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:

Transcript

Christian 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’re going to get into that in today’s conversation, is that we’re all B2B marketers working in different markets, and it’s very important for us also to understand, especially here in North America where I’m based, it’s very important for marketers to understand that what may have been successful in this market might be a completely different situation than them in another market, right? So I guess we’re going to get into that today. So let’s dive in. I’m really looking forward to this conversation.

Hyein Yoon 02:03

Yeah, I’m so excited about this. Let’s do this.

Christian Klepp 02:05

Okay, fantastic. So Hyein, you’re, you’re on a mission to help companies scale their brands through strategic marketing in Korea, so in South Korea. So for this conversation, as I just said, We, we’d like to focus on the following topic, which is how B2B companies can build 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 some top level answers. What are some of the key differences between B2B marketing in the west and Korea? So that’s the first question. And the second question is, what are some misconceptions that B2B companies have about doing business in Korea?

Hyein Yoon 02:58

All right, that’s actually great questions, and I’m ready to answer everything possible to answer for the first question, actually, you have to understand that we have very difference between individuality and then collectiveness. And actually, when I visited the US for the first time, I realized so many things that we can actually make our customized plan, even at the restaurant, like you can make your customized burger sauce, the bun, bread or ingredients possible. But whereas in Korea, we don’t really prefer that option, it’s really uncomfortable to choose everything possible. For example, the subway, the sub sandwiches, they actually entered Korea, and they didn’t even realize that things like giving the options possible is really making uncomfortable customers. So they have to make the options to have the set menu combo. So you actually choose the numbers and then you get the all of the things ready made for you. You don’t have to choose. That was actually interesting story. So if I can go into more about the B2B market, we actually have some key factors, like hierarchical system and then result trust focused and the relationship driven.

Hyein Yoon 04:19

So actually, when I had a conversation with one of our guests on our podcast, he actually once mentioned this, and then this is kind of like overview that you can think of Korea really easily. So for example, when he have a conversation and then have a meeting for the first time, he maybe can share about the whole pictures about the companies or services or products, but after the first meeting, he will really not mention about the product or being salesy all the time until the prospect mentioned about what was your product you are talking about before. Can you talk about them more like because. We really value building a relationship first, not about really directness or, you know, being salesy or saving time. So it’s important to building the trust signal in the beginning, and then also in B2B market. When I had another conversation with someone specializing in sales and marketing from IBM, Korea, which is the biggest company in the world. She also mentioned that even if the company suggested you have to do everything online, but she didn’t agree with that, because she understand this, you know, hierarchical system, relationship driven system, so once you actually have a cold call or cold email, first she will be present offline, and then setting up meeting offline, so that you can actually make a relationship first, and then report. And then, you know, saving energy to have, you know, more meetings further for from the get go. So it’s important to have your presence offline. And then, of course, international business sometimes doesn’t have presence in Korea, so that’s why, maybe we can talk about later, having the local partner is important.

Hyein Yoon 06:11

And second question was about, yeah, the misconceptions that B2B companies have about. So this is actually also related to the key factors, for sure. And maybe you can think about online meetings are just fine, and then, you know, cold calls or cold emails, and then you set up the meetings all the time just online. But when you think about ROI (Return on Investment), actually, it makes sense just doing online. Maybe that’s the cost effective that you can approach. But if we just don’t know you at all, like you don’t have any presence in Korea, we had to research about your companies all the time, like case studies or like website all of that, only to realize it just would, you know translations? Yeah, there with English sometimes. So it doesn’t really make sense to us.

