Global marketing + expanding to new markets
An interview with Lauren Stephenson
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This week I’ve got an interview with global marketer, Lauren Stephenson from video production subscription service, Shootsta! Lauren has worked in Europe and the APAC region (particularly Singapore) and has a great knowledge bank of how marketing changes across markets, expanding into additional markets, and how marketers who are expanding internationally should be spending their time.
Onto the show!
Kayla: Many startups are aspiring to 'go global from day one'. What are the most important things to be mindful of when marketing in foreign/overseas markets?
Lauren: I’ve seen a lot of start-ups get very excited by new markets. Sometimes though, like with our appetite, we think we can bite off more than we can chew.
My recommendation is to always ensure that you’ve got a strong foundation in your existing market/s. Entering a new market is always risky and there is no single way to enter them. At the end of the day, it costs money to enter, and you may not see returns for 2 years so be prepared financially to not see hyper growth in your first 6 months.
For example, if I was a business in Australia wishing to hit Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, I would want to create different plans and strategies as they are all vastly different markets. I would never create a single “South-East Asia regional” plan. Each market’s buyer behaviours, even at a B2B buying level, are very different. It’s not just language you have to deal with, it’s also how you hire people or find trusted partners to help you penetrate the market.
There are core areas I would invest in from day one: SEO, localised marketing content (in different languages if that’s relevant to the new market) and good tracking so you can measure your performance. This would be the skeleton of the strategy which would then be modified and evolved based on the individual market’s nuances. I would also look to hire local talent who can bring their expertise to our global team.
K: What would you say makes Australia a unique market? How does it compare to others?
L: This is a hard one for me because I left Australia over 12 years ago so I feel that I am only just rediscovering it now that I’m back. Australia, at the end of the day, has one thing going for it. We value and are willing to invest in technologies and platforms that make our companies more money and jobs easier .
When I worked for one software company in Asia, we found that Australian’s were much more likely to purchase business technology solutions via video conferencing. And this was before Covid! B2B software buyers are far more confident and advanced in the purchasing process here. This is very similar to the USA. However, once you’re in South East Asia, it’s all about the personal relationship between the seller and buyer. Face to face meetings, and long drawn out sales cycles with lots of Marketing collateral and events in between are the norm.
When I look at our marketing at Shootsta, we currently sell in 5 countries (and we’re currently entering two more markets before the end of the year!). Australia is by far one of our most sophisticated markets. Buyers expect high quality content as part of the buyer journey. They also want social proof and word of mouth is powerful because it’s a fairly small market so most people know each other particularly when we target specific sectors.
K: What's your biggest piece of advice for marketers aspiring to be part of a global team? (whether that's collaborating with international counterparts or being part of the core global team)
L: Two key attributes that will help you succeed in a global role are empathy and interpersonal skills. You can be the best technical marketer in the world, but if you can’t get buy-in across the different regions from your counterparts, your marketing plan and strategy will fail. Empathy goes a long way, starting with listening and understanding the culture you’re planning to operate in. You’ll never be an expert of a foreign culture, so instead, ask and learn. You also need to know how to simplify your communication. I’ve seen so many Australian’s walk into meetings where for most people in the room, English is not their first language, and no one has any idea what they’re saying. Be considerate, review your presentation and remove the jargon. Slow down your speech and simplify your language. It sounds simple but it will definitely get you more buy-in than the alternative when no one understands your ideas or plans.
I also suggest leaving your own culture at the door. We’re all human beings at the end of the day, so try not to look at things with your own cultural bias.
If you have traveled or had experience working with foreign companies, make sure you’re including this in your professional narrative. If you’re a marketer, you should be a good storyteller; so make sure you are telling the best story about yourself and the experience you can bring to a global role.
I also suggest that if you have no multi-region experience, go and do it even if it’s as a side project. Ask to take on that extra opportunity at work, even if it doesn’t fall into your remit! Experience still to this day trumps any certification. If you can position any experience you have working cross-culturally, you are setting yourself up for success in a global role.
K: You mentioned you're passionate about marketing and sales alignment, how do you approach building (or repairing in some cases) that partnership?
L: I’ve certainly had some interesting partnerships with sales teams over the years! Most though have been positive and I’ve learnt a lot from them.
First step is always hear out the sales team. They know your prospective buyer better than you ever will because they speak to them every day. Sales teams sit on valuable information that are vital for the business and especially Marketing to improve our messaging, product/service positioning, targeting and segmentation.
There will be time as well that Marketing needs to educate the sales team. It can be challenging sometimes as this is when the alignment can break down. As a Marketer, you should be a good storyteller and know how to position your product. You need to do the exact same thing for when you’re working with the sales team. Be transparent with your marketing performance. Ask for feedback but be prepared to educate when they make sweeping statements about your marketing strategy or collateral not working. Ask questions that get to the root of the problem and frustration. Don’t waste time trying to defend your position. It’s all in the art of asking your questions. From experience, it is usually because they aren’t receiving enough leads. Or they are frustrated that their deals don’t progress past a particular stage of the sales pipeline. Identify together where the gap is and work together to come up with solutions. My philosophy is to always view Marketing and Sales as one team, as opposed to two teams with opposing objectives.
K: If you were building sales/marketing assets from scratch, where would you start?
L: I’d start simple by creating your sales pitch that clearly positions your solution and illustrates why it’s different to your competitors. Then from this, I would build out your website key pages (homepage, product pages, contact/pricing pages and campaign landing pages), and then I would look at supporting content to enable the sales team. This would include the sales pitch deck and content they can confidently share on their LinkedIn or in their email outreach. For example, Customer case studies & testimonials, product use case examples (demo account if you’re a platform), and blog posts that answer key challenges your solution solves.
Links of learning
Not much has wowed me on the internet this week, so here’s a couple of downloads I’ve been saving for later reading:
A short analysis of the top 100 e-commerce retailers’ email strategies
The Next CMO, I haven’t read this yet but I think it’s one of those “marketing agency writes a book about marketing as a lead gen tactic” kind of ebooks. There’s probably a few learnings in there, or reminders of things you already knew.
The Long and the Short of It, a seminal book about the balance of long and short term marketing strategy, a must-read for all marketers.
ACMI revealed a rebrand, which people are all agreeing looks amazing, but there’s a bit of controversy around it being done by a UK agency. Tell me your thoughts about it;
And finally, this Wired article about the Excel superstars of the world (which I found through Gina Baldassarre’s good chat newsletter!) did tickle my fancy.
I had a good stalk through my subscriber list (no shame) and realised I am not as connected as I thought I might be! Feel free to send me a LinkedIn connection request if you so desire, and keep up to date with my work at Perkbox.