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Unlocking Global Markets: Mastering Digital Client Acquisition with Chris and Arun from the Samera Group

• Arun Mehra

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Unlock the secrets to conquering international markets as we explore the art of global client acquisition with Chris, the marketing maestro from the Samera Group. Discover how embracing digital marketing strategies, especially pay-per-click advertising, can put your brand on the international map. Chris shares how PPC offers immediate visibility and builds crucial brand recognition, turning cold leads into warm prospects. We also discuss the potent use of platforms like Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook to target specific audiences, crafting a marketing funnel that is both strategic and effective.

Building a solid online presence is no longer optional—it's a necessity. We unravel the importance of having a region-specific domain name and the essential elements of web development and SEO to establish authority and trust. Chris provides insights into creating educational content that resonates across platforms, forging multiple touch points to enhance brand recognition without the need for traditional methods like cold calling. Learn why focusing on excellent service and genuine value trumps competing on price and how strategic online marketing and content creation can yield the best return on investment.

Speaker 1:

Okay, sorry. Hello everybody, it's Arun here, and today we've got technology problems. I've got Chris joined with me here, though. Here and uh, today we've got technology problems. I've got chris joined with me here, though. So, um, we are going to be talking about how to get international clients. Just bear with me everyone. So we're just adding people as we go here. Uh, hopefully this works. No, the joys of technology never work, but let's do it anyway. Right, let's crack on. So how I get international clients? Right, chris, who are you? Explain to everybody what you do, where you come from.

Speaker 2:

I am the head of marketing for the Samara Group. I've been here for six years about and, yeah, it's essentially my job to get us the international clients.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely, and Chris has got a wealth of experience. So, talking about getting clients, let's cut to the chase. Let's go to the topic we're trying to talk about today what we want to get done. How do we get them? What do we do?

Speaker 2:

Well, there's a few things you can do. There's probably three main ones I would say work the best. The first one is probably the easiest and quickest would be pay-per-click. First one is probably the easiest and quickest would be pay-per-click. So you pay for Google ads, linkedin ads, even Facebook ads or Bing, and you can get your name in front of people wherever you want in the world pretty much immediately. The only problem is obviously you have to pay for that.

Speaker 2:

So if anyone doesn't know the way pay-per-click works is essentially an auction. There's usually about three results at the top of a Google search and you're bidding against everyone else trying to get that keyword. So if you're trying to get find an accountant in London, let's say, as your Google search keyword, then you're bidding against all the other companies that are running ads for that keyword and it's not always the case that just the person who pays the most gets to the top. But that's essentially how it works. There's other factors involved, but the more you pay, the more you'll be seen. So it can be really quick, really easy, really straightforward, but it can be quite expensive. Depending on how many other people are in that sphere and how much they're paying, it can be really really cheap.

Speaker 1:

But it can be really really expensive um okay, so we've now we've been doing pay-per-click for I've been doing about 20 years, I think. Right from the beginning we did it for our clients in dentists, uk clients trying to get that, uk clients and now we're doing it for global clients. Here we use linkedin, we're using google pay-per-click, we put adverts out and, as you said, it can rack up money expenditure quite quickly. But if you're very specific about what you're trying to target, it can be really, really good. So, from on the google side of things, obviously you target certain keywords, specific keywords or keyword combinations, and then, as you said, google will put you higher up the list on linkedin and facebook. It might not be keywords you're targeting, it might be actual demographics of people that you're targeting. So I might be looking for accountancy firm owners in the london area. Okay, so I can get that kind of demographic and then target those types of people on LinkedIn and they'll see the adverts.

Speaker 1:

Now, will that take some time and effort? Yeah, of course it will. And do people straight away click and buy? Of course they don't. Okay, but it's a factor in building that trust up in trying to market your firm, market your business, and that I think it's a really important thing. It's trust. Um, because as an accountancy firm, if you're trying to do offshore and trying to do outsourcing, how trying to get our international clients is trust. That's what people want to hear that you're, or see that you're a trustworthy organization. So pay-per-click is one strategy, okay, so what other strategies have we got, chris, up our sleeve?

Speaker 2:

Before I go on to the second one, I just want to add to that. You're right, trust is everything in marketing. And the first step towards trust is them hearing about you. And again, the easiest way for that is pay-per-click. So we don't do it a huge amount. But if you're entering a sphere, an industry, a region for the first time, the easiest way is to get some even cheap Google ads, because then they'll at least hear about you. And then the next time they hear about you in the second step I'm going to talk about, you won't be brand new to them. They'll be like oh, I know that name, I saw it somewhere or other, so they must be your name in the sphere. And the other way is search engine optimization, SEO.