Hyein Yoon 07:00

And then the interesting part is that the English versus Korean language has different contexts, meaning English has a low context versus Korean language as a high context. So when we talk about some sentences like or speaking actually, sometimes it doesn’t mean the same way. So for example, when we say, let’s catch up later, but we have a mind reading skill like which is we call Nunchi. This is actually registered in Oxford dictionary, and we don’t really expect we are going to meet anytime soon. Or we can just say things because we want to be polite. So there are a lot of cultural nuances that you can think of. So online meetings are fine, or English is just fine, and translation is fine, something like we have to think about as a part of misunderstanding or misconceptions. And also 5% foreigners living in Korea in population, whereas 95% of our population is Korean, just who speaks Korean. mainly. That means, like, once we actually see English content, it’s just like Alien messages to sometimes. And then when you Google about how fluent our English is on Google, you would actually think about like, Oh, it’s just moderate. Oh, it’s just okay. But when you come to Korea, it’s not the case that you can actually have the imagination. And so most of time, like when we had a recent conversation with some prospects recently from Malaysia, Singapore, they actually wanted to test the water first. Like, oh, we are going to just put our content out there and then running advertisement all of that. But if you don’t really understand, you know, Korean consumer psychology, and then they just run in English, we are just gonna, you know, scroll down and watch this. Like, I don’t really understand, yes, so that’s the key factors or scene we have to understand first, yeah.

Hyein Yoon 09:05

Yeah, yeah.

Christian Klepp 09:05

You brought it up a little bit earlier, but I want to dig into that a little bit, right? Because I think this is something that a lot of Western B2B companies don’t quite understand, that you cannot just wholesale, like do a wholesale translation of a piece of advertising. It’s very important to understand how that will translate into the Korean language number one and number two, there has to be, there has to be some kind of adjustment to take what I call the bigger barrier than the language barrier, which is the cultural barrier, right? Because, well, what I’m trying to say is, because, again, from experience, right? You might, you might translate something and then, okay, so here we’ve got the Korean version, but the translation doesn’t necessarily take the cultural context into consideration. So over to you. My question is, have you experienced that and how, how did you deal with it?

Christian Klepp 09:05

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 then that we’re trying to launch something into the China market. Oh, we’ll just advertise in English. I’m like, Okay, are you only targeting the English speaking expats? Because that’s the only person that’s going to read your ad, right? Like, if it’s, if the ad is in English, it will, it will be ignored, right? And you brought up something very interesting that I wanted to go back to, because I had a similar experience in China. But I want to know more about your experience in Korea, similar to Chinese, the Korean language also is very especially because. Use, you know, your language uses characters. It can be very complex, but it’s also very rich in meaning, right? Like, the characters have different meanings.

Hyein Yoon 11:11

I mean, yeah, we are seeing a lot of content just in English or just with translation, yeah, for example. And then when we had a conversation with international business, for example, in discovery call and then something like that, they would actually prefer the global content first here, and then they try to just, you know, change the copywriting in English and Korean, Japanese, just That’s it, without ever Considering the tone of voice, or even the design look. And then we have a certain eyes for, you know, if we see some content, oh, we can actually check that this is from overseas or not, because we really know about how we are actually putting content out there. It’s not about just, you know the language itself, because we have this sense of cultural nuances on our copywriting, and then we can feel as a native speaker the right at the sense right away.

Hyein Yoon 12:11

So maybe that’s why, if you are maybe going for, let’s say, impressions and rich you can just maybe run advertisement on Google or meta, like right away in English, for sure. That’s how you get just impressions. That’s kind of like an idea. But if you’re going for lead gen, or, you know, conversion, or if you want to improve ROI, that’s another level that you have to go for some of like frictions that you can actually tackle, and then you can actually improve the ROI really faster, like a payment figures, payment features, or even, like putting your case studies on your website, they can actually make things really a lot better compared to just putting English content or the translation from GPT even, because GPT can actually make great translation, for sure, but we our, we, as a Korean native speaker, we also check all the things, because, just to make sure everything is really clear, or we don’t really against our cultural, you know, rules or something like that, because we barely group. We value group rules, not about, you know, just being individual or something like that. So if you don’t have the mind reading skill or following the rules, you can be outsider in this community. So that’s why you have to really understand that, like we are not just, you know, being individual, like back in the day, like, when we were in a covid 19, we didn’t really argue about wearing mask, even we just gladly wear the mask, because it’s for us. Like, that’s kind of like a big difference. So that’s why, like having only English content or just translation itself, it feels really off. And then you’re not going to just go for impressions, right? You want customers, clients, and then, you know, the emails, all of those, and I can maybe talk about email marketing later, but yeah, that’s just like this yeah.

