October 22, 2025 • 43 mins
How to Build a Successful Content Strategy for Korea
South Korea is a highly developed and technologically advanced country situated in East Asia, known for its innovation and export-driven economy. For B2B companies seeking to establish a presence in the Korean market, understanding the local business environment, language, culture, and digital behaviors is imperative. What should B2B companies and their marketing teams consider before expanding into South Korea? What cultural and linguistic factors could impact their marketing success?
That’s why we’re talking to Hyein Yoon (Founder, HY Marketing), who shares proven marketing strategies and expert insights on how to build a successful content strategy for the Korean market. In this episode, Hyein highlighted some of the key differences between Western and Korean B2B marketing approaches. She discussed the importance of understanding the hierarchical systems, the relationship-driven nature of conducting business, and how these influence decision-making in Korea. Hyein also elaborated on the need for localized marketing strategies and content, including the use of platforms like Naver, which is a more commonly used search engine platform in Korea. She advised against directly copying Western marketing strategies and emphasized the value of community-driven targeting and influencer marketing to engage and reach Korean audiences.
https://youtu.be/6KJhDNoqQls
Topics discussed in episode:
[2:58] Key differences between Western and Korean B2B marketing practices and approaches
[6:11] Common misconceptions and cultural nuances linked to localization
[11:11] The challenges of translation and adapting brand messaging
[16:50] Key pitfalls to avoid in international B2B marketing
[19:12] Actionable tips for B2B companies entering new markets
[21:40] The benefits of partnering with trusted local experts
[30:50] How to leverage community targeting and influencer marketing
[35:35] Metrics and KPIs to measure localization success in Korea
Companies and links mentioned:
TranscriptChristian Klepp 00:00
South Korea is a country situated in East Asia that has a highly developed, export driven economy that ranks among the world’s largest so what should B2B marketers operating in North America or Europe take into account when they expand into markets like South Korea? What cultural and linguistic nuances should they consider? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers in the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today I’ll be talking to Hyein Yoon, who will be answering these questions. She’s the founder of HY marketing with proven expertise in the Korean market. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is.
Christian Klepp 00:41
Okay. Hyein Yoon. Annyeonghaseyo (Hello), welcome to the show.
Hyein Yoon 00:49
Yeah. Thank you for having me here.
Christian Klepp 00:52
It’s a great pleasure to have you on. I think you get an award for being the first person that I’m interviewing from South Korea.
Hyein Yoon 01:01
So much pleasure.
Christian Klepp 01:03
Very, very, very exciting, very exciting. And I really appreciate you taking the time to be on the show, because I know it’s a little bit late on your side of the world, and it’s so interesting. You know, when we have podcasts like this and conversations like these in these so called Modern Times, because, you know, we can be talking to anybody around the world at different times, and it’s and I think it makes it it makes it interesting, but I think also what makes it very interesting, and we
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
South Korea is a countrysituated in East Asia that has a
highly developed, export driveneconomy that ranks among the
world's largest so what shouldB2B marketers operating in North
America or Europe take intoaccount when they expand into
markets like South Korea? Whatcultural and linguistic nuances
should they consider? Welcome tothis episode of the B2B
(00:22):
Marketers in the Missionpodcast, and I'm your host,
Christian Klepp. Today I'll betalking to Hyein Yoon, who will
be answering these questions.She's the founder of HY
marketing with proven expertisein the Korean market. Tune in to
find out more about what thisB2B marketers mission is.
Okay. Hyein Yoon. Annyeonghaseyo(Hello), welcome to the show.
(00:49):
Yeah. Thank you for having mehere.
It's a great pleasure to haveyou on I think you get an award
for being the first person thatI'm interviewing from South
Korea.
So much pleasure.
Very, very, very exciting, veryexciting. And I really
appreciate you taking the timeto be on the show, because I
know it's a little bit late onyour side of the world, and it's
(01:12):
so interesting. You know, whenwe have podcasts like this and
conversations like these inthese so called Modern Times,
because, you know, we can betalking to anybody around the
world at different times, andit's and I think it makes it it
makes it interesting, but Ithink also what makes it very
interesting, and we're going toget into that in today's
(01:32):
conversation, is that we're allB2B marketers working in
different markets, and it's veryimportant for us also to
understand, especially here inNorth America where I'm based,
it's very important formarketers to understand that
what may have been successful inthis market might be a
(01:53):
completely different situationthan them in another market,
right? So I guess we're going toget into that today. So let's
dive in. I'm really lookingforward to this conversation.
Yeah, I'm so excited about this.Let's do this.
Okay, fantastic. So Hyein,you're, you're on a mission to
help companies scale theirbrands through strategic
marketing in Korea, so in SouthKorea. So for this conversation,
(02:17):
as I just said, We, we'd like tofocus on the following topic,
which is how B2B companies canbuild a successful content
strategy for the Korean market.So I'd like to kick off this
conversation with two questions,and I'm happy to repeat them.
Okay, so first question is, wow,and we can talk about this one
for hours, but just give us sometop level answers. What are some
(02:43):
of the key differences betweenB2B marketing in the west and
Korea? So that's the firstquestion. And the second
question is, what are somemisconceptions that B2B
companies have about doingbusiness in Korea?
All right, that's actually greatquestions, and I'm ready to
answer everything possible toanswer for the first question,
(03:06):
actually, you have to understandthat we have very difference
between individuality and thencollectiveness. And actually,
when I visited the US for thefirst time, I realized so many
things that we can actually makeour customized plan, even at the
restaurant, like you can makeyour customized burger sauce,
(03:28):
the bun, bread or ingredientspossible. But whereas in Korea,
we don't really prefer thatoption, it's really
uncomfortable to chooseeverything possible. For
example, the subway, the subsandwiches, they actually
entered Korea, and they didn'teven realize that things like
(03:48):
giving the options possible isreally making uncomfortable
customers. So they have to makethe options to have the set menu
combo. So you actually choosethe numbers and then you get the
all of the things ready made foryou. You don't have to choose.
That was actually interestingstory. So if I can go into more
about the B2B market, weactually have some key factors,
(04:12):
like hierarchical system andthen result trust focused and
the relationship driven.
So actually, when I had aconversation with one of our
guests on our podcast, heactually once mentioned this,
and then this is kind of likeoverview that you can think of
Korea really easily. So forexample, when he have a
(04:35):
conversation and then have ameeting for the first time, he
maybe can share about the wholepictures about the companies or
services or products, but afterthe first meeting, he will
really not mention about theproduct or being salesy all the
time until the prospectmentioned about what was your
product you are talking aboutbefore. Can you talk about them
(04:58):
more like because. We reallyvalue building a relationship
first, not about reallydirectness or, you know, being
salesy or saving time. So it'simportant to building the trust
signal in the beginning, andthen also in B2B market. When I
had another conversation withsomeone specializing in sales
and marketing from IBM, Korea,which is the biggest company in
(05:22):
the world. She also mentionedthat even if the company
suggested you have to doeverything online, but she
didn't agree with that, becauseshe understand this, you know,
hierarchical system,relationship driven system, so
once you actually have a coldcall or cold email, first she
will be present offline, andthen setting up meeting offline,
(05:45):
so that you can actually make arelationship first, and then
report. And then, you know,saving energy to have, you know,
more meetings further for fromthe get go. So it's important to
have your presence offline. Andthen, of course, international
business sometimes doesn't havepresence in Korea, so that's
(06:06):
why, maybe we can talk aboutlater, having the local partner
is important.