Speaker 1:

Well, let me just go back, actually, before we come on to that actually. So, on that pay-per-click side of things, I think you're spot on. It's a great way to get yourself known in a market relatively quickly, even, as you said, it might just be a little bit of exposure but say, oh, okay, oh, it's Samara or it's Aaron or whoever. What are you trying to do? They'll say, okay, that face, and this is all about getting you're in a funnel. Ultimately You're trying to. You've got a funnel coming narrow and ultimately you've got people at the top of the funnel thinking who are cold leads, who are thinking seeing you for the first time on LinkedIn or Facebook or Instagram or Google or whatever, and they're coming into the funnel.

Speaker 1:

But eventually, hopefully, as they go down the funnel, you're building trust with them because they'll see you in other mediums as Chris is going to come on to in a minute and eventually come down to the bottom of the funnel. And not all of those people who came in at the top will ultimately buy something from you or become a customer of you, but hopefully they've gone far enough down the funnel to feel you know what. I trust these guys. I'm gonna call them and hopefully do some business with them, and that's that's the key to this whole thing is getting people. A whole bunch you might have a thousand people in the funnel but eventually narrows down to two people at the bottom who actually buys. Okay, so, and it's moving it up, moving them down the funnel in a trustworthy, uh, a way to do this.

Speaker 2:

Um, so sorry, chris, you're going to go on and again, just to add to that, um, what we call that a touch points. So the first time I see google ads, that's their first touch point. It's the first time they touch your uh brand. Then the next time maybe they see one of your blogs or a webinar that's another touch point. Then maybe they go onto your website that's another one. And obviously it completely depends, but they used to say the average is like five or six touch points before someone will buy from you, whether that be a product or a service, because you very rarely go on Google search for something and just buy from the first place. You see, you either buy from somewhere you've already heard about, so you've already had those touch points or you find someone that you like the look of, so you look a little bit on their website, you check out their social media, you look at their Google reviews. But if you did each of them, that'd be four touchpoints and then you'll buy from them. So you want to give people as many of these touchpoint possibilities as you can.

Speaker 2:

And the next one is probably the one we specialize in, as certainly the one I specialize in is search engine optimization. Um, now, this one, unlike pay-per-click, is free to an extent. Obviously, you have to get someone to do it unless you do it yourself. Um, but you don't have to pay straight up for it like you would with an ad. Um, but it is the one that takes the most amount of time and effort, but it can be the one that um is the most useful and most effective, because you get to, hopefully, the top of google, or at least on the front page, and if you do it properly, you'll stay there, whereas but before you go on to that, chris, obviously search engine optimization is dependent on the website, correct?

Speaker 1:

oh, of course yeah so let's, let's even cut to the basics. Um, so yeah, what is the key to the website?

Speaker 2:

yeah, if you look for international clients, you're probably going to have to build a website for that region, um. So if you are looking to enter the uk market, you're going to need a couk website or a com website. I don't think I've ever seen a website that wasn't couk or com ranking in the UK, same with America. If you're trying to enter the American market, you're going to need a com website. Our couk website does I mean our dental practice websites rank there. Our UK accountancy website ranks there. Our com Samara Global website ranks there. But it's a lot easier to do that with a com website. So if you're in whatever region you're entering, you're going to need a website for that region. Otherwise, it's going to be so much harder to even appear in Google at all without that region's domain. So that's the first thing you need to do. Um. Now, when it comes to websites, what we well, what I always uh recommend is there are certain things you can do yourself and there are certain things you need to outsource. So pay per click you can do yourself. It's really really easy seo if you take the time to learn about it. You can do yourself, um, or you can outsource it. That's always useful. Just make sure you've got someone who knows what they're doing Websites. Don't do yourself, don't get a mate to do it or a family member who's good at computers.

