"It's never been easier to attract customers".

WW: Customer acquisition in times of tight budgets is a hot topic. How do you win new customers when money is tight?

Probst: For us as translators, the challenge lies in understanding where and how we can add value for customers. I can sense this relatively quickly during a personal meeting. Recognizing the customer's needs is the most important thing of all, regardless of the economic situation. And then, of course, the Google Analytics tools help me to recognize where what works best and which actions deliver the desired return.

Z'graggen: Exactly, I've been involved in marketing controlling for 30 years and I think you have to try to measure the success of your activities as well as possible. This has long been neglected. Various tools, above all Google Analytics, now offer good and precise ways of finding out where activities are making a difference and where they are not. Mettler Toledo, for example, generates a considerable proportion of its leads thanks to online measures. The company once reduced its budget for search engine marketing as part of marketing savings and then realized one-to-one that this was having an impact on leads: All of a sudden, the company had fewer customer inquiries. You should never make savings where it hurts. And if you can already measure where you generate a lot of sales and leads, then you should shift your marketing expenditure there and save in other areas. Then you can get noticeably more out of it.
 

But not everything happens online. Many marketing measures take place offline. How do I measure their success?

Z'graggen: One of our customers was mentioned in a 3Sat program. And on the day the program was broadcast, there was a huge peak in hits on the company's website. This means that you can also measure quite well online what an offline measure has achieved. In addition, access and reactions that occur online can also be easily transferred to offline, as the target group does not react completely differently depending on the medium. So if an information text on a website is well read, you can assume that a brochure with a similar design will also work well with the same target group. But the key is to take a close look and not draw too simple conclusions. For example, one of our customers had an advertising medium that was placed with a picture of a man and a picture of a woman. On the Internet, the banner with the woman was clicked on much more frequently than the one with the man - but those who clicked on the banner with the man contacted the company much more frequently afterwards than those who were interested in the woman on the cover. All of this can be collected and analyzed today. And then you can and should focus your marketing measures accordingly.
 

An old sales saying goes that it is easier to keep existing customers than to win new ones. But isn't it also difficult to keep existing customers when money is tight? And how can I still do this?

Probst: For me, it is extremely important to maintain relationships. Performance and service are basic factors. They have to be right. Maintaining the relationship - and many companies underestimate this - means first and foremost addressing customers correctly. And so wording is key. I have to use the right language to reach my target group, and of course I have to know exactly who I want to address. Then I can target different channels with specially prepared information. An example: The bag manufacturer Freitag focuses on two target groups for a particular product: young people, e.g. students, and young-at-heart professionals who appreciate practical and cool bags. Both target groups are addressed with different wording and via different channels, the younger ones via social media, the older ones with classic advertising measures. Linguistic finesse is important to attract the relevant target group. For multilingual companies, it is therefore important that a translation is not simply made from the source language into the target language, but that the style and language habits of the target group are precisely matched. This not only makes it possible to interest new people in the brand, but above all to retain existing customers and keep drawing their attention to new products or additional information. For this to succeed, I have to analyze the data collected about the customers and use this data for a targeted approach.

Z'graggen: Another example of the importance of wording: One of our customers named a product completely differently internally than their customers did on the market. We found this out from the search queries on the Internet. So we adapted the wording and had a huge increase in inquiries. And if you look beyond the Swiss borders, you have completely different possibilities: In China, virtually all data about Internet users is collected; data protection is not as sacred there as it is here. If a person in China makes an online inquiry to one of my competitors, I can target this person with advertising. Depending on the country, there are different ways of working with the data collected on the Internet.
 

Keyword: Euro exchange rate - how do you increase your sales abroad under the current conditions?

Probst: Quite simply: through a consistent guarantee of quality, Swissness and, of course, accuracy. And we play these trump cards to the full. In other words, you have to think about the benefits of quality and for which target group. And the promise of quality must be kept, otherwise the customers you have gained will quickly disappear. Price wars should be avoided. Our production costs in Switzerland are higher than in the eurozone anyway. We should not fight against that. Instead, we recommend that companies with a focus on quality communicate quality and make it as tangible and comprehensible as possible.

Z'graggen: Let's take China as an example again: there is a large market for Swiss milk powder in China, even though milk powder is sold there at a higher price than here and the powder would be cheaper elsewhere. But because people have confidence in the product from Switzerland, the price is paid. Incidentally, it was possible to find out online that there is such a demand there ...
 

But how do I recognize the preferences of my - potential - customers and meet their needs with my messages?

Z'graggen: Looking and listening carefully is the most important thing. It's not about what I want to sell, but about what my customers want to buy. That's what I have to offer. The best way to find out what my customers want and need is to talk to existing customers directly. And with potential customers, you can evaluate inquiries and search terms and then try to match both with your service portfolio. Then you can approach interested parties in a targeted manner. Today, we have more data than ever before about customers and potential customers, and it has never been easier to target and acquire customers. However, these opportunities are not yet being used systematically.

Probst: If you want to win customers, you have to speak their language. So I have to listen carefully, identify keywords and use them. This applies to direct conversations as well as to texts in brochures or on the Internet: If you place the right keywords, you are already a big step ahead. After all, the first contact with a potential customer is all about whether they feel that I can offer them what they are looking for. If the right words are used, this feeling is quickly established. If not, they will go to the competition.

Interview: Anne-Friederike Heinrich