Christian Klepp 14:13

Okay, okay, yeah, absolutely fantastic, fantastic. I’m sure you have this. You have experienced this to a certain degree, also in Korea. But what I also experienced in China was that some companies that wanted to enter the market, they thought, okay, maybe we can save ourselves money if we work with somebody back in our home country that we can trust, and we can translate all the content into Chinese already. So we already advised them against doing that right, because it’s not the same, right? But for them, it’s like, what it’s, it’s, it’s Chinese, it should be the same, right? And then we gave their translation to our local colleagues, and our local colleagues read it, and they said, this was written by a Taiwanese person.

Christian Klepp 14:59

All right? So I have a feeling like because in Korea, you’re a smaller country, but you also have different provinces and regions, and maybe the way that the people in the north and the south speak differently, and perhaps even the Koreans that live abroad speak differently, right? So that’s that’s a great that’s really a great point that you bring up, that people are trying to find a shortcut because they think it’s gonna save them money in the long run, but actually it’s hurting them, right?

Hyein Yoon 15:32

Exactly. I mean, I mean, I think the right strategy is something that you have to go from in the beginning, not above in the middle of somewhere. Like, most of time, like, when we have a conversation with our prospect, they just prefer testing the water first. Like, we just want to test, like, putting the advertisement, yeah, just Google or neighbor our search engine or YouTube. And then later, when I suggested, like, you have to build a strategy first, how you’re going to actually change, how you’re going to actually choose the right platform for you to begin actually the advertisement, or even the copywriting, or messages, like unique selling point, like all of that. But they just want to copy and paste from the Western market. And then just put the advertisement first, and then see how it goes. And then afterwards, maybe we can have a conversation to optimize, yeah, something like that. But why you want to waste money first? Like, I just…

Christian Klepp 16:31

Big mistake, big mistake. And I like that. You brought it up because that’s a great segue into the next question about key pitfalls to avoid, right? You just, you just, you just brought up one of them. What are some of these other key pitfalls that you think B2B companies should avoid, and what should they be doing instead?

Hyein Yoon 16:50

Yeah, actually recently, like when I had a conversation with one of our guests, who were VP at Dropbox and Nitro, the Microsoft, he actually had the experience about, you know, helping international expansion to Japan and Korea. And then, actually, they didn’t realize that NAVER, our search engine, is the main search engine in Korea. So they were actually doing advertisement on Google all the time. And then afterwards, you know, the conversion or ROI was not that good. And then later, they decided to pivot our we need NAVER right now. So they actually wasted a couple budget in the beginning. And then they are 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 the right platform strategy first, because in Korea, we have a Kakao messenger, chat application, and also the NAVER search engine, you know, not about Google, of course, Google. We use Google for sure, like when we don’t want to feel like we don’t want to see any advertisement on NAVER because NAVER is so saturated with advertisements all the times, or young generations prefer to just type some keywords on Google just to see organic content there. Yeah, it could happen a lot, but most of time we have an application, the NAVER application on our mobile. And then when we want to search for some specific reviews or, you know, certain case studies, or even just, um, buying some products, there we usually go for NAVER first.

Hyein Yoon 18:32

So if you don’t really optimize your all of the you know, product pages or services pages or case studies, or even your website, or simple things about from your product for sure, like, if it just not visual on neighbor, you are actually missing tons of opportunities. So yeah, I can talk about more action steps for sure, more technical things that you could do later, how to audit. But yeah, this is something that you have to really be mindful about ignoring the platform reality. And then the thing that I mentioned earlier, like copy pasting from the Western market is, like, such a huge, big mistake. Like, we need the localization strategy. Even the McDonald’s know how to do this. Like, they usually collaborate with local partners, like they actually, let’s say the cabbage is from some certain produce in Korea. This is really special. And then we want to part of this community like that, kind of, like a feeling that, like we are expecting. And then the another question is, why we have to even buy your services from overseas, 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 serious about what you do, it’s important to put the cultural nuances into all of the content. And actually the Duolingo. So the language app is really great at this. They optimize, localize every account possible. So once you go to Duolingo Korea or Duolingo Japan, we feel like this is not from overseas. It’s part of our community, like a Korean marketing team. We can actually feel that. So if you can aim that actually building the fan or community, which is I usually recommend, like community targeting first, so that you can nurture the process, and then maybe they can spread the word, and then bring the network so that you don’t have to actually put all the money all the time to run the advertisements. Actually, that’s the key that we can do in this, you know, modern era.

