Total 648 words used.
Onaisa Landis joined Octane as its first VP of Marketing in March 2021. With a limited budget and, initially, very small team, she transformed marketing into a strategic growth driver. She also built Octane’s brand, repositioning the company from a lender to a trusted partner to the 4,000+ dealerships Octane serves.
[REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION] Onaisa transformed marketing at Octane. [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION] By bringing analytical rigor, she was able to test, learn, and prioritize activities and campaigns, and measure incrementality. Onaisa implemented full lifecycle and omnichannel marketing, sales enablement, and go-to-market strategy development.
Onaisa understands that successful marketing is about the role your product plays in your customers’ lives. That’s why she spent hours speaking to Octane’s customers - dealership owners and finance managers - who shared their hopes, dreams and the legacy they wanted to leave. These conversations helped Onaisa understand that Octane’s customers didn’t love Octane for its underwriting prowess or technology, they loved Octane because it was a bridge between who they were and who they wanted to be. This insight led her to redefine how Octane approached marketing - its roadmap, messaging, and product positioning. Her customer-driven approach significantly strengthened Octane’s relationship with dealers and built a moat separating it from the competition. Dealers responded by sending Octane more and more business - deals funded per dealer grew by over 25% between 2021 and 2022. During the same time, Octane signed its two largest OEM partners to-date and grew its business by 3x.
Onaisa also overhauled how Octane supported its most important partners. She created marketing tools and collateral to help partners drive sales, such as vehicle hang tags with QR codes customers could scan to instantly apply for financing or financing links dealers could embed into their social media posts. She also helped introduce event support, where Octane employees attended consumer events alongside dealers to process loans in real-time.
Onaisa also elevated Marketing to become a partner to Sales. [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION] Onaisa worked with Sales to shape the story they’re taking to market, create a shared strategy, and ensure that new products and campaigns are rolled out effectively. Today, Marketing and Sales jointly drive growth from demand generation to dealer engagement and retention via onboarding, training, and education. The Octane brand is now infused across every single touchpoint - from marketing collateral to Sales scripts and beyond - in a consistent, meaningful way. This effort has paid off; in 2022, Octane had record growth, generating over $1B in originations, a 74% increase year-over-year.
The launch of Octane Prequal, the award-winning, soft pull, e-commerce tool is particularly noteworthy. Both by strategically positioning Prequal and introducing tools that help dealers expand the reach of their teams, Onaisa helped Octane grow adoption of Prequal by 10X in 2022. In this campaign, Marketing rolled out Near-field communication (NFC) cards that enable customers to apply for financing with a tap of their phone. In a slow-to-digitize industry, this novel idea has been hugely successful.
Onaisa also oversaw the creation of Octane Preferred, the first-of-its-kind dealership loyalty program that launched in March 2023. By providing customer-centric benefits, such as VIP service, early access to new products, and customizable marketing tools, Octane saw significant growth as well. [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION] Additionally, Octane Preferred includes benefits the competition can’t provide, like publicity in Octane’s renowned media properties, Cycle World and UTV Driver.
A humble, caring leader, Onaisa recently told a journalist who asked How did you make it in marketing?, “I haven’t. I don’t know that anyone has. Because ‘making it’ is fundamentally against what marketing is about- evolving, growing, changing, learning.” She’s also a collaborative manager and champion for her team [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION].
Nomination Title: Onaisa Landis, Octane's first VP of Marketing