Speaker 2:

You need to get a professional developer to build your website because there's so much going on with it. So it needs to be stable, it needs to be quick, it needs to be stable, needs to be quick, needs to be built for mobile. It needs to be, again, on the right domain region-wise. So, yeah, we can go into how to build a website and what it needs, but honestly, that's one you need to outsource or get someone in-house to do it. But either way, you need a professional developer, not yourself, or a template you find online, or a friend or family member. This is something you need to professional developer, not yourself, or a template you find online, or, um, a friend or family member. It really this is something you need to invest in. It's not a cost, it's an investment, um. But yeah, the basics are fast, stable, um, well structured, secure and mobile friendly or mobile thirst, so it needs to be and use, and use and use, and the user experience has to be really good as well.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, yeah, the user journey and use experience are hugely important. So it needs to be and use and use and use and the user experience has to be really good as well. Exactly, yeah, the user journey news experience are hugely important. Um, it needs to be easy for someone to use. It needs to look good.

Speaker 2:

That sounds really straightforward and obvious, but you'd be surprised how many websites not just that we see. But next time you're on google, have a look at it and you'll think, well, why is that? Is that there? That should be over here. And this menu is a little bit complicated.

Speaker 2:

And all those things a few years ago weren't as important, because Google's algorithm couldn't really pick that up. It just knew it used a bounce rate. Essentially, it knew people landed on your website, they got bored or they got confused and they left. But now Google's AI algorithms for SEO is so good it kind of knows how good your website is and it'll mark it accordingly pretty much straight away, so that's become really, really, really important. So, yeah, websites outsource it. Then SEO is essentially making sure your content and your website is good enough to rank highly on google or bing or, um, any other uh browser. But everyone uses google, so that's what we're going to talk about um and there's so much to talk about with seo I could honestly talk about it all week, um but the basics are you want to um content and you need that content to perform a certain function. So what you really want to do is teach people, because if you're just trying to inform in the sense of I don't know how do I do a tax return, chatgpt, gemini these things can answer that probably better than you can, and not just that other, but websites will use chatting between jeb and I to produce that content.

Speaker 2:

So content is becoming a little bit different because ai is just swamping the market with it. So you need to add extra things. Um, and what that means is you need to add um expert opinion and expertise, authority trust. In SEO it's known as EEAT. You can't just have a blog saying how to do a tax return, how to perform payroll. You need to have stats figures, because that's something that chat between AI doesn't really do at the moment. It doesn't really back up its opinions for want of a better word with much data, and that's something you can do. You need to have like bibliography reference things, but also have your qualifications on there. Have other experts in the industry on your blog, your podcast, your webinars.

Speaker 2:

You need to really show your audience, and therefore google, that you know what you're talking about. You didn't just get your content from, uh, an ai source or you didn't just spend a couple of hours researching and through something together in a thousand words. So you need to really help people, because a few years ago, google brought in what was called the helpful content update, which meant that it started ranking content that was genuinely helpful to the user, not just content written for seo purposes, with a thousand words and the right keywords on it, made to look good, and that'll rank. That won't work anymore. A few years ago, yeah, do that and you'll rank um quite easily, but that doesn't work anymore. You need to help people genuinely. You need to really make things easy for them. You need to give them added value essentially.

Speaker 2:

So it has become a lot harder to rank in terms of content for SEO, which is why other things like social media has become a big thing, and what I don't mean is become a big thing, and what I mean I don't mean it's become a big thing recently. I mean in SEO. A few years ago, you could just ignore social media and it wouldn't matter. It wouldn't affect your Google rankings, but it will now because Google is sort of turning SEO from search engine optimization to brand optimization. And one of the best ways to get your brand out there, to get mentions of in other places on the um internet, to get followers interaction um, is through social media. So that's not just facebook and instagram and linkedin, that's things like podcasts, um, so spotify and um that kind of thing. They count well.

Speaker 1:

And also things like YouTube as well. Remember, Google owns YouTube. Okay, If you're adding videos and doing some great videos on YouTube, that will only help your search because they're linked together.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, one of the things that quite nicely illustrates this is a few years ago, one of the biggest things in SEO were backlinks. So when another website links back to you, that was good SEO. So people would basically go on things like Yelp and Yellow Pages and just list their business on local directories and online directories and do that 100 times and you get 100 backlinks. But Google doesn't really care about that anymore because anyone can do that. What it wants is brand mentions, and I don't know if the algorithm is starting to count unlinked brand mentions yet, but it is certainly going to. So, eventually, being on someone's podcast, even if they don't link to your website, having your name, your brand, your website, your business mentioned, google will pick that up.

Speaker 2:

Um, and that kind of brings me on to the third thing I was going to talk about, which is um networking. So one of the best ways to get into a new industry is to link up, to connect to network with people who already exist in that sphere. Um, so you don't, you shouldn't be thinking of people as competitors. Really, they're opportunities. So, even just in terms of SEO, forget lead generation, lead conversion, for a second, if you can get onto other accountancy or accountants, or finance podcasts, blogs, or finance podcasts, blogs, webinars that's brilliant for you.