Christian Klepp 20:43

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, take the local, I guess, also the digital ecosystem into consideration. And as you talked about before, understanding the link the language and cultural differences, right? Because it’s not just about doing a wholesale like, okay, let’s just translate whatever it was that we did in this market and just use it for Korea, right? I’ve seen that so many times, and I’ve seen and it’s those haven’t been very successful. I’m gonna say, right? You brought up something earlier, and that’s a part of the next question. It’s about selecting a local partner and the importance of finding one, right? So talk to us about that a little bit like, why is it important for B2B companies to work with a local partner or somebody who is familiar with the Korean market, somebody like yourself, and what should these companies look for in a partner?

Hyein Yoon 21:40

So first of all, if you hire the local partner, especially from Korea, the Korea a native Korean speaker, like sales manager or Korean marketing team, they already know how Korean market is working right now. Like trend all of like, we can actually find that the trending research on NAVER. It’s actually completely free if you are up for 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 say like YouTube, or YouTube is actually something that every generation are using in Korea, by the way, if you’re not really just running advertisements like those platforms, you can be present in that network, and then you can be part of that network start. You can start selling stuff first, or making the first lead gen stuff first. Like you could try, like, a seven day free trial, even, like, you know, 14 day free trial, and then gather all of the testimonials. And then you could try putting that testimonials on your website, so you don’t have to really waste your money for running advertisements from the beginning. Rather, you could just hit the community first. So that’s kind of like way that you can save money or lowering risking everything possible. And also the marketing team, they understand how consumer psychology works here in Korea. So even though we really don’t think about like research, because our, you know, DNA is from Korea, so it’s not really big country here, to be honest. And then once certain content is going viral, if you don’t know about it, you’re not a Korean person here, that’s actually important, actually something that you have to remember.

Hyein Yoon 23:38

So once, once viral content hit, like, let’s say apple cider vinegar was something that trending recently, and then if you don’t know about it, you are why you are here, like, it’s kind of like awful. So you can have the all of the consumer psychology and data and even the trending research better, and especially if you don’t know about the language itself, it’s so hard to navigate the NAVER platform, even because the all the great content is stuck with NAVER, or the kaka or those like native platform first, and then in English, there is a little content out there that you can actually understand. So that’s why I’m trying to publish the blog more, so that you can understand this navigation first. But yeah, that’s kind of like something that maybe foreigners like struggling to understand this Korean market because of the language barrier, the cultural barrier, and also you have the very far distance barrier that you have to overcome. So having the right it’s not gonna be the team, but maybe one or two person first like to begin with, or even the agency that you can collaborate with, can be the great option for you too, yeah.

Christian Klepp 24:56

Okay, well, thanks for sharing that with us. Um, I had a follow up question for you, and it’s when you’ve dealt with clients in the past, B2B companies that want to break into the Korean market, and they’re trying to, like, gain new clients, or do this like lead generation. I think one of the things I’m sure prospects will ask them, especially if they’re a foreign entity, is, do you have Korean market experience? Can you show us any case studies of how you help other clients in Korea? And they and they probably want to see that first before they decide to commit, right?

Hyein Yoon 25:33

Yep.

Christian Klepp 25:33

So just from your experience, like, how do you, how do you, how do you deal with that? How do you, how do you help your clients with that, especially if they’re new to the market, because if they’re new, then that probably means they don’t have a lot of local experience, and they don’t have any case studies yet.

