Anastasiia Pyliaieva is the chief marketing officer at Northfinder. She brings expertise in team building and digital marketing to the Slovakian outdoor apparel brand.
At Northfinder, we know the joy of reaching a mountain peak. For nearly 30 years, we have been designing, manufacturing, and selling outdoor clothing to accompany people on this journey. However, the recent decline in consumer confidence and rising living costs led to customers in Slovakia, our home market, being more reluctant to purchase hiking and outdoor equipment.
Many young people now favour second-hand shops, and the growing presence of established Western brands has also intensified competition. As a result, customer response to our paid advertising declined. Moreover, our growth rate declined from double digits to single digits while customer acquisition costs increased.
This created the challenge of growing our customer base, while improving return on investment (ROI). And we needed to distinguish ourselves more from competitors whilst doing so.
Crafting an international expansion strategy
Realising that our growth potential in Slovakia was limited, we partnered with marketing agency Dexfinity to focus on international expansion.
We wanted to increase our online presence in Romania, where we had been operating since 2022, and enter new markets with lower competition and higher demand compared to Slovakia.
Using tools like Google Market Explorer and Market Finder that predict demand and provide data on consumer preferences and ad costs, we analysed around 15 different markets to identify those with the highest potential.
“At Dexfinity, our strategic decisions are powered by data and driven by performance,” says Michal Lichner, sales director at Dexfinity. “For Northfinder’s market expansion, we focused on three critical pillars: market potential, growth momentum, and the efficiency of customer acquisition”.
From a one-size-fits-all approach to personalised communications
We quickly realised that simply investing in online ads as we did previously was not enough. That’s why we turned to segmenting our audience within our new international strategy. First, we differentiated between existing and new customers. Secondly, we divided audiences by their interests, such as hiking and skiing.
We learnt that building trust is essential with new customers. For example, in Bulgaria, consumers are particularly cautious about purchasing from unfamiliar brands. More than half of local consumers consider trustworthiness crucial when buying online, ranking just after pricing. To address this need, we started featuring customer reviews from our website in our Bulgarian advertisements and communicating that we are an official e-shop.
Here’s an example:
We also started tracking micro-conversions, such as add-to-cards and page-per-session greater than six for all our markets, which means that users are highly engaged with a website. This allowed us to obtain valuable data for remarketing. We also personalised offers for existing customers based on their interests and purchase history.
Here is an example of an email with product recommendations:
From showing a product to sharing an experience
The expansion made us reassess how we want to be perceived globally. For example, if a Bulgarian and a Romanian meet somewhere at the mountain border — both wearing Northfinder — what would connect them?
Previously, we focused on demonstrating product features, such as the comfort and safety of our shoes. But, as we went through a soft rebranding last year, we shifted the focus to values and emotions.
A few years ago, we ran a TV campaign in Slovakia featuring a mascot to add a fun element. While it helped us raise brand awareness, feedback from the community and the subsequent lack of visible improvement in our direct traffic or brand queries indicated that the mascot didn’t resonate much with the audience.
Therefore, during our rebranding last year, we pivoted to the emotion of joy, which we want to be associated with globally.
With our new AI-powered creatives, we aim to evoke the feeling of happiness and freedom from exploring nature. Our core message is “Leave behind the stress of the city”. This focuses on emotional well-being and resonates with people, even if they are not currently considering buying new clothing:
Launching a new product line with community insights
Our internal team includes hiking enthusiasts, who often collect insights and feedback directly from the outdoor community. This helps us generate ideas for the new products. For example, one of our designers heard from women hikers that they struggled to find pretty hiking shoes that were comfortable and waterproof.
After identifying this potential market gap, we tested our hypothesis by checking search volume for keywords in Google Keyword Planner. For instance, some of the keywords we used in Slovakia were: “damske turisticke topanky“ (“women's hiking boots”), “damske nizke turisticke topanky”, (“women's low-top hiking boots”), “celokozene turisticke topanky damske” (“women's full-leather hiking boots”), and “damske nepremokave turisticke topanky” (“women's waterproof hiking boots”).
When we confirmed the demand, seeing that these keywords were popular, we launched a new product line: waterproof and stylish hiking shoes designed for lightweight comfort, even after a long day on the trail. Our insight from the community, supported by keyword data, turned into a roaring success: it became one of our top-selling products of 2024.
Our strategy of a more personalised approach to customers and reimagining the brand has created a unified global image. We now have a stronger emotional connection and leverage community insights, combined with data, to deliver results.
In Romania, our sales grew by more than 50% year-on-year in 2024. The country became our third-largest market, generating 18% of our total revenue. In Bulgaria, our revenue jumped by 4X from €60K in 2023 to €264K in 2024, and accounted for 5% of our total revenue.
Building on this success, we launched in Germany earlier this year. We chose Germany for our next expansion, because it’s one of the biggest European markets with more than 80% of its population active in sports and a high interest in outdoor activities. Additionally, since German is also spoken in other markets, like Austria, we can reach Austrian customers with a single website, adapting to local market preferences.
We are planning to expand to four more European countries between the end of the second and the start of the third quarter. We're excited to continue our international growth with our new strategy, connecting with hiking communities in new countries.
