As a marketing strategist, I work to understand my clients’ markets, differentiators, and target market to help craft a marketing strategy that will meet their growth goals. Their goals could be to increase revenue or profit, create a more consistent revenue stream, or raise the visibility of their brand, among others. The strategies significantly differ depending on where they are in their market and where they want to be, as well as who their target market is.
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Define Your Target Customer
Carefully identifying your target market is important. One strategy is to develop a buyer persona – start to think about a good customer and what characteristics they have. A few questions to help you identify your buyer persona:
- What industry is your ideal client in?
- How much revenue does your ideal client’s company make?
- Where is your ideal client located in the world?
- Why do they buy? Is there a pain point you can identify?
- When and how do they buy?
- What makes them feel good about buying?
- Are there places (physical or virtual) that you and your ideal client intersect? Professional associations? Conferences? Groups?
Attract Leads and Provide Content
Once you have a good handle on your buyer, think about ways to Attract, Engage, and Delight them (thank you Hubspot.com!) HubSpot’s Buyer’s Journey Flywheel strives to help you gain momentum by delivering a remarkable customer experience. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and think about how they would like to learn more about your company.
What are different ways to engage with your ideal client? A few popular tactics include:
- Website content
- Social media posts
- Social Media Ads
- Video
- Blog
- Podcast (host or guest)
- Email marketing
Set Yourself Apart From the Competition
Use the tools that you think will engage with your ideal client, with a goal of having a conversation with them. Focus on what sets you apart – what are your differentiators? You know what they are, you just need to articulate them and showcase them in your messaging. Think about:
- Quality – Is your product or service of a higher quality than others in your market?
- Target Market – Is your target market tightly defined and specific?
- Specialization – Do you offer a niche product or service?
- Geography – Do you focus on a specific geographic area?
- Customer Service – How do you exceed customer’s expectations?
- People, Skillset – Do you have very specialized and experienced staff?
- Price – Are you a low-cost provider? Higher cost but even higher value?
Appeal to an International Audience
Once you have strong and clear messaging that highlights your differentiators, use them in all of your marketing. If you are growing your market globally, translate your marketing material, including your website, into a language that your ideal customer speaks.
Keep in mind:
- 72% of consumers spend most or all of their time on websites in their own language.
- 56% of consumers said that the ability to obtain information in their own language is more important than price.
Some delusions to avoid:
- English is the global language
- Machine translation is sufficient
- Any bilingual person can do your translation
- In-country teams can handle all of your content
- All people think the same
The most successful global companies align their corporate strategy with marketing strategy in a multilingual context. It doesn’t happen overnight, but take imperfect actions (Thank you ConsultingSuccess.com for the idea and term) to move forward. You can refine and rework as you gather more information about your ideal customer and your market.
Rapport International specializes in multilingual communications, providing language translation and interpretation services that are accurate and culturally appropriate. We use the right voice and the correct terminology to avoid liability, customize services to your needs, and deliver on time and within your budget. With our 100% satisfaction guarantee, you can trust that it’s done right. Contact us today if you would like more information or to get a free quote.
About the Author - Sarah Ginand
Sarah, owner of Strategic Marketing Consulting, partners with leaders of B-to-B firms for rapid transformation and profitable growth. She offers a strategic perspective, but also drills down to implementation to ensure her clients have clear tactics to grow. She offers marketing strategy development as well as “Marketing Leadership When You Need It” – fractional CMO services for businesses interested in ongoing support to accelerate growth and improve profitability, but are not quite ready to hire a full-time Senior Marketing Leader. Ms. Ginand has helped more than 40 businesses grow their revenue, enter new markets, and increase visibility with their target markets.
