It is interesting to see the difference between digital marketing in Russia and Finland from the point of view of a Russian expatriate now living in Finland. The main difference is that on the Russian market is much more competition and noise. Russian companies are constantly generating content, engaging and communicating with customers. The Finnish markets are, in a way, quieter and simpler by comparison.
What Russians are expecting to see? What are the things we can learn from the Russian market?
Let’s go directly to the topic!
Interaction and engagement content
Russian people are super active on social media, they actively respond and participate in content that reflects their values and interests. Engagement is the key aim in Russian SOME; it can be determined by the followers activity, for example: amount of likes, comments, reposts, saved posts, etc. The reason why companies invest so much in content production – followers who actively and regularly engage with content become much more loyal towards a brand, which leads to higher sales.
Types of engagement content that is commonly used:
- Contests
- Games
- Questionnaires
- Open questions
- Motion design
- Videos
- Funny content
Trends in video content:
- Practical videos «How to»
- Subtitles. Many people prefer to watch videos without sound – subtitles give an extra incentive to stick to it, ramping up the view count.
- Ecology and environment topics
- Storytelling, life experiences
- Live content (stories or IGTV format)
Types of texts that customers especially engage with:
- Useful lists: good films, places to visit, products to try etc
- Advice based on personal experience
- Feelings and experiences of people
- Information about discounts and offers
- Instructions, «how to», reviews
- Funny stories, stories from life
Instant messengers instead of emails
Email marketing in Russia is taking a new place – messengers. People open push-notifications from messengers more frequently than emails. Companies started to use email-marketing tools in instant messengers such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Vkontakte Messenger. Marketers started to focus on creating sales funnels via messengers. People that subscribe to messengers are considered to be the most loyal to that brand.
Online education
Online education in Russia became a huge trend during the last 2 years. Both individuals and companies started to develop their own online courses and sell them through social media. Online courses, guides, instructions, webinars, marathons, challenges, workshops, workbooks and so on. Experts, bloggers, entrepreneurs, photographers, designers, phycologists, copywriters are developing their own online courses. The competition is huge! Basically each profession, especially freelance professions are available to study online. By the end of 2019 the educational market in Russia hit 40 billion rubles and is expected to grow by 60 billions in 2023.
To sum up, It is important to know what kind of marketing practices are used in Russia in order to communicate with customers more effectively. As a result it would be easier to attract and keep target audiences, that would be loyal towards the brand and potentially will use services or products of a company.