Carlota Pico recently spoke to Nadine Leighton, head of marketing for the EMEA and APAC regions at LexisNexis, one of the world’s largest online database service providers. Nadine discussed the myriad ways the coronavirus pandemic has changed marketing, the importance of segmentation and targeting when working across an abundance of markets, and unique strategies for creating content to excite your audiences.

Watch the full conversation in our YouTube video above, and listen to our podcast and read our recap below.

Key takeaways

• The essence of localization is understanding the different personas, needs and nuances of a market, and then tailoring everything around that. You have to do your homework, and keep in mind everything from content to UX to channels.
• When developing a content strategy and plan, ask yourself: Why would someone read this? What value does it bring them? If you try and put yourself in your audience’s shoes, it can help you generate more authentic content.
• There are two options when dealing with less mature markets. You can either educate your potential customers through content, or you can decide not to engage with a certain audience at all if it won’t help you achieve your outcomes.
• The pandemic has changed everything, including how we work. Brands have to be more authentic, responsive and agile than ever before, while engaging people in different formats, implementing new tools and focusing on segmentation and targeting. 
• When addressing a “boring” or dense topic, you have to find interesting ways to engage people. For example, in her previous position, Nadine helped to create PwC’s Retail Agility Challenge: a pop-up shop that let people experience cloud technology in an exciting and relevant way.

Localized marketing is black and white—not gray. Whatever you make has to be relevant to your audience, market and channels. If it isn’t, then it doesn’t work.

Rapid-fire recs

An influencer or role model who you admire?

I look up to Bozoma Saint John, the CMO of Netflix. She’s someone that really resonates with me, and I’m inspired by the amazing things she’s done and the places she’s worked. I also love the fact that she’s so authentic.

A publication or book you’d recommend?

I’d have to say a book called “Marketing in the Groundswell” by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. It’s all about engaging your customers, and how by doing so you can really understand what their needs are, and then develop products and services that meet them. 

A hashtag that you follow?

At the moment, anything about equality and the pressing social issues at hand. One that I’ve recently been following a lot is the #pulluporshutup hashtag. It’s all about how beauty brands are showing support for equality right now. I think that marketers can learn a lot from it about authenticity, perhaps by saying, “We don’t understand everything, we haven’t gotten this right yet, but we’re working on it.”

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Connect with Nadine and Carlota on LinkedIn.

This post was edited by Mary Kresge, a freelance content creator based in Madrid.

To read the full transcript, click on page number 2 below.