Register for Napier’s webinar, and discover actionable strategies for European B2B tech companies that want to connect with prospects and engage key decision-makers in Japan.
This webinar features guest speaker Shoko Maki, the CEO of ISB Marketing, a B2B marketing agency based in Tokyo that specializes in helping high-tech enterprises. The webinar will cover:
- Trends shaping B2B tech in Japan, focusing on IT and other high-growth sectors
- Practical methods to identify and engage Japanese decision-makers
- High-impact marketing strategies and channels proven to deliver strong ROI in Japan
- Real-world stories about European tech companies that have successfully entered and scaled in Japan
Register to view our webinar on demand by clicking here, and why not get in touch to let us know if our insights helped you.
Napier Webinar: ‘Marketing B2B Technology in Japan’ Transcript
Speakers:Â Mike Maynard, Shoko Maki
Mike Maynard
Good morning. Welcome to everyone for a webinar. We’re running the webinar at a slightly different time to what we normally do. So good morning to everyone in Europe.
Mike Maynard
It’s great to talk to you. I’m really excited about this webinar because we’re doing something different today, we have a guest speaker, Shoko Maki. Shoko is from ISB marketing, a Japanese technology marketing agency, and she’s going to talk to us about how to promote B2B technology companies in Japan. So she’s really an expert. I’m sure she’ll tell you a lot about her experience, as well as helping you understand how to navigate the Japanese market, which is obviously very different to either Europe or the US. So Shoko. Welcome to the webinar.
Shoko Maki
Thank you for kind introduction, Mike. I’m Shoko Maki, CEO of ISB marketing. Nice. Me too,
Mike Maynard
right? I think what I should do, you’re the expert on Japan. I know a lot of our clients ask about Japan, and really it great to hear from you how as a B2B Company, you can be successful in Japan. So I’ll let you run the presentation.
Shoko Maki
Of course. Okay, could you see our presentation? Okay, so let’s get started. Do Hey, thank you for listening. I hope you can all hear and see me well. I’m Shoko Maki, CEO of ISB marketing. Over the years, I have met over 100 B2B tech company from the EU and US, many of them share a common challenge, it’s very difficult to find The right people in the Japanese market, by right people mean the decision maker, or decision making unit DM use, and yes, I understand why. It seems difficult. You know about the Japanese language barriers and time differences and the different business customers, they are real challenges. But today I want to suggest something important we should adopt our marketing strategy for the Japanese market. By the end of this presentation, where you will have the key to unlock that over to success in Japan. Before we dive in, let me briefly introduce myself, over 20 years of experience in business development for two major Japanese it enterprises. My passion for Europe is deep, and also United States. I lived in Milan with my family for three years traveling extend extensively and discovery, the beauty of its history, nature and people, I love, traveling all worldwide. In my free time, I practice Kyodo, Japanese artery. It’s a beautiful martial art, and while I drive to talk about it all day, let’s save that for another occasion. In this webinar, we’ll cover three key areas. Firstly, I will explain why the Japanese market is so attractive for B2B tech companies. Secondly, I will show you the characteristic of DM use in Japanese enterprises. And thirdly, I will share effective marketing strategies for building relationships with these DMU.
Let’s begin with our first topic. Why the Japanese market so attractive? Let’s look at some data so. As you can see, Japan’s IT investment has been growing year by year.
The manufacturing sector is the largest, similar to Germany’s industry structure presenting a huge opportunity. Japan is also making steady progress in digital transformation, in initiatives in 2024 companies engaging men, engaged in DX, reached around 80% a steady increase on par with the US. Finally, Japanese companies are increasing their spending on foreign IT services. Our digital balance of payments has nearly doubled in 10 years. This digital defeat highlights the market openness to over overseas solutions from major foreign tech companies. In summary, Japanese enterprises are actively activated. By adopting advanced foreign technologies. This clearly shows Japan has great growth potential for foreign tech companies. Now let’s move on the next part. What are the characteristics of Japan’s DMU. Again, I’ll focus on the DMU of large corporations in Japan. The first characteristic is consensus based and bottom up processes. This chart is a typical Japanese organizational chart. I call this structure horizontal and vertical lines.