And second question was about,yeah, the misconceptions that
B2B companies have about. Sothis is actually also related to
the key factors, for sure. Andmaybe you can think about online
meetings are just fine, andthen, you know, cold calls or
(06:28):
cold emails, and then you set upthe meetings all the time just
online. But when you think aboutROI (Return on Investment),
actually, it makes sense justdoing online. Maybe that's the
cost effective that you canapproach. But if we just don't
know you at all, like you don'thave any presence in Korea, we
had to research about yourcompanies all the time, like
case studies or like website allof that, only to realize it just
(06:52):
would, you know translations?Yeah, there with English
sometimes. So it doesn't reallymake sense to us.
And then the interesting part isthat the English versus Korean
language has different contexts,meaning English has a low
context versus Korean languageas a high context. So when we
(07:16):
talk about some sentences likeor speaking actually, sometimes
it doesn't mean the same way. Sofor example, when we say, let's
catch up later, but we have amind reading skill like which is
we call Nunchi. This is actuallyregistered in Oxford dictionary,
and we don't really expect weare going to meet anytime soon.
(07:38):
Or we can just say thingsbecause we want to be polite. So
there are a lot of culturalnuances that you can think of.
So online meetings are fine, orEnglish is just fine, and
translation is fine, somethinglike we have to think about as a
part of misunderstanding ormisconceptions. And also 5%
(07:59):
foreigners living in Korea inpopulation, whereas 95% of our
population is Korean, just whospeaks Korean. mainly. That
means, like, once we actuallysee English content, it's just
like Alien messages tosometimes. And then when you
Google about how fluent ourEnglish is on Google, you would
(08:22):
actually think about like, Oh,it's just moderate. Oh, it's
just okay. But when you come toKorea, it's not the case that
you can actually have theimagination. And so most of
time, like when we had a recentconversation with some prospects
recently from Malaysia,Singapore, they actually wanted
(08:42):
to test the water first. Like,oh, we are going to just put our
content out there and thenrunning advertisement all of
that. But if you don't reallyunderstand, you know, Korean
consumer psychology, and thenthey just run in English, we are
just gonna, you know, scrolldown and watch this. Like, I
don't really understand, yes, sothat's the key factors or scene
(09:03):
we have to understand first,yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
You brought it up a little bitearlier, but I want to dig into
Very, very interesting insights.It also reminded me, as I told
you before, of my time in China,because there were similar
challenges, right? Absolutely,like some of our clients back
that a little bit, right?Because I think this is
then that we're trying to launchsomething into the China market.
Oh, we'll just advertise inEnglish. I'm like, Okay, are you
(09:27):
only targeting the Englishspeaking expats? Because that's
the only person that's going toread your ad, right? Like, if
it's, if the ad is in English,it will, it will be ignored,
right? And you brought upsomething very interesting that
I wanted to go back to, becauseI had a similar experience in
(09:48):
China. But I want to know moreabout your experience in Korea,
similar to Chinese, the Koreanlanguage also is very especially
because. Use, you know, yourlanguage uses characters. It can
be very complex, but it's alsovery rich in meaning, right?
Like, the characters havedifferent meanings.
(10:15):
something that a lot of WesternB2B companies don't quite
understand, that you cannot justwholesale, like do a wholesale
translation of a piece ofadvertising. It's very important
to understand how that willtranslate into the Korean
language number one and numbertwo, there has to be, there has
(10:39):
to be some kind of adjustment totake what I call the bigger
barrier than the languagebarrier, which is the cultural
barrier, right? Because, well,what I'm trying to say is,
because, again, from experience,right? You might, you might
you have to build a strategyfirst, how you're going to
translate something and then,okay, so here we've got the
Korean version, but thetranslation doesn't necessarily
(10:59):
take the cultural context intoconsideration. So over to you.
My question is, have youexperienced that and how, how
did you deal with it?
(16:02):
actually change, how you'regoing to actually choose the
right platform for you to beginactually the advertisement, or
even the copywriting, ormessages, like unique selling
point, like all of that. Butthey just want to copy and paste
from the Western market. Andthen just put the advertisement
first, and then see how it goes.And then afterwards, maybe we
(16:24):
can have a conversation tooptimize, yeah, something like
that. But why you want to wastemoney first? Like, I just...
Big mistake, big mistake. And Ilike that. You brought it up
because that's a great segueinto the next question about key
pitfalls to avoid, right? Youjust, you just, you just brought
up one of them. What are some ofthese other key pitfalls that
(16:44):
you think B2B companies shouldavoid, and what should they be
doing instead?
Yeah, actually recently, when Ihad a conversation with one of
our guests, who were VP atDropbox and Nitro, the
Microsoft, he actually had theexperience about, you know,
helping international expansionto Japan and Korea. And then,
(17:05):
actually, they didn't realizethat NAVER, our search engine,
is the main search engine inKorea. So they were actually
doing advertisement on Googleall the time. And then
afterwards, you know, theconversion or ROI was not that
good. And then later, theydecided to pivot our we need
NAVER right now. So theyactually wasted a couple budget
(17:29):
in the beginning. And then theyare such a big company, so
probably it could be not about,like, less than $100 or
something like, it could be like$1000s, you know, budget, right?
So it's important to have theright platform strategy first,
because in Korea, we have aKakao messenger, chat
application, and also the NAVERsearch engine, you know, not
(17:53):
about Google, of course, Google.We use Google for sure, like
when we don't want to feel likewe don't want to see any
advertisement on NAVER becauseNAVER is so saturated with
advertisements all the times, oryoung generations prefer to just
type some keywords on Googlejust to see organic content
(18:13):
there. Yeah, it could happen alot, but most of time we have an
application, the NAVERapplication on our mobile. And
then when we want to search forsome specific reviews or, you
know, certain case studies, oreven just, um, buying some
products, there we usually gofor NAVER first.
So if you don't really optimizeyour all of the you know,
(18:36):
product pages or services pagesor case studies, or even your
website, or simple things aboutfrom your product for sure,
like, if it just not visual onneighbor, you are actually
missing tons of opportunities.So yeah, I can talk about more
action steps for sure, moretechnical things that you could
do later, how to audit. Butyeah, this is something that you
(19:00):
have to really be mindful aboutignoring the platform reality.
And then the thing that Imentioned earlier, like copy
pasting from the Western marketis, like, such a huge, big
mistake. Like, we need thelocalization strategy. Even the
McDonald's know how to do this.Like, they usually collaborate
(19:20):
with local partners, like theyactually, let's say the cabbage
is from some certain produce inKorea. This is really special.
And then we want to part of thiscommunity like that, kind of,
like a feeling that, like we areexpecting. And then the another
question is, why we have to evenbuy your services from overseas,
(19:41):
because we all have the options,plenty of options here already.
So you have, if you want to,like, convince us really hard,
and then if you are seriousabout what you do, it's
important to put the culturalnuances into all of the content.
And actually the Duolingo. Sothe language app is really great
(20:02):
at this. They optimize, localizeevery account possible. So once
you go to Duolingo Korea orDuolingo Japan, we feel like
this is not from overseas. It'spart of our community, like a
Korean marketing team. We canactually feel that. So if you
can aim that actually buildingthe fan or community, which is I
(20:23):
usually recommend, likecommunity targeting first, so
that you can nurture theprocess, and then maybe they can
spread the word, and then bringthe network so that you don't
have to actually put all themoney all the time to run the
advertisements. Actually, that'sthe key that we can do in this,
you know, modern era.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely,take the local, I guess, also
(20:49):
the digital ecosystem intoconsideration. And as you talked
about before, understanding thelink the language and cultural
differences, right? Because it'snot just about doing a wholesale
like, okay, let's just translatewhatever it was that we did in
this market and just use it forKorea, right? I've seen that so
(21:09):
many times, and I've seen andit's those haven't been very
successful. I'm gonna say,right? You brought up something
earlier, and that's a part ofthe next question. It's about
selecting a local partner andthe importance of finding one,
right? So talk to us about thata little bit like, why is it
important for B2B companies towork with a local partner or
(21:31):
somebody who is familiar withthe Korean market, somebody like
yourself, and what should thesecompanies look for in a partner?