Speaker 2:

Again, you might consider them a competition, but it's more networking and it's brand reach and spreading your brands. That's kind of what this is all about. Whether it's pay-per-click, seo or networking, um, you're spreading your brand. That's kind of what um, seo and marketing is all boiling down to, because things like pay-per-click and seo, anyone can do, anyone can get good at, but a bad brand is less likely to spread than a good brand, especially when you use things like social proof, like reviews, other people in the sphere trusting you enough to have you on their podcast. So that's kind of what marketing is becoming spreading brands.

Speaker 1:

And I think now, if you look at what people who may be watching this, who will watch it in the future, future, they want to get international clients. So it's it's not a matter of kind of cold calling email, cold calling this is. This is a professional industry. It's a matter of building that trust, as I said right at the beginning. And how do you build trust? You build trust by getting mentions in other press, other other podcasts, what you have a good content, reliable educational content going out on youtube or other channels um, that's what people want and that's what international clients want. Okay, because that's how you're going to build your client base, because they say, oh, it's you again. Oh, he was talking about this or she was talking about that. It's that trust and I think that's where many people go wrong. In addition, as chris was saying, networking now, obviously you can network on places like linkedin, um, to some extent, but nothing beats meeting people face to face. Okay, however, a big however.

Speaker 1:

I know lots of people do come, maybe to do exhibitions in america or uk or stuff, and it's a costly exercise and you have to think is it actually worth it? Okay, um, more, probably a better way maybe to, um, kind of maybe attend events and network, as opposed to spending tens of thousands of pounds on actually having an exhibition stand in these places. Um, I've done, I've done everything. To be honest, myself, I've done exhibition stands, and I look at the the return on investment. It's probably not the best. What best return I've had?

Speaker 1:

Okay, where I get my best return is definitely online. So education content, educational content, youtube articles, blog posts, videos, newsletters, that type of thing Okay, and I think that will be your best return on investment as opposed to spending. Like an exhibition stand at an event in London might cost you easily like 10 to 15,000 pounds, okay, and so you need to get a good few clients to cover that, and hopefully you might even get one who would cover that. But sometimes it's quite hard even just to get one client, okay, so you've got to look at are they the best avenues for you? So any other points to add, chris, from your thought?

Speaker 2:

on the topic of uh um stands at conventions I was going to mention. That kind of really nicely illustrates the um uh touch point idea. Because if you think about the last time you were at a convention, um, and you walked past, uh, how many stands did you walk past that you'd never heard of and it didn't even occur to you to go talk to them. But as soon as you see one that you've heard of before, even if you don't go talk to him, you think oh, it's them, I know them, so you might stop, and even if you just pause, that's enough really um, it might do.

Speaker 1:

I agree with you, but I think sometimes and you're right it's just working out. Is that the place you want people to pause?

Speaker 2:

that's just to illustrate the um touch points. And getting your name out there and getting your name heard of correct at least once is enough of a touch point to make people pause. Um, if they never heard of you, they're just gonna. They probably won't even think twice like, okay, someone I've never heard of, another person. I've heard another person I've heard of. If they've seen you, even it's just a google ad. But if they've seen you on social media, if they've heard of a website they saw you on a podcast, or heard of you on a podcast, or saw your name somewhere yeah, they're more likely to stop and go.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I know those guys, I've heard of them before and they're far more likely to then come and talk to you and that applies all over marketing, whether that be. They stumble across your website and they've never heard of you. They're just gonna blindly scroll past it. But if they've heard of you before, they might stop and go. I've heard of these guys before. Let me just see what they're doing I think you're right.

Speaker 1:

I think you're right. It's that touch point and you and you've got to be good at what make you. I think that the danger is with exhibitions, you can have those touch points, but that's a very expensive touch point and will you get the return, whereas, okay, I appreciate it takes effort to create a video, it takes effort to write an article, it takes effort, but that can be much more cost effective and a better ROI for you. Okay, combine that with some Google ads or pay-per-click ads. I think that is much better and that's kind of honestly, where I'm putting all my efforts in going forward. I've committed to a few exhibitions over the years and we've got another one coming up soon, but I think where I had my best ROI has always been through content generation, content creation, because people get to know your personality, they watch your video, they read your articles. They get to say, well, I'm aligned with him or I'm aligned with her, I like that what they're saying, I'm going to call them up. So I think those are kind of the ways that you need to start thinking about.