That is, decisions involve multiple departments and levels, with junior staff often gathering information and building consensus upwards. The larger the company, the more complex this becomes. The second characteristic is risk averse. Japanese company take time choosing solutions to avoid various risks like cyber security, data leaks and system failure failures. They prioritize stability and security. The third characteristic is to value long term relationships. Once you search Japanese customer, they often become a liquid customer. You can extend your services to other divisions or even group companies by building trust. For example, one of our HR tech clients started with a successful pilot project in one unit of a Japanese Railway Company. This led to their solution being adopted across other divisions and then to their group companies. This case shows how strong and lasting a partnership can become once established in Japan, the fourth characteristic is that Japanese companies primarily obtain business information from corporate websites. This graph shows websites are the most frequently used source. In contrast, social media like LinkedIn is quite low. We are often asked if LinkedIn works here. How many users do you think LinkedIn has in Japan?
Currently? There are only about 4 million users in Japan, while growing, it’s still relatively small for B2B lead generation compared to corporate websites.
Now let’s move on the third topic, building relationship. How do we build relationship with DM us again, I will focus on large manufacturers, which are a core industry in Japan.
I propose five best practice. The first is creating a Japanese website and doing SEO game use use corporate websites as their main source. Please remember, translation is not enough. You should localize it for specific industry needs. A well localized website makes you a serious player in Japan. Secondly, content marketing is great for showcasing your expertise. Thought Leadership, white papers and blocks the credibility and demonstrate your value. The third is to use trade fairs. About 600 to 1000 trade fairs are held annually. This photo is at Japan. It week, the one of the most large trade fair focused B2B market. And there are an effective channel for touch points with DM use, choose events your target customer attend and always translate and localize all sales materials. Next is collaborating with local IT partners. Let’s look at zoom. You know us based video conference system provider, they prioritize partner sales in Japan, especially for large core enterprises. Do you know what percentage of zoom sales in Japan are through partners?
The answer is more than 50% zoom in Japan has hundreds of partners in Japan forming a strong business ecosystem. This shows the power of local partnerships. The final point is brand awareness through industry specific PR the Japanese it market is highly competitive. Your product needs recognition, press releases and pitches to industry journal are crucial. Native Japanese speakers should handle Media Relations and peer require a long term strategy to build trust. Now I will show you two successful customer case studies that might resonate with many of you here today. First, finago, an Irish FinTech company, like many growing foreign tech firms, they faced the challenge of breaking into a new complex market like Japan and building local credibility. We provided marketing and PR support, securing CEO interviews and creating content. They achieve around 80 price missions, significantly boosting their brand awareness and credibility and successfully acquire new customers and local partners. This demonstrates how a. A targeted approach can quickly establish your presence. Second script guide a Hungarian software development company, they understood that Japanese market entry means navigating unique cultural challenges, especially in communication and sales materials, we analyzed and localized their sales materials, ensuring they resonate with Japanese clients. These localized materials are now effectively used at trade fairs and meetings maximize their businesses opportunities. This highlights the power of culturally culturally sensitive localization for your sales efforts. We have more in depth case studies and can explain our approach in detail. If you are interested in please contact us for one on one meeting. Working with a local marketing. Marketing Agency is the best way to overcome your challenges. It’s the key to lab market entry, providing straightforward access to local network of experts, journalists and IT partners. The biggest advantage is developing a go to market strategies that is customized specifically for the Japanese market. You will need an expert native Japanese team who also speak English. Now let’s summarize today’s presentation. Today we learn about the Japanese it market its unique DM use. Building long term relationships based on trust is essential. Here are five strategies to reach DM use. Create a Japanese website with SEO, use content marketing, participate in trade fairs, partner with local ID companies and run industry specific peer campaigns. Please remember, customization and localization are key. Working with a local marketing agency can significantly help you. Next, I’d like to briefly introduce our company ISB marketing. We are marketing agencies specialized in B2B technology based right here in Tokyo. About 80% of our service are in the B2B sector, and 70% are in the tech sector. They have three core areas of expertise. First, we have a deep understanding of the deep B2B tech field in both Europe and foreign company and in Japan and Japan, we are experienced in SAS, FaaS, HR, tech, FinTech, robotics, IoT, ERP, drone, AI and other cutting edge technologies. Second, we can provide integrated marketing services from planning to execution. Third, we have a strong relationship with Japanese tech media and also IT companies. It successfully introduces our international company customer to local partners and client, and some have already started successful businesses. This is our unique advantage. Our services mainly consist of six areas, content, marketing, public relations, marketing research, website design and management, marketing advice and marketing training. We provide a combination of these service to best meet your need. We are certified partner recognized by the Japanese government and local organization, which underscores our commitment and reliability so. Before I share my final thought, I want to tell you about the special offer just for you. We prepared a valuable ebook focused on the generative AI market in Japan, it’s packed with the latest insight entrant. To get your free copy, please send us a direct message on LinkedIn. You can find our LinkedIn profile by scanning QR code on the screen with your smartphone camera. Thank you.