So first of all, if you hire thelocal partner, especially from
Korea, the Korea a native Koreanspeaker, like sales manager or
Korean marketing team, theyalready know how Korean market
(21:54):
is working right now. Like trendall of like, we can actually
find that the trending researchon NAVER. It's actually
completely free if you are upfor it. And if you actually want
to hire like Country Manager,they might have their own
network, the business network.So even if you are really not
running advertisement, let's saylike YouTube, or YouTube is
(22:17):
actually something that everygeneration are using in Korea,
by the way, if you're not reallyjust running advertisements like
those platforms, you can bepresent in that network, and
then you can be part of thatnetwork start. You can start
selling stuff first, or makingthe first lead gen stuff first.
(22:40):
Like you could try, like, aseven day free trial, even,
like, you know, 14 day freetrial, and then gather all of
the testimonials. And then youcould try putting that
testimonials on your website, soyou don't have to really waste
your money for runningadvertisements from the
beginning. Rather, you couldjust hit the community first. So
(23:01):
that's kind of like way that youcan save money or lowering
risking everything possible. Andalso the marketing team, they
understand how consumerpsychology works here in Korea.
So even though we really don'tthink about like research,
because our, you know, DNA isfrom Korea, so it's not really
(23:25):
big country here, to be honest.And then once certain content is
going viral, if you don't knowabout it, you're not a Korean
person here, that's actuallyimportant, actually something
that you have to remember.
So once, once viral content hit,like, let's say apple cider
vinegar was something thattrending recently, and then if
(23:46):
you don't know about it, you arewhy you are here, like, it's
kind of like awful. So you canhave the all of the consumer
psychology and data and even thetrending research better, and
especially if you don't knowabout the language itself, it's
so hard to navigate the NAVERplatform, even because the all
(24:09):
the great content is stuck withNAVER, or the kaka or those like
native platform first, and thenin English, there is a little
content out there that you canactually understand. So that's
why I'm trying to publish theblog more, so that you can
understand this navigationfirst. But yeah, that's kind of
(24:29):
like something that maybeforeigners like struggling to
understand this Korean marketbecause of the language barrier,
the cultural barrier, and alsoyou have the very far distance
barrier that you have toovercome. So having the right
it's not gonna be the team, butmaybe one or two person first
(24:49):
like to begin with, or even theagency that you can collaborate
with, can be the great optionfor you too, yeah.
Okay, well, thanks for sharingthat with us. Um, I had a follow
up question for you, and it'swhen you've dealt with clients
in the past, B2B companies thatwant to break into the Korean
market, and they're trying to,like, gain new clients, or do
(25:12):
this like lead generation. Ithink one of the things I'm sure
prospects will ask them,especially if they're a foreign
entity, is, do you have Koreanmarket experience? Can you show
us any case studies of how youhelp other clients in Korea? And
they and they probably want tosee that first before they
decide to commit, right?
(25:33):
Yep.
So just from your experience,like, how do you, how do you,
how do you deal with that? Howdo you, how do you help your
clients with that, especially ifthey're new to the market,
because if they're new, thenthat probably means they don't
have a lot of local experience,and they don't have any case
studies yet.
So first things first, like, weneed to really check where there
(25:55):
is stage in you know, if it'sabout entering the market for
the first time, like, we need tostart from the market entry,
consultation first. Like how wecan help the research part, the
competitors analysis, you knowthe strength or weakness, the
SWOT analysis. And even like howwe can find the positioning
(26:15):
first. Because as we, as wealready talked about this, we
have tons of opportunities, tonsof options already existing
here. So that's why, like,having the right brand voice
message, like, very clean, like,just one keyword or two
keywords. I usually recommendmapping up your keyword journey,
like, from the awareness toconversion. Like, let's say, for
(26:39):
example, I'm just gonna put therandom stuff here, like a body
wash, like you're gonna if youare gonna search for just body
wash, it means just fromawareness. But once we put
something like brand name plusproduct name, it means there is
a more engagement into it. Butonce you put more like how to
find this product in specificlocation, that means there is a
(27:01):
high potential for conversion.
So like from finding the rightkeywords, actually it's the
beginning journey that we haveto do. Like from market entry,
consultation and then theresearch part, positioning is
something that we can beginwith, especially for the market
entry. But if you are reallygoing for launching campaigns,
(27:22):
it's a different story for sure,like how we can actually target
the community first, becauseNAVER cafe or Kakao groups are
kind of like a ways that you cantarget, as if the Facebook
group, like, we don't really useFacebook group, by the way, like
more of like NAVER cafe or Kakaogroup first. So what we normally
(27:43):
do, we jump in all the groups,or, you know, the cafes related
to your brand, and then see whatkind of like influencers, if
you're especially like a SaaS(Software as a Service) product
you're selling, like, what kindof like influencers they are
mentioning what kind of liketrending, they are actually
mentioning that that's a goldennugget you can actually make the
(28:07):
content with. And then we can,you know, do like UGC
(User-Generated Content), thecontent strategy for sure. Like
the social media content forsure, something like a YouTube
is for every generation, andthen Facebook is like in Korea,
like, more of a like, over 50sor 40s, mainly men there. And
then, we don't really use theTwitter x for the professional
(28:31):
use. It's more about likegamers, the video gamers, or
talking about sports, like, verylike a meme, like situation
going on. And then, rather, thethread is recently actually
increasing, trending a lot, likemore professionals like joining
there. So there are a lot oflandscape going on. So the
having right platform strategy,first, like research positioning
(28:54):
right platform. And then fromthere you can create your
content pillar, contentstrategy. And then finally, you
can launch your campaigns forsure. If you're aiming to
target, you know, those userswho want to use your products
for sure. So it could be different.
And then, if you're someone whowant to scale up like, let's say
(29:16):
you want to improve ROI, youneed to actually check your KPIs
(Key Performance Indicators)like, because when I had a
conversation or meeting withthis nine figure global brand,
they actually spent like $1million for that year, and only
to realize they only get theimpressions and rates like 15 or
10 million. Like impressionsonly. And when I go deep inside,
(29:41):
the influencers were reallyscammy or fake. So most of time,
even big agencies struggle withto find out the right
influencers, because they reallygo deep inside about, like, the
how genuine those interactionsare. So that's why, like we
usually highlight, you have togo. For probably the NAVER
(30:02):
keyword link, sorry, NAVERkeyword rankings, or even search
volumes. From the content tosearch volume, it's so easy to
actually track and then fromthere, you can also track your
ROI, how genuine your commentsare, or the shares not about,
you know, focusing on, you know,breach or impressions.
(30:23):
Wow, great stuff. Great stuff.Okay, we get to the part of the
conversation where we're talkingabout actionable tips, and
you've given us a lot already,but if we're gonna maybe recap
or summarize, right for thoseB2B marketers out there that are
listening to this interview andthey're thinking, or their
companies are thinking aboutexpanding into Korea, what are,
(30:44):
what are three to five thingsthat they can do right now to
take action?
So I really wanted to sharethis. So you have to go to NAVER
that search engine, and then youhave to check if your website is
really existing or not. Let'ssay you could put site column,
(31:07):
and then you put URL there, andif your website is popping up,
that means you are visual onNAVER, yeah, of course. But if
it's not, you have to actuallyregister manually with our, you
know, NAVER system that youmight understand. If you don't
understand, maybe I can give youfree resources later, but in
(31:29):
this time, like, you could justaudit, like, um, is this really
available? Like, site, Colin,URL first, and then, if it's
just with only English, you haveto really working, it should be
with Korean language, because wedon't really research English on
NAVER at all, like at all. Soyou have to be think about this
(31:49):
and then prepare the Koreancontent for sure, and then the
adding the Korean reviews onyour website is so much better
than just having random reviewsfrom other countries for sure.
