Norway Market Entry: What Every B2B Leader Needs to Know. With Andreas Thue, Founder & Creative Director at Iteo

Looking at expanding into Norway? Wondering how to build trust and succeed in one of Europe’s most digital-savvy markets?In this episode of the Value-driven Marketing Podcast, Elena Iordache-Stoica speaks with Andreas Thue, Founder and Creative Director of Iteo, Norway’s top B2B marketing agency. With 25 years of experience and clients like IBM, Dell, Salesforce, and Emirates, Andreas explains how to navigate Norwegian business culture and earn credibility.What you’ll learn in this episode:Why Norwegian culture values consensus, openness, and directness.How compliance, sustainability, and GDPR shape decision-making.The role of local presence, references, and trust in winning deals.What deal-breakers to avoid (hint: aggressive sales won’t work here).Why quality and reliability trump “cheap” market entry strategies.We also discuss how companies like Tesla built strong local presence and became trusted brands in Norway.If your company is considering market expansion into Norway, this conversation will help you get started on the right foot.

Thinking about expanding into Germany? Before you make your move, you need to understand the culture, mindset, and business expectations that shape success in this market.Elena is joined by Dennis Güth, Chief Growth Officer at wob, one of the leading B2B agencies in the DACH region. They delve into the cultural nuances, decision-making processes, and the importance of trust and localization. Dennis shares valuable insights on how businesses can successfully penetrate the German market by focusing on substance first and building long-term relationships. Tune in to learn about the strategies that can make or break a deal in Germany and how to navigate this unique business landscape.What you’ll learn in this episode:Key cultural aspects of doing business in Germany.Why trust, precision, and reliability matter more than flashy pitches.How to avoid common deal breakers when approaching German enterprises.The importance of localization, from websites to pitch decks.Practical steps for building credibility and securing long-term partnerships.If your company is considering expansion into Germany, this conversation is packed with practical insights you don’t want to miss.

Social selling is a term that is being thrown around a lot these days, but for most companies, it means sending automated connection requests over LinkedIn followed by “me, me” messages.  My guest Claudiu Jojatu, CEO and co-founder of Milk & Cookies Studio has a different take on what social selling done right looks like. For Claudiu, social selling with zero BS means doing high-quality networking and getting involved in building long-term relationships. Is social selling effective? Well, Claudiu and his team managed to generate over 1 million EUR in pipeline for one of their tech clients in a little over 9 months.  If you’d like to learn more about how Milk & Cookies Studio approaches social selling, hit play. If you’d like to connect with Claudiu, find him on LinkedIn and on milkandcookies.studio Bonus:  Download for free this 30+ pages #NoBS social selling guide.

Companies often look at outbound sales as a quick fix for bringing in revenue. But sales is not about charm, and revenue is not about luck. If your company doesn't have a revenue strategy in place that starts with understanding your customer needs, your competitors, defining the right pricing strategy and channels, you're most likely to end up complaining that outbound sales are "dead". I sat down with Liana and Gabriela of SavoireFair and explored what running outbound sales the right way looks like today in B2B. Tune in to learn: What B2B outbound done right looks like today How to build a solid outbound strategy Mistakes to avoid, what you can automate in your outreach process, realistic expectations, and much more Gabriela Turcu and Liana Stoica are the founders of SavoireFaire, a Boutique consultancy helping B2B startups and scale-ups build global sales engines. You can find more about their process and philosophy on their website www.savoirefair.com or connect with Liana and Gabriela on LinkedIn.

