Good marketing is key to achieving success. That is something we are all aware of. But what the biggest players in every area are doing now is focusing its marketing strategies each time more in the customer.
That is what believes Bill Macaitis, marketing consultant for Zendesk, Salesforce, and Slack. During his speech at the RD Summit 2018, the largest digital marketing event in Latin America, he revealed the secrets behind the marketing strategy of the companies, which are worth over USD 1 billion each.
For Macaitins, marketing needs to revolve around one thing: the customer. A successful brand must be able to generate a deep connection with the customer in order to be successful.
This is especially true when you think of an international customer that is not fully aware of your brand yet.
.A common mistake many companies make is polluting the experience, instead of offering something that is really interesting for the customer.
Bill Macaitis
Bombing your customers with content that doesn’t fit their needs or that they don’t understand, or worse, promoting it in channels that your international customers don’t use, can be a waste of time and money.
To avoid this situation, put into practice these simple changes and give your international marketing strategy a new lease of life.
Measuring Satisfaction and Motivating Feedback
International businesses, or any business really, have in their customers the best form of advertising. 60% of Brazilian customers, for example, recommend to their friends and family companies that offer a good customer service.
That’s why hearing customers and asking for feedback is one of the most important moves for building more customer trust in foreign markets.
According to Macaitis, a good way of keeping track of your customer satisfaction levels is using the NPS (Net Promoter Score) methodology, through which entrepreneurs can measure “customer love” and the probability of having customers recommending the business to friends and colleagues. This score can show the entrepreneur what has been done right, and what could use some improvement.
Having the right pricing strategy
When you are selling to a foreign market, there is a high probability that you are also competing with local businesses that have better trust levels among your customer.
Knowing your customer and how much they consider adequate to pay for your product is extremely important. And that doesn’t necessarily mean to go cheaper. Macaitis mentioned a case in which one of the companies we work for wasn’t selling enough because their prices were too low, so their main audience (entreprise-sized companies) didn’t think it the product was the best fit.
The consultant, who is also the founder of the Macaitis Advisory, adds that you can also use pricing strategies to motivate your customers to begin using your product. One example for SaaS companies is offering a free version of the product during a limited amount of time. “This simple move helped one of the companies increase the conversion rate in 40%”, states.
Investing in meaningful content and original campaigns
Macaitis claims to believe in the power of the content but says that people don’t want superficial (or boring) content, though, which unfortunately is something common in the companies’ communication with the customer.
Unicorn companies got where they are because they were original and efficient in their content production. “A good content is that one that is truly helpful, educative”, says Macaitis.
.Brands must have a personality, invest in a strong visual identity and editorial tone and voice to generate identification. And don't forget to have fun. Make fun and original content
Bill Macaitis
Using different communication channels
Another content-related strategy used by Unicorns that you can apply to your international expansion strategy is using different formats of content.
Macaitis talks mostly about podcasts, which is a communication channel that is quickly becoming very popular.
In Brazil, the podcast market is growing at full speed and brands that hop on board can take advantage of this booming opportunity. There are humor podcasts with more than 1 million listeners per episodes, but educative audio contents are already gaining space among Brazilians as well.
The consultant adds that podcasts are also cheaper to produce and to advertise then videos.
Nurturing the relationship and evangelizing
One of the most intelligent brands can do is harvesting evangelists. As we’ve mentioned before, they are the best form of advertising, so make sure that they want to spread positive words about your business and that they are heard.
“Give your customers a voice, create customer stories, promote them, make them heroes”, says Macaitis. “Your customer can describe and sell your company even better than you”.