So maybe you could run the testcampaigns for a couple of like
month and then get the reviewsfirst. Like, as I said before,
(32:10):
like seven day free trial.That's something that you could
do demo introductions and thenput the content on your website
and make it available on NAVER.Also the content in Korean
language, the English for sure,the three steps are kind of like
a you can audit really easily.And then you know, if you want
(32:30):
to launch the test campaigns, Ithink that's the free trial is
kind of like an interesting partyou could do. And email
marketing is not really popularidea in Korea yet. So if you can
jump in right now, that's thegolden thing that you can you
really unlock. Because somemight say, like, Korean market
is kind of like a 20 yearsbehind the United States. So
(32:55):
like, if the traditionalapproaches are already going on,
although, like, email marketingis kind of like a changing so
the US email marketing is kindof packed with a lot of emails,
of course, but in Korea, it'sstill like very great spot that
you can really start with.
What's your experience been withemail marketing in Korea? As I'm
(33:16):
very curious, because, as yousaid over here in North America,
it's, I'm not saying that peopledon't use email marketing, but a
lot of, a lot of times, we haveto take into consideration
things like, or is it going toend up in the spam folder,
right? And then there's this.There's the whole issue around
data protection as well, right?And depending on where, where,
(33:37):
which area you're targeting,they have different laws around
data. But what's your experiencebeen in Korea?
So basically, like, we areseeing experiments a lot like
your our service provider, orB2B focused businesses. Do you
have, like, white papers or casestudies, or, you know, the free
guidelines, and then they put,like a NAVER blog, which is our
(34:01):
from the search engine, forsure. And then they rebrand the
whole NAVER blog first. And thenthey put the guideline, you can
download this for free, and thenclick on it, you go to website,
and then from there, they readit, read all about it. Actually,
it's a similar way that weactually promote from the
Western countries, for sure, butthe volume itself is kind of
(34:24):
like a very low compared to theUS or other, yeah, Western
market. So that's why, if youcan try that hard, a lot like
white papers, case studies, oreven in demo or, you know,
company overview, but it shouldbe really good, good enough, for
example, the market currently,the retailer from Korea, they
(34:44):
usually highlight those recipes.They don't even talk about
promotions going on. And thenthe IKEA Korea is kind of like
doing some blood well, like theypromote the pop up event. And
then, oh, this is something thatwe are going on. You can join
for free. The Pajama party, allthe things that we can hear
from. So there are several waysthat you can choose from, but
(35:06):
for B2B, especially those likerelated free resources,
something that you can unlockfirst and then from there you
can expand further with moreengaging content.
Okay, fantastic, fantastic. Soon the topic of metrics, and I
know we can talk about metricsfor hours and hours and hours,
(35:28):
but what are some of the whatare some of the key metrics that
you tell your clients to focuson, especially if they're
starting out in the Koreanmarket?
Yeah, I really, really suggestNAVER keyword rankings first. So
once you audit all of yourwebsites, it's visible there.
You can go to NAVER keywordplanner or NAVER data lab there,
(35:49):
and then from there, it'sactually free to research
everything. There. You can checkthe monthly search volume very
easily. And then probably, like,if you don't have any like, a
visibility there, it could belike zero, or if you already
started your journey, probablylike, let's say, 1k per month,
or something like that. But ifyou want to really aim for,
(36:10):
let's say, do the test campaignsfirst 20% rise, or 30% rise,
something that you can aim forinstantly, for the KPI. And then
let's say, as I mentionedbefore, the community targeting
is really important. So what wenormally really recommend is
hitting the UGC (User-GeneratedContent) influencers with the
(36:33):
content or the communitytargeting first, like NAVER
cafe, the Kakao group. I don'treally recommend Kakao group
for, you know, the promotingstuff, I would usually recommend
the NAVER Cafe better, becauseKakao group is more of a like a
chat or messenger style. Butanyway, the if you can hit the
cafe, NAVER Cafe first, and thenthe UGC community, that's how we
(36:57):
discovered if it goes viral, andthen we also have Naver clip,
which is similar way that wespeak to the short film videos
on YouTube channel.
And NAVER clip brings a lot ofactual impressions reached
compared to YouTube shorts orreels nowadays, because when we
collaborate with Australianbrand, we hired a really great
(37:22):
influencer, and then they putthe content on Tiktok and
YouTube, Instagram and NAVERclip, and then NAVER clip was
hit like over 1 million viewsfor the single video, and then
in that two month period, it wasover 5x ROI. So it's also
important to know that for B2Bservice businesses having the
(37:43):
social media is kind of likeimportant as a community. And I
understand that even Koreanbusinesses are kind of like
conservative about like doingsocial media for sure, but
YouTube or Facebook andInstagram is something that you
can begin with, because YouTubeworks with SEO, the search
engine optimization keywords,and then Instagram and Facebook
(38:07):
also over 50 men are theirprofessionals for sure.
Instagram for women or, youknow, like those young
generations, but you know, like,once your son or daughter know
about your brand, they willlikely also spread the word for
sure, like, why we don't try it?So, like a lot of Institute,
institutions or government,usually utilize more fund
(38:29):
related or engaging stuffnowadays, so it's growing trend
right now. So yeah, I recommendthose jumping in those community
first and then hiring theinfluencers. If you want to
really generate the searchvolume, really increase so from
the content, from influencers oryour community, to search volume
(38:52):
that you can track for sure.
Yeah, it's very interesting,because, like, you know, I also
did a lot of B2B marketing inChina, and at first, at first,
we're like, oh, you're gonna useinfluencers for B2B campaign.
But actually it works because,because a lot of these people in
the clients, target audience,are actually following these
(39:14):
influencers, right?
Exactly.
So again, it's one of thesedifferences between, between the
way that B2B marketing is donein the West and the way it's
done in places like Korea,right?
Yep.
Yeah, okay, so two morequestions before I let you go,
and I really appreciate youtaking the time to be with us
(39:35):
today. So if you are like theambassador for Korea, you're
representing your country, andthere you're talking to people
that have never been to Koreabefore, right? What is there a
particular place in Korea whereyou would advise them to go and
visit? And if yes, what place isit and why?
(39:59):
I mean, I actually thought aboutthis a lot, what kind of like
places I should recommend tothose, you know, buyers, yeah,
all of that. And then we have avery interesting places called
COEX and KINTEX. And then it'skind of like buyers or the
consumers engaged there for theconferences event or trade show
(40:22):
event. So, once you presentthere, you can actually go deep
inside about Computer Research,how they are actually selling
stuff, how actually they areengaged with customers, for
sure, and how they promote theirservices. There you can, you
know, have the overview ofpicture of our business
landscape. Outside of that. Youknow, if you want to target more
(40:44):
of like young generations orGenji stuff, you could go to
Seongsu and then it could becliche, you should visit capital
city Seoul, for sure. Like howKorean market without going to
the capital city tower or Busan,like, that's the two things that
we are having the mainstreamhere. So the CK as a conference
(41:10):
or event or trade show, and thenSeoul and then Seongsu for young
generation. Outside of that,maybe if you can go to Pangyo
area, there are lots of startupsgoing on. So if you want to
really observe those startupscenes, you may visit there too.
Okay, okay, well, that's, that'sa pretty long list, very
(41:35):
interesting. And you know, thankyou so much for your time today,
I think I learned something newabout doing B2B marketing in the
Korean market, so I hope theaudience got a lot of value out
of that as well. So please quickintroduction to yourself and how
B2B companies can get in touchwith you.
