers. The Sales teams are running in-store activations with a shopping retailer to help with raising awareness, and these are proving to be fun and also generating a lot of interest with potential customers.
“I think that Vox Rewards is a wonderful market differentiator that sets Vox apart from other internet service providers (ISPs). It’s one of the first ISP reward systems in South Africa to provide access to a wide range of lifestyle benefits, that aren’t simply telecoms-related products, and which, if strategically used, can definitely help people with their monthly budgeting in economically challenging times.”
Making It Through with Family at the Centre
While she was growing up, Nicole certainly experienced some challenging times of her own. She explains: “I grew up in Roodepoort, in Gauteng, and I’m the youngest child in my family. My father, who was Zulu, passed away when I was nine; to this day I still miss him very much.
“My mother, who is of mixed heritage, including Sotho ancestry, was very strong and guided the family during his absence for the rest of my growing years. She is very resilient and she definitely instilled in me values including individual strength and independence, as well as the importance of family.”
Those early life experiences shaped her determination and work ethic, and Nicole credits her family support and her faith for helping her to get through some tough times. This included periods when she and her mom both individually faced retrenchment periods at separate times, and helped each other through the resultant financial hardships.
“I love my mom to bits,” she smiles. “I would do anything for her!”
Outside work, Nicole is active and busy. A keen netball player, she has previously achieved Provincial colours!
“I’m a die-hard girl for netball,” she smiles, “and I try to do Action Netball whenever I can, and if there’s not enough time I’ll go for a jog. I’m a very active person and I love being outside, including hiking.”
Back to the netball: Nicole says that, surprisingly, she is not as tall as you might think…
“I’m actually quite short,” she laughs, “and I really wish I was taller for my netball games! But I’m short and fast and so I play centre.”
[Editor’s note: So, you’re kind of like the Lionel Messi of your team then?]
[Nicole: Bragging rights! Yes! I’ll take it!]
When she’s not dashing about the netball courts in her spare time, Nicole enjoys baking for her family, and planning travels in her future: “New York – the Big Apple! – is very high on my bucket list,” she says, “and so I’m saving hard.”
Also in the future, she hopes, is her ambition to continue playing her part in increasing Vox’s brand awareness. And considering how she has grown into her chosen career – from her early student years into the highly-focused young marketing professional of today – we think that this is pretty much a sure thing.
Because, both on and off the netball court, Nicole is not known for dropping the ball!
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