Hyein Yoon 25:50

So first things first, like, we need to really check where there is stage in you know, if it’s about entering the market for the first time, like, we need to start from the market entry, consultation first. Like how we can help the research part, the competitors analysis, you know the strength or weakness, the SWOT analysis. And even like how we can find the positioning first. Because as we, as we already talked about this, we have tons of opportunities, tons of 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 recommend mapping up your keyword journey, like, from the awareness to conversion. Like, let’s say, for example, I’m just gonna put the random stuff here, like a body wash, like you’re gonna if you are gonna search for just body wash, it means just from awareness. But once we put something like brand name plus product name, it means there is a more engagement into it. But once you put more like how to find this product in specific location, that means there is a high potential for conversion.

Hyein Yoon 27:03

So like from finding the right keywords, actually it’s the beginning journey that we have to do. Like from market entry, consultation and then the research part, positioning is something that we can begin with, especially for the market entry. But if you are really going for launching campaigns, it’s a different story for sure, like how we can actually target the community first, because NAVER cafe or Kakao groups are kind of like a ways that you can target, as if the Facebook group, like, we don’t really use Facebook group, by the way, like more of like NAVER cafe or Kakao group first. So what we normally do, we jump in all the groups, or, you know, the cafes related to your brand, and then see what kind of like influencers, if you’re especially like a SaaS (Software as a Service) product you’re selling, like, what kind of like influencers they are mentioning what kind of like trending, they are actually mentioning that that’s a golden nugget you can actually make the content with. And then we can, you know, do like UGC (User-Generated Content), the content strategy for sure. Like the social media content for sure, something like a YouTube is for every generation, and then Facebook is like in Korea, like, more of a like, over 50s or 40s, mainly men there. And then, we don’t really use the Twitter x for the professional use. It’s more about like gamers, the video gamers, or talking about sports, like, very like a meme, like situation going on. And then, rather, the thread is recently actually increasing, trending a lot, like more professionals like joining there. So there are a lot of landscape going on. So the having right platform strategy, first, like research positioning right platform. And then from there you can create your content pillar, content strategy. And then finally, you can launch your campaigns for sure. If you’re aiming to target, you know, those users who want to use your products for sure. So it could be different.

Hyein Yoon 29:11

And then, if you’re someone who want to scale up like, let’s say you want to improve ROI, you need to actually check your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) like, because when I had a conversation or meeting with this nine figure global brand, they actually spent like $1 million for that year, and only to realize they only get the impressions and rates like 15 or 10 million. Like impressions only. And when I go deep inside, the influencers were really scammy or fake. So most of time, even big agencies struggle with to find out the right influencers, because they really go deep inside about, like, the how genuine those interactions are. So that’s why, like we usually highlight, you have to go. For probably the NAVER keyword link, sorry, NAVER keyword rankings, or even search volumes. From the content to search volume, it’s so easy to actually track and then from there, you can also track your ROI, how genuine your comments are, or the shares not about, you know, focusing on, you know, breach or impressions.

Christian Klepp 30:23

Wow, great stuff. Great stuff. Okay, we get to the part of the conversation where we’re talking about actionable tips, and you’ve given us a lot already, but if we’re gonna maybe recap or summarize, right for those B2B marketers out there that are listening to this interview and they’re thinking, or their companies are thinking about expanding into Korea, what are, what are three to five things that they can do right now to take action?