Yeah, thank you so much forasking. I mean, I'm the founder
(41:57):
of HY marketing, helpinginternational brand succeeds,
such as in Korea, Japan andbeyond, with specializing in
social media marketing. So wehave a team of Korean native
marketer, native Japanesemarketers and English speaking
marketers, for sure. And then Iam the one who strategize
(42:17):
everything and direct or the forthe creative part. And because
of that, we kind of really workwith everyone. So it we limit
the volume is like a main threefull campaigns per month, so
that I can also focus on ourclients, because we are a part
of, like a boutique marketingagency, and then we actually
(42:40):
strategize everything from thebeginning, not about just, you
know, test the water withoutever knowing the consumer
psychology. So that's the thingthat I'm really passionate
about.
Okay, okay, fantastic. Well,once again, Hyein and thank you
so much for coming on the showtoday, gamsahabnida (Thank you).
Right?
(43:02):
I forgot to mention that if youwant to reach out to me, yeah,
connect me on LinkedIn or applyto work with us on our website
for sure.
Yep, yes, yes, yes, absolutely,absolutely. And we will be
including the links in the shownotes for this episode so people
can get in touch with youdirectly. So once again, thank
you so much for coming on theshow. Take care, stay safe and
(43:23):
talk to you soon.
Okay, soon. Bye.
Thank you. Bye. Bye.
South Korea is a countrysituated in East Asia that has a
highly developed, export driveneconomy that ranks among the
world's largest so what shouldB2B marketers operating in North
America or Europe take intoaccount when they expand into
markets like South Korea? Whatcultural and linguistic nuances
should they consider? Welcome tothis episode of the B2B
(00:22):
Marketers in the Missionpodcast, and I'm your host,
Christian Klepp. Today I'll betalking to Hyein Yoon, who will
be answering these questions.She's the founder of HY
marketing with proven expertisein the Korean market. Tune in to
find out more about what thisB2B marketers mission is.
Okay. Hyein Yoon. Annyeonghaseyo(Hello), welcome to the show.
(00:49):
Yeah. Thank you for having mehere.
It's a great pleasure to haveyou on I think you get an award
for being the first person thatI'm interviewing from South
Korea.
So much pleasure.
Very, very, very exciting, veryexciting. And I really
appreciate you taking the timeto be on the show, because I
know it's a little bit late onyour side of the world, and it's
(01:12):
so interesting. You know, whenwe have podcasts like this and
conversations like these inthese so called Modern Times,
because, you know, we can betalking to anybody around the
world at different times, andit's and I think it makes it it
makes it interesting, but Ithink also what makes it very
interesting, and we're going toget into that in today's
(01:32):
conversation, is that we're allB2B marketers working in
different markets, and it's veryimportant for us also to
understand, especially here inNorth America where I'm based,
it's very important formarketers to understand that
what may have been successful inthis market might be a
(01:53):
completely different situationthan them in another market,
right? So I guess we're going toget into that today. So let's
dive in. I'm really lookingforward to this conversation.
Yeah, I'm so excited about this.Let's do this.
Okay, fantastic. So Hyein,you're, you're on a mission to
help companies scale theirbrands through strategic
marketing in Korea, so in SouthKorea. So for this conversation,
(02:17):
as I just said, We, we'd like tofocus on the following topic,
which is how B2B companies canbuild a successful content
strategy for the Korean market.So I'd like to kick off this
conversation with two questions,and I'm happy to repeat them.
Okay, so first question is, wow,and we can talk about this one
for hours, but just give us sometop level answers. What are some
(02:43):
of the key differences betweenB2B marketing in the west and
Korea? So that's the firstquestion. And the second
question is, what are somemisconceptions that B2B
companies have about doingbusiness in Korea?
All right, that's actually greatquestions, and I'm ready to
answer everything possible toanswer for the first question,
(03:06):
actually, you have to understandthat we have very difference
between individuality and thencollectiveness. And actually,
when I visited the US for thefirst time, I realized so many
things that we can actually makeour customized plan, even at the
restaurant, like you can makeyour customized burger sauce,
(03:28):
the bun, bread or ingredientspossible. But whereas in Korea,
we don't really prefer thatoption, it's really
uncomfortable to chooseeverything possible. For
example, the subway, the subsandwiches, they actually
entered Korea, and they didn'teven realize that things like
(03:48):
giving the options possible isreally making uncomfortable
customers. So they have to makethe options to have the set menu
combo. So you actually choosethe numbers and then you get the
all of the things ready made foryou. You don't have to choose.
That was actually interestingstory. So if I can go into more
about the B2B market, weactually have some key factors,
(04:12):
like hierarchical system andthen result trust focused and
the relationship driven.
So actually, when I had aconversation with one of our
guests on our podcast, heactually once mentioned this,
and then this is kind of likeoverview that you can think of
Korea really easily. So forexample, when he have a
(04:35):
conversation and then have ameeting for the first time, he
maybe can share about the wholepictures about the companies or
services or products, but afterthe first meeting, he will
really not mention about theproduct or being salesy all the
time until the prospectmentioned about what was your
product you are talking aboutbefore. Can you talk about them
(04:58):
more like because. We reallyvalue building a relationship
first, not about reallydirectness or, you know, being
salesy or saving time. So it'simportant to building the trust
signal in the beginning, andthen also in B2B market. When I
had another conversation withsomeone specializing in sales
and marketing from IBM, Korea,which is the biggest company in
(05:22):
the world. She also mentionedthat even if the company
suggested you have to doeverything online, but she
didn't agree with that, becauseshe understand this, you know,
hierarchical system,relationship driven system, so
once you actually have a coldcall or cold email, first she
will be present offline, andthen setting up meeting offline,
(05:45):
so that you can actually make arelationship first, and then
report. And then, you know,saving energy to have, you know,
more meetings further for fromthe get go. So it's important to
have your presence offline. Andthen, of course, international
business sometimes doesn't havepresence in Korea, so that's
(06:06):
why, maybe we can talk aboutlater, having the local partner
is important.
And second question was about,yeah, the misconceptions that
B2B companies have about. Sothis is actually also related to
the key factors, for sure. Andmaybe you can think about online
meetings are just fine, andthen, you know, cold calls or
(06:28):
cold emails, and then you set upthe meetings all the time just
online. But when you think aboutROI (Return on Investment),
actually, it makes sense justdoing online. Maybe that's the
cost effective that you canapproach. But if we just don't
know you at all, like you don'thave any presence in Korea, we
had to research about yourcompanies all the time, like
case studies or like website allof that, only to realize it just
(06:52):
would, you know translations?Yeah, there with English
sometimes. So it doesn't reallymake sense to us.
And then the interesting part isthat the English versus Korean
language has different contexts,meaning English has a low
context versus Korean languageas a high context. So when we
(07:16):
talk about some sentences likeor speaking actually, sometimes
it doesn't mean the same way. Sofor example, when we say, let's
catch up later, but we have amind reading skill like which is
we call Nunchi. This is actuallyregistered in Oxford dictionary,
and we don't really expect weare going to meet anytime soon.
(07:38):
Or we can just say thingsbecause we want to be polite. So
there are a lot of culturalnuances that you can think of.