Speaker 1:

If you're going to get international clients, if you'll get people, who's going to trust you? Um, people aren't, or international clients aren't looking for cheap. They're looking for good value. Okay, but they're not looking for cheap. They're looking for good value and excellent service. And the danger is, if you try and price yourself too cheap, you won't be able to offer a good service because you won't attract the right talent, which then has a knock-on effect on what you deliver and then has a knock-on effect on on the business overall. So trying to be the cheapest is never really a good option. Trying to offer a great service and charge appropriately for it so you still make a decent return is the right way forward.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so, yeah, it's a really good point. Yeah, so I think what we've done covered today. I know we kept this webinar relatively short, over just over 20 minutes, um, but in summary, in my mind actually, chris, why don't you go first? In summary, if you had to summarize what we've discussed today, what are the most important things? If they, if someone wants to go and get international clients, if they're, say, based in india, they want to get clients what would be your top three tips?

Speaker 2:

my top three tips would be start off with some pay-per-click ads again, just to get that first touch point out there, whether people don't click on your ads you kind of don't want them to because then it doesn't cost you anything, um, but it's just get your name in front of people's faces for the first time so that when they see your website, your services, it's not the first time they've ever heard of you. They've already heard of you, they've already seen your name. They go oh yeah, I know these guys because subconsciously they'll assume you must be, um, at least a player in the sphere, because they've heard of you before, it's not the first time. Then either learn about seo or get someone in who's good at seo and get working on your content, um, whether that be blogs, articles, courses, podcasts or just your service pages. Um, you want to get as high in Google as possible and it might be worth getting someone.

Speaker 2:

So, if you're trying to enter the UK market, get a UK SEO person, just because they're going to know certain things about the culture, about the language, about just the nuances of that region. That will help you hugely. And then get your name out there. Network with people, get on blogs, get on podcasts um talk to people, get um find out if you can uh set referral things or um uh cooperative work, any anything to get your name out there, because this is all about brand awareness. Nowadays, it's not just about website or it's not just about seo, it's not.

Speaker 1:

All of this is now part of brand awareness yeah, but I think brand awareness like I was at an event the other night, an awards evening here in london, and people spend thousands of pounds just to be, have a table or show their brand or sponsor the event is it. I think what we're seeing is it's a very crowded place, okay, and can you, is it? Is that money you're putting into that? I know people have to spend more money just to be seen at these events, for instance, or evenings, and you wonder do is it actually? Do you actually get the return on that?

Speaker 1:

Whereas the beauty, the beauty of online is that you can measure, monitor, see returns, see if things are working or not working, pretty immediately at a relatively kind of low cost, and that's where I would, nine times out of 10, put my money into. Of course, there are certain offline things we may do, but historically, the last 20 odd years working in the financial and accounting industry has taught me that you know what. Just focus online. If you do that, if you dominate online, you'll dominate offline as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, when I say networking and connecting, I largely mean online, especially if you're trying to enter a different country, mainly just because it's easier to you. Don't have to travel. Yeah, absolutely, it's a lot easier to do yeah, a lot easier, a lot cheaper, and your reach will be bigger Sure.

Speaker 1:

At some point in the future, you might want to host your own events in country or do something, and that could be a good idea, Whereas if you've got some following and say, actually I'm going to do an event in London or New York or wherever, and that's a very good idea, but only once you've got some following and you've got some traction behind it Once they've had those 5, 6, 10, 15 touch points online, because they've seen and interacted with your content.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but yeah, okay. Well, thank you Chris. I thought we kept it relatively short. I hope people got some ideas of what we do, how we get international clients. Ultimately, it's about taking that step and trying these things, and we'll go into more detailed strategies kind of later on and further in the webinar series. In addition, we have the event we've got in Delhi in December in Gurgaon at the Samara Global Summit, where we'll be going into more detail specifics around how to do videos, how to do blog posts, how to write articles, how to do a newsletter, all these types of things. So if that's of interest, please do come and join us there as well.

Speaker 2:

And we'll also be launching a new course in January on how to market an accountancy firm.

Speaker 1:

Correct, correct, perfect, absolutely Okay. Well, thank you. Thanks, chris, and I hope people found that useful and please do watch the recording if you didn't manage to get to attend this today. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much, cheers Bye.