At PRNEWS.IO, we continue our “Her PR Journey” project, where we highlight inspiring women in PR and marketing. Today, we’re excited to introduce Gökçe Karabay Erdinç, a talented marketing consultant with a wealth of experience working with innovative companies like e-Residency and Roofit.Solar.
In this interview, Gökçe shares her journey, insights into building successful campaigns, and advice for navigating the ever-evolving world of marketing.
From e-Residency to Roofit.Solar: Gökçe Karabay Erdinç’s Path to Marketing Excellence
1. Could you introduce yourself and share your experience in marketing, including your achievements at companies like e-Residency and Roofit.Solar?
I am a hands-on marketing consultant with expertise in branding and content management, having started in the days before the iPhone.
My advertising career began in Turkey as a copywriter, thrived during my Fulbright Scholarship in Austin, Texas, and now continues in the dynamic startup landscape of Estonia.
At e-Residency, I developed social media and email marketing initiatives from strategy and copy to managing external advertising partners between 2019 and 2022. We had a strong team and through effective teamwork, we witnessed a great rise in e-residents, boosting Estonia’s tax revenue even during challenging times like COVID-19. My contributions included growing our email database and social media community through concept experimentations in social and email marketing.
At Roofit.Solar, I was the Content Lead. I developed an SEO strategy for English-speaking markets, oversaw a multi-national team of writers, and increased organic leads within eight months despite Google’s marketer-shocking updates at the time.
2. What are the key strategies you use for developing successful marketing campaigns? How do you determine which strategies are suitable for a particular market?
I wouldn’t say a “key strategy” but I have a flexible process for that. First things first – I do my homework. I make sure I have a good understanding of the product and its benefits, I map out the pain points of the target audience and then match them up with the product. Then comes the channels, the frequency and a list of resources – what we have in terms of financial and human resources, what we want to achieve and if those two, goals and resources match. For me, a good marketing strategy starts with insights and data and continues with creative intuition and previous lessons.
Each market has its own character. I map the buyer personas, add the cultural factor, take into account media consumption habits and consider localisation options depending on the market. And I list the potential communications risks. In some cases, timing is everything. Your product may be perfect for one market, but if you’re planning a launch and you have, say, a high-end B2C product or an expensive B2B solution, you may also want to consider the economic and political situation in that market at that particular time.
3. What is the role of women in the PR and marketing industry? What are the main challenges they face, and how can these be overcome?
I have met a lot of great women in my career, some of whom have been my mentors, and I hope there are, or will be, people who will say the same for me!
Early in my career, I worked in places where women were in leadership roles in PR and comms in general, but were generally expected to “play by the rules” or “be the go-between when guys were fighting over projects”. The stereotypes were still there. As time went on, I saw more and more women leaders emerging, creating their own unique way of doing things and doing amazing, inspiring work.
The main challenge I saw is no different from any other industry. People expect you to behave in a certain way. Again, stereotypes. Pantene had a great advert about this. When a man acts confidently, he is “the boss”. But if a woman does it, she is “bossy”. I think we should combine professionalism with authenticity and define our personal boundaries when communicating at work. The latter should actually be taught at school, regardless of the field!
4. How important are media articles for PR and marketing campaigns? How do you ensure their effectiveness and impact on the audience?
Depending on the context, whether it’s an announcement of a funding round or an advertorial, media articles can take a content strategy to new heights. They provide third-party validation, increase brand visibility and drive traffic to your website. To ensure their effectiveness, I focus on crafting compelling stories that align with the interests of the target audience and resonate with the media.
When working with external parties and PR agencies, I make sure that I share a detailed brief about the company, product or service and our objective so that our partners fully understand it. Managing the process with external partners – sharing relevant information with them, answering their questions in a timely manner, especially when announcing big news, working closely together, being clear about expectations and outcomes at the outset – also determines success in the end.
5. Your work at e-Residency involved creating content for various platforms. What specific aspects of working with e-Residency in Turkey would you highlight, and how did this influence your strategy?
At e-Residency, my work covered all markets. But when it came to Turkey, of course, as a native Turkish speaker, I did some additional work to help grow the community, such as localising some of the content in the separate Turkish e-Residents group, sending out emails about the webinar and relevant event announcements there in Turkish, and answering questions as much as I could.
There were already inspiring Turkish e-resident stories produced before my time there. I recycled the relevant ones and repurposed them on social media, because who better to talk about the benefits of the programme than those who were actually benefiting from it?
6. How do you adapt content strategies for different cultural and regional markets? Can you provide examples of successful campaigns in Turkey and Estonia?