So online meetings are fine, orEnglish is just fine, and
translation is fine, somethinglike we have to think about as a
part of misunderstanding ormisconceptions. And also 5%
(07:59):
foreigners living in Korea inpopulation, whereas 95% of our
population is Korean, just whospeaks Korean. mainly. That
means, like, once we actuallysee English content, it's just
like Alien messages tosometimes. And then when you
Google about how fluent ourEnglish is on Google, you would
(08:22):
actually think about like, Oh,it's just moderate. Oh, it's
just okay. But when you come toKorea, it's not the case that
you can actually have theimagination. And so most of
time, like when we had a recentconversation with some prospects
recently from Malaysia,Singapore, they actually wanted
(08:42):
to test the water first. Like,oh, we are going to just put our
content out there and thenrunning advertisement all of
that. But if you don't reallyunderstand, you know, Korean
consumer psychology, and thenthey just run in English, we are
just gonna, you know, scrolldown and watch this. Like, I
don't really understand, yes, sothat's the key factors or scene
(09:03):
we have to understand first,yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
You brought it up a little bitearlier, but I want to dig into
Very, very interesting insights.It also reminded me, as I told
you before, of my time in China,because there were similar
challenges, right? Absolutely,like some of our clients back
that a little bit, right?Because I think this is
then that we're trying to launchsomething into the China market.
Oh, we'll just advertise inEnglish. I'm like, Okay, are you
(09:27):
only targeting the Englishspeaking expats? Because that's
the only person that's going toread your ad, right? Like, if
it's, if the ad is in English,it will, it will be ignored,
right? And you brought upsomething very interesting that
I wanted to go back to, becauseI had a similar experience in
(09:48):
China. But I want to know moreabout your experience in Korea,
similar to Chinese, the Koreanlanguage also is very especially
because. Use, you know, yourlanguage uses characters. It can
be very complex, but it's alsovery rich in meaning, right?
Like, the characters havedifferent meanings.
(10:15):
something that a lot of WesternB2B companies don't quite
understand, that you cannot justwholesale, like do a wholesale
translation of a piece ofadvertising. It's very important
to understand how that willtranslate into the Korean
language number one and numbertwo, there has to be, there has
(10:39):
to be some kind of adjustment totake what I call the bigger
barrier than the languagebarrier, which is the cultural
barrier, right? Because, well,what I'm trying to say is,
because, again, from experience,right? You might, you might
you have to build a strategyfirst, how you're going to
translate something and then,okay, so here we've got the
Korean version, but thetranslation doesn't necessarily
(10:59):
take the cultural context intoconsideration. So over to you.
My question is, have youexperienced that and how, how
did you deal with it?
(16:02):
actually change, how you'regoing to actually choose the
right platform for you to beginactually the advertisement, or
even the copywriting, ormessages, like unique selling
point, like all of that. Butthey just want to copy and paste
from the Western market. Andthen just put the advertisement
first, and then see how it goes.And then afterwards, maybe we
(16:24):
can have a conversation tooptimize, yeah, something like
that. But why you want to wastemoney first? Like, I just...
Big mistake, big mistake. And Ilike that. You brought it up
because that's a great segueinto the next question about key
pitfalls to avoid, right? Youjust, you just, you just brought
up one of them. What are some ofthese other key pitfalls that
(16:44):
you think B2B companies shouldavoid, and what should they be
doing instead?
Yeah, actually recently, when Ihad a conversation with one of
our guests, who were VP atDropbox and Nitro, the
Microsoft, he actually had theexperience about, you know,
helping international expansionto Japan and Korea. And then,
(17:05):
actually, they didn't realizethat NAVER, our search engine,
is the main search engine inKorea. So they were actually
doing advertisement on Googleall the time. And then
afterwards, you know, theconversion or ROI was not that
good. And then later, theydecided to pivot our we need
NAVER right now. So theyactually wasted a couple budget
(17:29):
in the beginning. And then theyare such a big company, so
probably it could be not about,like, less than $100 or
something like, it could be like$1000s, you know, budget, right?
So it's important to have theright platform strategy first,
because in Korea, we have aKakao messenger, chat
application, and also the NAVERsearch engine, you know, not
(17:53):
about Google, of course, Google.We use Google for sure, like
when we don't want to feel likewe don't want to see any
advertisement on NAVER becauseNAVER is so saturated with
advertisements all the times, oryoung generations prefer to just
type some keywords on Googlejust to see organic content
(18:13):
there. Yeah, it could happen alot, but most of time we have an
application, the NAVERapplication on our mobile. And
then when we want to search forsome specific reviews or, you
know, certain case studies, oreven just, um, buying some
products, there we usually gofor NAVER first.
So if you don't really optimizeyour all of the you know,
(18:36):
product pages or services pagesor case studies, or even your
website, or simple things aboutfrom your product for sure,
like, if it just not visual onneighbor, you are actually
missing tons of opportunities.So yeah, I can talk about more
action steps for sure, moretechnical things that you could
do later, how to audit. Butyeah, this is something that you
(19:00):
have to really be mindful aboutignoring the platform reality.
And then the thing that Imentioned earlier, like copy
pasting from the Western marketis, like, such a huge, big
mistake. Like, we need thelocalization strategy. Even the
McDonald's know how to do this.Like, they usually collaborate
(19:20):
with local partners, like theyactually, let's say the cabbage
is from some certain produce inKorea. This is really special.
And then we want to part of thiscommunity like that, kind of,
like a feeling that, like we areexpecting. And then the another
question is, why we have to evenbuy your services from overseas,
(19:41):
because we all have the options,plenty of options here already.
So you have, if you want to,like, convince us really hard,
and then if you are seriousabout what you do, it's
important to put the culturalnuances into all of the content.
And actually the Duolingo. Sothe language app is really great
(20:02):
at this. They optimize, localizeevery account possible. So once
you go to Duolingo Korea orDuolingo Japan, we feel like
this is not from overseas. It'spart of our community, like a
Korean marketing team. We canactually feel that. So if you
can aim that actually buildingthe fan or community, which is I
(20:23):
usually recommend, likecommunity targeting first, so
that you can nurture theprocess, and then maybe they can
spread the word, and then bringthe network so that you don't
have to actually put all themoney all the time to run the
advertisements. Actually, that'sthe key that we can do in this,
you know, modern era.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely,take the local, I guess, also
(20:49):
the digital ecosystem intoconsideration. And as you talked
about before, understanding thelink the language and cultural
differences, right? Because it'snot just about doing a wholesale
like, okay, let's just translatewhatever it was that we did in
this market and just use it forKorea, right? I've seen that so
(21:09):
many times, and I've seen andit's those haven't been very
successful. I'm gonna say,right? You brought up something
earlier, and that's a part ofthe next question. It's about
selecting a local partner andthe importance of finding one,
right? So talk to us about thata little bit like, why is it
important for B2B companies towork with a local partner or
(21:31):
somebody who is familiar withthe Korean market, somebody like
yourself, and what should thesecompanies look for in a partner?
So first of all, if you hire thelocal partner, especially from
Korea, the Korea a native Koreanspeaker, like sales manager or
Korean marketing team, theyalready know how Korean market
(21:54):
is working right now. Like trendall of like, we can actually
find that the trending researchon NAVER. It's actually
completely free if you are upfor it. And if you actually want
to hire like Country Manager,they might have their own
network, the business network.So even if you are really not
running advertisement, let's saylike YouTube, or YouTube is
(22:17):
actually something that everygeneration are using in Korea,
by the way, if you're not reallyjust running advertisements like
those platforms, you can bepresent in that network, and
then you can be part of thatnetwork start. You can start
selling stuff first, or makingthe first lead gen stuff first.
(22:40):
Like you could try, like, aseven day free trial, even,
like, you know, 14 day freetrial, and then gather all of
the testimonials. And then youcould try putting that
testimonials on your website, soyou don't have to really waste
your money for runningadvertisements from the
beginning. Rather, you couldjust hit the community first. So
(23:01):
that's kind of like way that youcan save money or lowering
risking everything possible. Andalso the marketing team, they
understand how consumerpsychology works here in Korea.