Hyein Yoon 30:50

So I really wanted to share this. So you have to go to NAVER that search engine, and then you have to check if your website is really existing or not. Let’s say you could put site column, and then you put URL there, and if your website is popping up, that means you are visual on NAVER, yeah, of course. But if it’s not, you have to actually register manually with our, you know, NAVER system that you might understand. If you don’t understand, maybe I can give you free resources later, but in this time, like, you could just audit, like, um, is this really available? Like, site, Colin, URL first, and then, if it’s just with only English, you have to really working, it should be with Korean language, because we don’t really research English on NAVER at all, like at all. So you have to be think about this and then prepare the Korean content for sure, and then the adding the Korean reviews on your website is so much better than just having random reviews from other countries for sure. So maybe you could run the test campaigns for a couple of like month and then get the reviews first. Like, as I said before, like seven day free trial. That’s something that you could do demo introductions and then put 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 to launch the test campaigns, I think that’s the free trial is kind of like an interesting part you could do. And email marketing is not really popular idea in Korea yet. So if you can jump in right now, that’s the golden thing that you can you really unlock. Because some might say, like, Korean market is kind of like a 20 years behind the United States. So like, if the traditional approaches are already going on, although, like, email marketing is kind of like a changing so the US email marketing is kind of packed with a lot of emails, of course, but in Korea, it’s still like very great spot that you can really start with.

Christian Klepp 33:13

What’s your experience been with email marketing in Korea? As I’m very curious, because, as you said over here in North America, it’s, I’m not saying that people don’t use email marketing, but a lot of, a lot of times, we have to take into consideration things like, or is it going to end 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, which area you’re targeting, they have different laws around data. But what’s your experience been in Korea?

Hyein Yoon 33:44

So basically, like, we are seeing experiments a lot like your our service provider, or B2B focused businesses. Do you have, like, white papers or case studies, or, you know, the free guidelines, and then they put, like a NAVER blog, which is our from the search engine, for sure. And then they rebrand the whole NAVER blog first. And then they put the guideline, you can download this for free, and then click on it, you go to website, and then from there, they read it, read all about it. Actually, it’s a similar way that we actually promote from the Western countries, for sure, but the volume itself is kind of like a very low compared to the US or other, yeah, Western market. So that’s why, if you can try that hard, a lot like white papers, case studies, or even in demo or, you know, company overview, but it should be really good, good enough, for example, the market currently, the retailer from Korea, they usually highlight those recipes. They don’t even talk about promotions going on. And then the IKEA Korea is kind of like doing some blood well, like they promote the pop up event. And then, oh, this is something that we are going on. You can join for free. The Pajama party, all the things that we can hear from. So there are several ways that you can choose from, but for B2B, especially those like related free resources, something that you can unlock first and then from there you can expand further with more engaging content.

Christian Klepp 35:19

Okay, fantastic, fantastic. So on the topic of metrics, and I know we can talk about metrics for hours and hours and hours, but what are some of the what are some of the key metrics that you tell your clients to focus on, especially if they’re starting out in the Korean market?

Hyein Yoon 35:36

Yeah, I really, really suggest NAVER keyword rankings first. So once you audit all of your websites, it’s visible there. You can go to NAVER keyword planner or NAVER data lab there, and then from there, it’s actually free to research everything. There. You can check the monthly search volume very easily. And then probably, like, if you don’t have any like, a visibility there, it could be like zero, or if you already started your journey, probably like, let’s say, 1k per month, or something like that. But if you want to really aim for, let’s say, do the test campaigns first 20% rise, or 30% rise, something that you can aim for instantly, for the KPI. And then let’s say, as I mentioned before, the community targeting is really important. So what we normally really recommend is hitting the UGC (User-Generated Content) influencers with the content or the community targeting first, like NAVER cafe, the Kakao group. I don’t really recommend Kakao group for, you know, the promoting stuff, I would usually recommend the NAVER Cafe better, because Kakao group is more of a like a chat or messenger style. But anyway, the if you can hit the cafe, NAVER Cafe first, and then the UGC community, that’s how we discovered if it goes viral, and then we also have Naver clip, which is similar way that we speak to the short film videos on YouTube channel.