Okay, it looks like we are coming to the end of my presentation. Before we finish, let me share one last thought this is a Japanese phrase, seiza, hi Ju. It comes from Judo martial art I mentioned earlier. Seiza, hi ju means that if you perform in the right way, the alarm will always hit the target. In other words, if you concentrate on shooting with correct form rather than just on hitting the target, the result will always follow. I believe this concept applies to business as well. We often tend to focus on sales goals and profits, but what’s truly important is to concentrate on doing things the right way with the right strategy and approach. So let’s take the first step towards success together with our tailored marketing strategies, we are confident that we can help you find the right way to succeed in Japan. We look forward to working with you. Thank you so much.
Mike Maynard
Shoko. Thank you so much. That was fascinating, I think, a very short time to talk about an awful lot of things. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to put them into the Q and A or into the chat. I do have a couple of questions. First, I mean, from my point of view, when you were talking in the presentation, you mentioned a lot about localization rather than just translation. So can you talk about the difference between translating for Japan and localizing for Japan?
Shoko Maki
Thank you for your yes question and yes difference between differences between transcends vision and localization. First, I will explain the difference between translation and localization. Translation is simply changing words from one language to another. The goal is to keep the meaning the same, but in a different language. For example, if we translate a software menu from English to Japanese, Japanese users can read it in their own language. This makes the correct content understandable, but it doesn’t necessarily make it feel natural or easy to use in Japanese context. Localization, however, goes beyond just changing world. Let me. Let me give an example to showcase of SAP, a German software company provides ERP enterprise resource planning system worldwide. SAP has a high market share in Japan, especially for large companies, the key to their continued success is localization. For example, they’ve added futures that fits Japanese accounting standards and tax regulations. Japanese businesses often issue invoice definitely for. Example. So SAP includes function to manage these processes smoothly and provide support in Japanese. They adjust the product to match the culture legal requirement and business needs of a specific Japanese entities. It includes translation, but it all also cover things like adjusting current currency, symbols, data, format, usability and adding compliance features that are needed in that particular country. And furthermore, I introduced example from zoom, but it’s also SAP understand the business structural difference and from business ecosystem partner link with over 100 local ID partners and sales and technical support to them. So to sum up, translation is about changing language, but localization adapts a product to make it feel local and user usable.
Mike Maynard
Thank you. I think that that’s a great summary. Shoko, thank you. Another question is you talked about LinkedIn, and I know anyone who’s tried to run, for example, paid campaigns in LinkedIn in Japan will know that the number of LinkedIn users in Japan is very small. Do you have any insights why that is?
Shoko Maki
Yeah, thank you for good question. I think I’ll share my insights. There are, I think there are several reasons. Firstly, LinkedIn actually not well known by business people here, compared to Facebook, but Facebook also users is decreasing. In contrast Instagram and YouTube is increasing just now, actually, there are Japanese business people around us who have never heard of LinkedIn name, or some people think it’s just a job hunting tool. Secondly, LinkedIn requires you know real names. And some Japanese business people do not like disclose personal information about their career, such as educational and professional background. And moha, some Japanese companies, especially traditional ones, restrict employees from disclosing business topics to avoid the risk of leaking confidential information. So we can provide yes and we can provide the data we use of social media platform LinkedIn, 2025 this year. So if you interested in please ask us if maybe.
Mike Maynard
Thank you. That’s interesting. Obviously, a very different culture in Japan regarding social media to Europe and the US. I have one last question. If you’ve got time Shoko, one topic you haven’t mentioned, I’m sure people would be interested to know about this is cold calling. Is cold calling effective in Japan?
Shoko Maki
That is, yeah, very interesting question. In Japan, actually, cold calling is known as one of the traditional way to generate generate lead, but it is not, I think, effect not effectively in B2B, because Japanese companies tend to be cautious about unsolicited or authorized calls from unknown businesses, and yes, I emphasized on building trust, so cold calling without clear appointment tend to be avoided. Furthermore, with the increase in remote working after COVID-19 telephone communication is becoming less common. Therefore, in Japan, we recommend building
Mike Maynard
for everyone listening. I’d really recommend you go to the ISB marketing LinkedIn page and you request the. Report on generative AI Shoko. Thank you so much for being a presenter. I’ve really enjoyed it.
Shoko Maki
Thank you once again for your time, and I just wanted to say a big thank you. You Mike and Napier team for giving us this amazing opportunity, even if even I could not your faces audiences, but I’m very happy to hear that. Thank you.