So even though we really don'tthink about like research,
because our, you know, DNA isfrom Korea, so it's not really
(23:25):
big country here, to be honest.And then once certain content is
going viral, if you don't knowabout it, you're not a Korean
person here, that's actuallyimportant, actually something
that you have to remember.
So once, once viral content hit,like, let's say apple cider
vinegar was something thattrending recently, and then if
(23:46):
you don't know about it, you arewhy you are here, like, it's
kind of like awful. So you canhave the all of the consumer
psychology and data and even thetrending research better, and
especially if you don't knowabout the language itself, it's
so hard to navigate the NAVERplatform, even because the all
(24:09):
the great content is stuck withNAVER, or the kaka or those like
native platform first, and thenin English, there is a little
content out there that you canactually understand. So that's
why I'm trying to publish theblog more, so that you can
understand this navigationfirst. But yeah, that's kind of
(24:29):
like something that maybeforeigners like struggling to
understand this Korean marketbecause of the language barrier,
the cultural barrier, and alsoyou have the very far distance
barrier that you have toovercome. So having the right
it's not gonna be the team, butmaybe one or two person first
(24:49):
like to begin with, or even theagency that you can collaborate
with, can be the great optionfor you too, yeah.
Okay, well, thanks for sharingthat with us. Um, I had a follow
up question for you, and it'swhen you've dealt with clients
in the past, B2B companies thatwant to break into the Korean
market, and they're trying to,like, gain new clients, or do
(25:12):
this like lead generation. Ithink one of the things I'm sure
prospects will ask them,especially if they're a foreign
entity, is, do you have Koreanmarket experience? Can you show
us any case studies of how youhelp other clients in Korea? And
they and they probably want tosee that first before they
decide to commit, right?
(25:33):
Yep.
So just from your experience,like, how do you, how do you,
how do you deal with that? Howdo you, how do you help your
clients with that, especially ifthey're new to the market,
because if they're new, thenthat probably means they don't
have a lot of local experience,and they don't have any case
studies yet.
So first things first, like, weneed to really check where there
(25:55):
is stage in you know, if it'sabout entering the market for
the first time, like, we need tostart from the market entry,
consultation first. Like how wecan help the research part, the
competitors analysis, you knowthe strength or weakness, the
SWOT analysis. And even like howwe can find the positioning
(26:15):
first. Because as we, as wealready talked about this, we
have tons of opportunities, tonsof options already existing
here. So that's why, like,having the right brand voice
message, like, very clean, like,just one keyword or two
keywords. I usually recommendmapping up your keyword journey,
like, from the awareness toconversion. Like, let's say, for
(26:39):
example, I'm just gonna put therandom stuff here, like a body
wash, like you're gonna if youare gonna search for just body
wash, it means just fromawareness. But once we put
something like brand name plusproduct name, it means there is
a more engagement into it. Butonce you put more like how to
find this product in specificlocation, that means there is a
(27:01):
high potential for conversion.
So like from finding the rightkeywords, actually it's the
beginning journey that we haveto do. Like from market entry,
consultation and then theresearch part, positioning is
something that we can beginwith, especially for the market
entry. But if you are reallygoing for launching campaigns,
(27:22):
it's a different story for sure,like how we can actually target
the community first, becauseNAVER cafe or Kakao groups are
kind of like a ways that you cantarget, as if the Facebook
group, like, we don't really useFacebook group, by the way, like
more of like NAVER cafe or Kakaogroup first. So what we normally
(27:43):
do, we jump in all the groups,or, you know, the cafes related
to your brand, and then see whatkind of like influencers, if
you're especially like a SaaS(Software as a Service) product
you're selling, like, what kindof like influencers they are
mentioning what kind of liketrending, they are actually
mentioning that that's a goldennugget you can actually make the
(28:07):
content with. And then we can,you know, do like UGC
(User-Generated Content), thecontent strategy for sure. Like
the social media content forsure, something like a YouTube
is for every generation, andthen Facebook is like in Korea,
like, more of a like, over 50sor 40s, mainly men there. And
then, we don't really use theTwitter x for the professional
(28:31):
use. It's more about likegamers, the video gamers, or
talking about sports, like, verylike a meme, like situation
going on. And then, rather, thethread is recently actually
increasing, trending a lot, likemore professionals like joining
there. So there are a lot oflandscape going on. So the
having right platform strategy,first, like research positioning
(28:54):
right platform. And then fromthere you can create your
content pillar, contentstrategy. And then finally, you
can launch your campaigns forsure. If you're aiming to
target, you know, those userswho want to use your products
for sure. So it could be different.
And then, if you're someone whowant to scale up like, let's say
(29:16):
you want to improve ROI, youneed to actually check your KPIs
(Key Performance Indicators)like, because when I had a
conversation or meeting withthis nine figure global brand,
they actually spent like $1million for that year, and only
to realize they only get theimpressions and rates like 15 or
10 million. Like impressionsonly. And when I go deep inside,
(29:41):
the influencers were reallyscammy or fake. So most of time,
even big agencies struggle withto find out the right
influencers, because they reallygo deep inside about, like, the
how genuine those interactionsare. So that's why, like we
usually highlight, you have togo. For probably the NAVER
(30:02):
keyword link, sorry, NAVERkeyword rankings, or even search
volumes. From the content tosearch volume, it's so easy to
actually track and then fromthere, you can also track your
ROI, how genuine your commentsare, or the shares not about,
you know, focusing on, you know,breach or impressions.
(30:23):
Wow, great stuff. Great stuff.Okay, we get to the part of the
conversation where we're talkingabout actionable tips, and
you've given us a lot already,but if we're gonna maybe recap
or summarize, right for thoseB2B marketers out there that are
listening to this interview andthey're thinking, or their
companies are thinking aboutexpanding into Korea, what are,
(30:44):
what are three to five thingsthat they can do right now to
take action?
So I really wanted to sharethis. So you have to go to NAVER
that search engine, and then youhave to check if your website is
really existing or not. Let'ssay you could put site column,
(31:07):
and then you put URL there, andif your website is popping up,
that means you are visual onNAVER, yeah, of course. But if
it's not, you have to actuallyregister manually with our, you
know, NAVER system that youmight understand. If you don't
understand, maybe I can give youfree resources later, but in
(31:29):
this time, like, you could justaudit, like, um, is this really
available? Like, site, Colin,URL first, and then, if it's
just with only English, you haveto really working, it should be
with Korean language, because wedon't really research English on
NAVER at all, like at all. Soyou have to be think about this
(31:49):
and then prepare the Koreancontent for sure, and then the
adding the Korean reviews onyour website is so much better
than just having random reviewsfrom other countries for sure.
So maybe you could run the testcampaigns for a couple of like
month and then get the reviewsfirst. Like, as I said before,
(32:10):
like seven day free trial.That's something that you could
do demo introductions and thenput the content on your website
and make it available on NAVER.Also the content in Korean
language, the English for sure,the three steps are kind of like
a you can audit really easily.And then you know, if you want
(32:30):
to launch the test campaigns, Ithink that's the free trial is
kind of like an interesting partyou could do. And email
marketing is not really popularidea in Korea yet. So if you can
jump in right now, that's thegolden thing that you can you
really unlock. Because somemight say, like, Korean market
is kind of like a 20 yearsbehind the United States. So
(32:55):
like, if the traditionalapproaches are already going on,
although, like, email marketingis kind of like a changing so
the US email marketing is kindof packed with a lot of emails,
of course, but in Korea, it'sstill like very great spot that
you can really start with.
What's your experience been withemail marketing in Korea? As I'm
(33:16):
very curious, because, as yousaid over here in North America,
it's, I'm not saying that peopledon't use email marketing, but a
lot of, a lot of times, we haveto take into consideration
things like, or is it going toend up in the spam folder,
right? And then there's this.There's the whole issue around
data protection as well, right?And depending on where, where,
(33:37):
which area you're targeting,they have different laws around
data. But what's your experiencebeen in Korea?
