Marketing is something like witchcraft for those experiencing it from the outside. But those working in the field only wish it would be so easy. Marketing means preparing, studying, and knowing the culture and customers. But even with the best possible preparation, your campaign can fail. Today I will talk about marketing with an international professional in Finland, Brazilian Erika Pitanguy Prezoto, who prioritises working with marketing in an industry she strongly believes in – education.
For Erika marketing is the different tools, such as communication, design tactics, and different platforms through which you can educate people about the products or services and create a need for using them.
“To be honest, I didn’t choose to study marketing. It was the path that I naturally followed. I studied business at the university, and for some reason, coincidentally, all the internships and job opportunities I got during and after graduating were in marketing. So it came naturally. I started working in this area and it was interesting for me. Of course, I liked it, I saw the potential and started studying and taking small steps and certifications from there.”
Marketing professionals are to me like magicians, who can do their tricks, and magically the product or the service is being sold. Erika pointed out, that when doing a campaign a marketer needs to manage, improve, and optimize it 24 hours a day: “You must be always on track in order to reach your goals. Some campaigns run on weekends, some on holidays, but still you have to track them. This is the way how to improve things and make them work. My own experience comes also from campaigns that failed. We used a lot of budget and didn’t get the results we wanted.”
Knowing your customers and believing in the product you have been marketing will help to run a successful campaign. When marketers can visualise themselves as current or future target persona, they can better picture what their customers think and what they want. Such a product is easier to market, when professionals can put themselves in the customers’ shoes.
“For example, I don’t smoke and I don’t think it’s good for my health. I’m okay if people want to smoke. No problem with that. But for this reason, I could never work in the tobacco industry. I mean, how could I? How could I ever market a product I don’t like, and I would never buy myself? So, yes, I think it’s important to trust the product you market.”
Being ethical is crucial in marketing. But what being ethical means, depends on the context within which you operate. Erika worked in South and North America, as well as in Europe and she concludes: “What is ethical, for example, here in Europe may be different from what is ethical in South America, or even in North America, where I also had the opportunity to work. Every region has its own principles and laws that must be followed. Some countries are more flexible. And in some regions like here in Europe, you have this GDPR that you have to follow concerning privacy. You have to be careful when doing marketing towards children, etc. So it’s like a pack, I would say, of both values, but also of different laws that that you have to follow.”
Being ethical is important because marketing can be a powerful tool, that can even become dangerous. In companies, there may be a psychologist part of the marketing team and they help with the marketing strategy. Marketing can influence people’s thinking, and behaviour and manipulate the outcome. Erika stressed that the personal values and beliefs of the marketer are crucial.
Another crucial thing in marketing is to know your target group: “First of all, you have to know your customers and follow them where they are. Another thing is, what do you want to achieve through the campaign? Are you trying to sell something? Are you trying to create awareness about, for example, a new product or a new service? You have to choose different platforms accordingly. I would say it all depends on where your customers are and what is your main objective through the campaign. That would define design and other features as well.”
Understanding cultural differences is also extremely important in marketing: “And even in the same country, you have to localize. If you market something to California, it’s completely different to market to Alaska or Miami. It’s very very important. Usually, companies that do not do that fail and lose money.” Erika adds that you (or at least someone within the marketing teams) have to understand the cultural specifications and speak the local language or languages. How possible is it then for foreigners to work in the marketing field in Finland?
“It’s the first time in my life that I live in a country where I don’t speak fluently the local language. Like all other countries where I lived and worked in marketing, I spoke the language either natively or fluently – Portuguese and English. Of course, it’s hard if you don’t speak the language. It’s never easy to start from zero in a foreign country. But I wouldn’t say it’s difficult only in Finland. When I lived in Portugal, Brazil, and the US, If you didn’t speak the language you wouldn’t get a job in marketing as well. Marketing is purely communication. You need to not only speak the language but to understand the culture very well. And the truth is, to be able to understand very well the culture, you need to speak the language. So it’s hard. It’s not impossible, especially if you are open to work e.g. in the gaming industry or tech startups, but it’s hard.”
We discussed with Erika various projects and campaigns she has been involved in, but I was also curious what was the one she liked the most?
“When I was in Portugal, in Lisbon, I worked for this non-profit organisation called Open Mind Tutors. It was a tutoring platform where we matched tutors with students in the U.K. When I joined them, they had absolutely nothing. They had like five people and they didn’t even have the website yet. They had zero communication strategies. All they had was a bunch of impossible goals to achieve and some really great ideas. It was a wonderful project to work on because I helped them to grow and I grew with them as well. When I left the organisation, many years later, we had a beautiful website with lots of users, both tutors and students. I saw the company’s growth and I helped them to build it from zero. I learned a lot. I would say that it was where I learned the most in my life. That’s why it was my favourite. I also had a lot of independence and autonomy to do whatever I wanted to try.”
Erika currently works as a mentor in an online school and she studies Social Services at the University of Applied Sciences. As she explained to me, she has been applying in Finland mostly to the educational and non-governmental sectors. She is very particular regarding her values, and the gaming sector or tobacco are just not her things to market.
“I have seen that many of the marketing professionals or even other kinds of professionals that work in the education industry have social services background as well. I thought that going to school again would be a plus in my curriculum and I also would have one more degree. Education has made all the difference in my life and opened doors for me. Furthermore, here in Finland, it’s amazing that you don’t need to pay to study. That’s why I decided to go to school and to give it a try.”
Erika’s studies are in progress and talking about her professional future might be a bit premature. But I did not resist. How does she picture her future? Would she prefer to work in the social field, or marketing, or combine them somehow together?
“At this moment in my life, I picture myself as combining them both. But who knows? Maybe I will just fall in love with some specific social work. I mean, business is something you could apply in everything you do. Not to mention marketing… Knowing how to communicate and how to sell anything will definitely help me to be a good social worker in the future. So yeah, I picture myself working in both of them, as you said. But let’s see what happens, maybe I change my mind. My heart and mind are always open to good opportunities. You never know.”
Who is Erika Pitanguy Prezoto?
Erika was born in Brazil and is currently living in Finland with her family.
A business professional with a versatile background, having worked for schools, non-profits, government, and large technology companies.
She is passionate about education and travelling.
photo by: Erika Pitanguy Prezoto