Hyein Yoon 37:08

And NAVER clip brings a lot of actual impressions reached compared to YouTube shorts or reels nowadays, because when we collaborate with Australian brand, we hired a really great influencer, and then they put the content on Tiktok and YouTube, Instagram and NAVER clip, and then NAVER clip was hit like over 1 million views for the single video, and then in that two month period, it was over 5x ROI. So it’s also important to know that for B2B service businesses having the social media is kind of like important as a community. And I understand that even Korean businesses are kind of like conservative about like doing social media for sure, but YouTube or Facebook and Instagram is something that you can begin with, because YouTube works with SEO, the search engine optimization keywords, and then Instagram and Facebook also over 50 men are their professionals for sure. Instagram for women or, you know, like those young generations, but you know, like, once your son or daughter know about your brand, they will likely 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 related or engaging stuff nowadays, so it’s growing trend right now. So yeah, I recommend those jumping in those community first and then hiring the influencers. If you want to really generate the search volume, really increase so from the content, from influencers or your community, to search volume that you can track for sure.

Christian Klepp 38:55

Yeah, it’s very interesting, because, like, you know, I also did a lot of B2B marketing in China, and at first, at first, we’re like, oh, you’re gonna use influencers for B2B campaign. But actually it works because, because a lot of these people in the clients, target audience, are actually following these influencers, right?

Hyein Yoon 39:16

Exactly.

Christian Klepp 39:17

So again, it’s one of these differences between, between the way that B2B marketing is done in the West and the way it’s done in places like Korea, right?

Hyein Yoon 39:27

Yep.

Christian Klepp 39:27

Yeah, okay, so two more questions before I let you go, and I really appreciate you taking the time to be with us today. So if you are like the ambassador for Korea, you’re representing your country, and there you’re talking to people that have never been to Korea before, right? What is there a particular place in Korea where you would advise them to go and visit? And if yes, what place is it and why?

Hyein Yoon 39:59

I mean, I actually thought about this a lot, what kind of like places I should recommend to those, you know, buyers, yeah, all of that. And then we have a very interesting places called COEX and KINTEX. And then it’s kind of like buyers or the consumers engaged there for the conferences event or trade show event. So, once you present there, you can actually go deep inside about Computer Research, how they are actually selling stuff, how actually they are engaged with customers, for sure, and how they promote their services. There you can, you know, have the overview of picture of our business landscape. Outside of that. You know, if you want to target more of like young generations or Genji stuff, you could go to Seongsu and then it could be cliche, you should visit capital city Seoul, for sure. Like how Korean market without going to the capital city tower or Busan, like, that’s the two things that we are having the mainstream here. So the CK as a conference or event or trade show, and then Seoul and then Seongsu for young generation. Outside of that, maybe if you can go to Pangyo area, there are lots of startups going on. So if you want to really observe those startup scenes, you may visit there too.

Christian Klepp 41:29

Okay, okay, well, that’s, that’s a pretty long list, very interesting. And you know, thank you so much for your time today, I think I learned something new about doing B2B marketing in the Korean market, so I hope the audience got a lot of value out of that as well. So please quick introduction to yourself and how B2B companies can get in touch with you.

Hyein Yoon 41:53

Yeah, thank you so much for asking. I mean, I’m the founder of HY marketing, helping international brand succeeds, such as in Korea, Japan and beyond, with specializing in social media marketing. So we have a team of Korean native marketer, native Japanese marketers and English speaking marketers, for sure. And then I am the one who strategize everything and direct or the for the creative part. And because of that, we kind of really work with everyone. So it we limit the volume is like a main three full campaigns per month, so that I can also focus on our clients, because we are a part of, like a boutique marketing agency, and then we actually strategize everything from the beginning, not about just, you know, test the water without ever knowing the consumer psychology. So that’s the thing that I’m really passionate about.

Christian Klepp 42:51

Okay, okay, fantastic. Well, once again, Hyein and thank you so much for coming on the show today, gamsahabnida (Thank you). Right?

Hyein Yoon 43:02

I forgot to mention that if you want to reach out to me, yeah, connect me on LinkedIn or apply to work with us on our website for sure.

Christian Klepp 43:08

Yep, yes, yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely. And we will be including the links in the show notes for this episode so people can get in touch with you directly. So once again, thank you so much for coming on the show. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Hyein Yoon 43:25

Okay, sure. Bye.

Christian Klepp 43:26

Thank you. Bye. Bye.

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