When it comes to adaptation, sometimes translation and/or light localisation is enough. Sometimes we need to come up with a whole new content tactic and create a new piece. It all depends on the differences between our target audiences and markets. If we are talking about SEO, I’d rather focus on each market’s approach differently.
At Synctuition, an Estonia-based meditation app, I prepared an email flow for newsletter and app subscribers that linked each benefit of the app to a customer insight and shared testimonials. We saw a significant increase not only in the number of blog subscribers, but also in the number of active users. But what I would remember more as a longer term ‘success’ was hearing the feedback from management, “Finally Synctution has found its voice”, after reading the emails.
Another example of app marketing comes from Turkey. I developed the creative strategy and copy for BiSU, Turkey’s first water delivery app. The concept was the “tough busy life” that most of our target audience could relate to. We soon had over 6000 active users. I think the similarities between these two apps were, firstly, a focus on customer insight, both being clear about the problem they were trying to solve and having a unique brand voice. But would the same creative concept work in the other country? Not really.
7. What is most important to you when creating a creative strategy for a new brand or product? How do you approach developing and executing these concepts?
If we’re talking about a new brand, the first thing I’d ask is: Do we already have a brand or do we just have a product/service definition? I’d make sure we have a brand world, including character, tone of voice and visual world.
Speaking of creative strategy, a great strategist once told me that a good creative idea is hidden at the intersection of a product benefit, a cultural trend or wave of the time and the consumer insight.
When I map out the benefits of the product and the needs of the target audience in terms of this particular problem they’re trying to solve, I see where the two intersect. This tells me both what I need to create in terms of content and how I should do it. The ‘how’ here refers to the creative strategy. I make sure that the campaign concept brings a fresh perspective to the issue, makes people think, inspires them and ultimately changes their buying behaviour. Depending on the industry, the branding and awareness process can take a year, as in building automation, or a day or so, as in meditation apps.
In terms of execution, I make sure that our goals and resources are aligned and that we have a flexible but clear plan, including a plan B.
8. How do you measure the effectiveness of your marketing strategies and campaigns? What metrics are most important to you?
I set relevant metrics based on the campaign’s goals. For a PR campaign announcing an investment round, I’d initially focus on media coverage, social media mentions, and equivalent advertising value. Depending on the industry, I’d also track lead generation.
For organic social media campaigns, while vanity metrics like likes are helpful, I prioritize engagement and community growth. Depending on the business, I’d also aim to drive website traffic and generate leads.
Overall, I closely monitor ROI and CAC to measure the financial effectiveness of marketing efforts. For branding, I would of course track our NPS score as well.
9. What trends in content marketing do you consider most significant for the near future, and how might they impact your work?
Consumers tend to prefer video across many industries, so as cliché as it sounds, video is likely to remain an important part of the content mix, regardless of the business.
As marketers, learning how to get the most out of AI will leverage our efforts. Automating tasks and adding new skills with AI tools can indeed make our lives easier. Currently, I am experimenting with text-to-video platforms and automation tools.
Interactive content such as polls and quizzes, chatbots and virtual assistants are also likely to remain. So content needs to be designed for conversations and provide real value.
10. What advice would you give to companies just starting with digital marketing? How can they avoid common pitfalls and achieve success in the market?
Instead of trying to do everything at once, prioritise. You don’t need to run LinkedIn ads, create YouTube videos, write blog posts, organise webinars and redesign your website all at the same time, unless you have a large in-house marketing team and an external partner, and have a huge need to do all of this, somehow.
I understand the hustle and bustle of startups and how challenging the current economy can be. But in marketing, SEO projects and branding work take time to show results. Don’t expect 2-3 blog posts to drive crazy traffic and leads overnight.
Make sure your social media strategy reflects your broader goals. For example, let’s say you’ve made a shift towards B2B. Then your social media content should reflect this, rather than focusing on B2C messaging.
Especially in B2B tech companies, sales and marketing should work together. Strategies and tactics should be aligned.
If you’re the founder or a C-level manager of the company and don’t have a marketing background, consider hiring a dedicated marketer or outsourcing to an external partner, depending on your company’s resources. (And no, you wouldn’t be able to do the ‘marketing stuff’ even if you had the time! 🙂 Provide your marketing specialist or external partner with business insights and high-level goals to ensure alignment with other departments. Be prepared to answer a lot of questions. Good work requires lots of good questions – marketing works with input.
Make sure your goals and resources are realistic. While marketers often wear multiple hats, especially in startups, it’s crucial to avoid burnout. Prioritising and planning are key.
And most importantly, support and appreciate your marketing team! They’re working hard, and marketing can be challenging at times. 🙂