So basically, like, we areseeing experiments a lot like
your our service provider, orB2B focused businesses. Do you
have, like, white papers or casestudies, or, you know, the free
guidelines, and then they put,like a NAVER blog, which is our
(34:01):
from the search engine, forsure. And then they rebrand the
whole NAVER blog first. And thenthey put the guideline, you can
download this for free, and thenclick on it, you go to website,
and then from there, they readit, read all about it. Actually,
it's a similar way that weactually promote from the
Western countries, for sure, butthe volume itself is kind of
(34:24):
like a very low compared to theUS or other, yeah, Western
market. So that's why, if youcan try that hard, a lot like
white papers, case studies, oreven in demo or, you know,
company overview, but it shouldbe really good, good enough, for
example, the market currently,the retailer from Korea, they
(34:44):
usually highlight those recipes.They don't even talk about
promotions going on. And thenthe IKEA Korea is kind of like
doing some blood well, like theypromote the pop up event. And
then, oh, this is something thatwe are going on. You can join
for free. The Pajama party, allthe things that we can hear
from. So there are several waysthat you can choose from, but
(35:06):
for B2B, especially those likerelated free resources,
something that you can unlockfirst and then from there you
can expand further with moreengaging content.
Okay, fantastic, fantastic. Soon the topic of metrics, and I
know we can talk about metricsfor hours and hours and hours,
(35:28):
but what are some of the whatare some of the key metrics that
you tell your clients to focuson, especially if they're
starting out in the Koreanmarket?
Yeah, I really, really suggestNAVER keyword rankings first. So
once you audit all of yourwebsites, it's visible there.
You can go to NAVER keywordplanner or NAVER data lab there,
(35:49):
and then from there, it'sactually free to research
everything. There. You can checkthe monthly search volume very
easily. And then probably, like,if you don't have any like, a
visibility there, it could belike zero, or if you already
started your journey, probablylike, let's say, 1k per month,
or something like that. But ifyou want to really aim for,
(36:10):
let's say, do the test campaignsfirst 20% rise, or 30% rise,
something that you can aim forinstantly, for the KPI. And then
let's say, as I mentionedbefore, the community targeting
is really important. So what wenormally really recommend is
hitting the UGC (User-GeneratedContent) influencers with the
(36:33):
content or the communitytargeting first, like NAVER
cafe, the Kakao group. I don'treally recommend Kakao group
for, you know, the promotingstuff, I would usually recommend
the NAVER Cafe better, becauseKakao group is more of a like a
chat or messenger style. Butanyway, the if you can hit the
cafe, NAVER Cafe first, and thenthe UGC community, that's how we
(36:57):
discovered if it goes viral, andthen we also have Naver clip,
which is similar way that wespeak to the short film videos
on YouTube channel.
And NAVER clip brings a lot ofactual impressions reached
compared to YouTube shorts orreels nowadays, because when we
collaborate with Australianbrand, we hired a really great
(37:22):
influencer, and then they putthe content on Tiktok and
YouTube, Instagram and NAVERclip, and then NAVER clip was
hit like over 1 million viewsfor the single video, and then
in that two month period, it wasover 5x ROI. So it's also
important to know that for B2Bservice businesses having the
(37:43):
social media is kind of likeimportant as a community. And I
understand that even Koreanbusinesses are kind of like
conservative about like doingsocial media for sure, but
YouTube or Facebook andInstagram is something that you
can begin with, because YouTubeworks with SEO, the search
engine optimization keywords,and then Instagram and Facebook
(38:07):
also over 50 men are theirprofessionals for sure.
Instagram for women or, youknow, like those young
generations, but you know, like,once your son or daughter know
about your brand, they willlikely also spread the word for
sure, like, why we don't try it?So, like a lot of Institute,
institutions or government,usually utilize more fund
(38:29):
related or engaging stuffnowadays, so it's growing trend
right now. So yeah, I recommendthose jumping in those community
first and then hiring theinfluencers. If you want to
really generate the searchvolume, really increase so from
the content, from influencers oryour community, to search volume
(38:52):
that you can track for sure.
Yeah, it's very interesting,because, like, you know, I also
did a lot of B2B marketing inChina, and at first, at first,
we're like, oh, you're gonna useinfluencers for B2B campaign.
But actually it works because,because a lot of these people in
the clients, target audience,are actually following these
(39:14):
influencers, right?
Exactly.
So again, it's one of thesedifferences between, between the
way that B2B marketing is donein the West and the way it's
done in places like Korea,right?
Yep.
Yeah, okay, so two morequestions before I let you go,
and I really appreciate youtaking the time to be with us
(39:35):
today. So if you are like theambassador for Korea, you're
representing your country, andthere you're talking to people
that have never been to Koreabefore, right? What is there a
particular place in Korea whereyou would advise them to go and
visit? And if yes, what place isit and why?
(39:59):
I mean, I actually thought aboutthis a lot, what kind of like
places I should recommend tothose, you know, buyers, yeah,
all of that. And then we have avery interesting places called
COEX and KINTEX. And then it'skind of like buyers or the
consumers engaged there for theconferences event or trade show
(40:22):
event. So, once you presentthere, you can actually go deep
inside about Computer Research,how they are actually selling
stuff, how actually they areengaged with customers, for
sure, and how they promote theirservices. There you can, you
know, have the overview ofpicture of our business
landscape. Outside of that. Youknow, if you want to target more
(40:44):
of like young generations orGenji stuff, you could go to
Seongsu and then it could becliche, you should visit capital
city Seoul, for sure. Like howKorean market without going to
the capital city tower or Busan,like, that's the two things that
we are having the mainstreamhere. So the CK as a conference
(41:10):
or event or trade show, and thenSeoul and then Seongsu for young
generation. Outside of that,maybe if you can go to Pangyo
area, there are lots of startupsgoing on. So if you want to
really observe those startupscenes, you may visit there too.
Okay, okay, well, that's, that'sa pretty long list, very
(41:35):
interesting. And you know, thankyou so much for your time today,
I think I learned something newabout doing B2B marketing in the
Korean market, so I hope theaudience got a lot of value out
of that as well. So please quickintroduction to yourself and how
B2B companies can get in touchwith you.
Yeah, thank you so much forasking. I mean, I'm the founder
(41:57):
of HY marketing, helpinginternational brand succeeds,
such as in Korea, Japan andbeyond, with specializing in
social media marketing. So wehave a team of Korean native
marketer, native Japanesemarketers and English speaking
marketers, for sure. And then Iam the one who strategize
(42:17):
everything and direct or the forthe creative part. And because
of that, we kind of really workwith everyone. So it we limit
the volume is like a main threefull campaigns per month, so
that I can also focus on ourclients, because we are a part
of, like a boutique marketingagency, and then we actually
(42:40):
strategize everything from thebeginning, not about just, you
know, test the water withoutever knowing the consumer
psychology. So that's the thingthat I'm really passionate
about.
Okay, okay, fantastic. Well,once again, Hyein and thank you
so much for coming on the showtoday, gamsahabnida (Thank you).
Right?
(43:02):
I forgot to mention that if youwant to reach out to me, yeah,
connect me on LinkedIn or applyto work with us on our website
for sure.
Yep, yes, yes, yes, absolutely,absolutely. And we will be
including the links in the shownotes for this episode so people
can get in touch with youdirectly. So once again, thank
you so much for coming on theshow. Take care, stay safe and
(43:23):
talk to you soon.
Okay, soon. Bye.
Thank you. Bye. Bye.
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