Paid media can be a great acquisition channel, but many B2B startups or SMEs start on the wrong foot. In this episode, I chat with Andrea Todorova and Niko Dovidija, co-founders of Diligent Studios, a B2B marketing agency specialized on strategy - first performance marketing. Tune in to learn: What are the top mistakes B2B startups and SMEs make when it comes to paid media and how to address them What is Diligent Studios’ framework for strategic performance marketing and how it adds value to their clients How to think about selecting the right paid channels How to approach testing new channels What do best-performing B2B ad campaigns have in common If you want to know more about my guests, you can find and connect with Andrea and Niko on Linkedin or find out more about Diligent Studios on their website. #b2bmarketing #paidmedia #valuedrivenmarketing

Stacey Danheiser, Founder and CMO of Shake Marketing joins episode #15 to talk about why many B2B marketers today lack credibility in front of their leadership team, and how they can turn this situation around and deliver more business impact. Stacey shares insights from her career of over 20 years as a marketing leader and strategist, talking about what leadership expects from marketing and how you can become an effective and reputable marketing leader. Some of the ideas we touched on: Why marketers lack credibility in many companies What do CEOs and leadership expect from marketing? What are the 3 traits of an effective marketing leader today? The different ways marketers sabotage themselves in the workplace and how to change that You can find Stacey on Linkedin or on her website www.shakemktg.com. Bonus: check out Stacey’ Scorecard “The Confident Marketer Scorecard”.

Can you create a better experience for B2B buyers with website personalization? And if so, what are the different ways in which you can leverage web personalization to help your website visitors without being intrusive? How can you, as a B2B marketer get started, and what mistakes should you avoid on your website? In this episode, I talk about web personalization with Eric Melchor, Personalization Ambassador at OptiMonk and host of Innovators can Laugh podcast. Eric talks about how OptiMonk tapped into the B2B space, why B2B brands need to focus on building long-term relationships rather than increasing conversions short-term and how web personalization enables B2B marketers get there, how a SaaS brand increased web conversions by 20% with a simple reminder notification & more. If you want to follow Eric’s content, listen to his podcast on Spotify/Apple or follow him on Linkedin. Check out the resource Eric recommends: optimonk.com/customer-value-optimization-guide

B2B buying doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a sequence of events that impact a decision long before people reach out to your sales team. How well do you understand what triggers buyers to take action? What influences their decisions, what makes them trust you? Who ends up on their short list of vendors, and how do they make the final decision? If you don’t know how people make buying decisions, it will be very difficult to influence them through your marketing. In episode #13, I talk to Ryan Paul Gibson of contentlift.io about running customer research interviews that don’t suck. We talk about: What running investigative customer interviews entails How to prepare for a customer interview, so you make the most of it How to uncover behaviors instead of opinions How to use the learnings in your marketing Find Ryan on LinkedIn or on his website contentlift.io.

We need to change how we do marketing today because focusing purely on customer acquisition is becoming increasingly expensive, and it’s not sustainable long-term. Instead, we need to view marketing as a holistic way of growing a company throughout the entire customer journey: from acquisition to activation, retention, and expansion. But to get there, we need to challenge how most companies and leaders think about marketing, step away from trying to measure and attribute everything and have marketing and sales compete for resources and recognition. My guest Jennifer Montague shares her vision of what marketing’s role in a company should be and how she’s building that vision at IoT start-up Onomondo. Listen to the episode to discover: How Jennifer came to view marketing as holistic growth, and what has led her to this vision How you can get started in realigning marketing to have a holistic impact across the customer's journey How Jennifer thinks about roles and skills in the growth team How Onomondo will grow in the next 2-3 years, and what marketing levers they are pulling to get there

Confused prospects don’t buy. And when you are trying to say everything about your product or service all at once, you’re creating just that: confusion. This is where messaging strategy comes into play: it helps you identify the most essential things about your product or service and why that matters to your audience. So your company is remembered for the right things and cut through the noise. In this episode, I had the pleasure of chatting to Diane Wiredu of Lion Words about messaging strategy in B2B. Listen to the episode if you’re curious to learn: Why messaging strategy matters and how to know if you need to work on your messaging What good messaging sounds like The 4-steps process Diane uses for building effective messaging How to prevent yourself from sounding like every other company out there How to test your messaging Bonus: find out what jobs Diane wanted to have as she grew up You can follow Diane on LinkedIn or learn more about her messaging strategy & consulting work on her website lionwords.com.