How Do You Create An International Marketing Blog?

Quick answers to…

Today’s question is:

What are the first steps in creating an international marketing blog?

This is an interesting question that came in last week.

Before creating a business blog for international audiences, be sure to thoroughly do your groundwork.  This will get you on the right track from the start.

Identify Your International Business

There are two things you have to determine right from the start.

You need to identify which kind of international business your company is able to do at present.  You need to know why you want to create an international marketing blog. Read more here:

• The 7 Traditional Paths To International Business Development

You then need to clearly identify which type of marketing you will be using. Again read this to help you clarify your direction:

• 5 Traditional Marketing Steps To Become An International Business

Identify Your Audience

Once you know where your business lies, you then need to research your target market’s needs.

You need to determine whether

• You write one blog to target one broad international audience, or
• You use cross cultural marketing skills to target one specific country and culture at a time.

The Right Communication Platform

A blog is a great business marketing tool in many countries.

But it may not work well in the country you are targeting.

Have a look at the different Cultural Web Tools in the link below.  These web tools are categorized by different cultural behaviors.

Is a blog an appropriate vehicle in your target market?

Easy With The Right Ground Work

The answers to these questions gives you the information you need to identify the right answers to your next set of questions:

• Which language you should use
• How often you need to write
• Who should write the blog
• What to write about
• How to inspire interaction

Is An International Marketing Blog Your Best Choice?

Guide 4 - Build Your International Marketing Strategy • What information do you need to know before starting your international business expanision? How can you get the information you need? Read about how international market research will help you plan your international visibility.

Guide To Cultural Web Tools • How can you tweak your web site to improve your cross-cultural communication?Lots of tools here.

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Week 39 In Review

Want to know what else I have been up to this week?

Here is a list of the thoughts, ideas, requests and articles I published this past week.

On Get International Clients

As usual, the Sunday Blog Carnival starts off this week:

• Get International Clients Sunday Blog Carnival #20

Guide 1 - Discover Your International Business

• Why Should You Want International Clients?

Guide 2 - Plan Your International Road Map

• Plan Your Foreign Language Content
• Finding Foreign Search Engines

Guide 3 - Design Your International Visibility

• How Can I Get Information On My Foreign Markets?

Guide 7 - Run Your International Sales Strategy

• How Can I Prepare For My First Cross-Cultural Negotiation?

On Cindy King .biz

This is where I share more of my personal opinions, experiences and frustrations… on anything cross-cultural and on international business.

Uniquely Cindy

The weekend’s links to marketing articles and book review:

• International Marketer Review Blog Carnival #18
• Euro-English

Cross-Cultural Communication

• When Do You Need Translations

International Business Development

• Aligning Your Questions To Build Your International Business
• Plans With Adaptability, Flexibility And Agility

International Content Creation

• What Is International English?

International Web Marketing

• The Secret Way To Enter International Marketing

… and what have you been up to this week?

Let me know if you have come across anything interesting on the vaste subject of international business development on the web.

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Plan Your Foreign Language Content

Culture customized content builds stronger connections in your international markets.

But, what do you do when you want to use culture customized content for stronger international presence, and…

…your international development budget is small?
…your company wants to be cautious?

How do you reconcile this with everything you think you need:

• A full foreign language website
• Complete selection of foreign language marketing materials
• An international sales force

Well, instead of looking at how your current business communicates with your domestic market…

How about starting at the other end?

Let’s look at what happens when you start with your culture customized content.

Plan The Content You Need To Translate

When you plan the content you need to translate, you usually realize that you will need to update your content within a relatively short period of time.

Why is this?

Simply because…

When you first start to communicate with a foreign market, you do not know it well enough to write your most effective communication.

Even if you hire outside companies to tell you what your message should be, you will only really find out what your market needs once you start direct communication yourself.

Now, if you know you will need to change your communication in a short period of time, how do you start?

One Product In One Language

It is standard practice in international business development to start off with one product to one country. This is the easiest way for companies to learn how to adapt to new markets specifically and international business in general.

This also makes it a lot easier for you to plan:

• The content you need to translate
• Time lines and guidelines for future strategy
• Future actions to extend your reach
• Other key parameters you need

Plan For Your Future Content

Your first foreign language content will probably be based on some of your existing content.

You will want to use this to develop culture customized content. This culture customized content creates stronger connections in your new foreign markets. And…

Because you need to have your own market feedback from your new target country, you will need to modify your first translations.

Many companies do not plan for this change in content. After all the translations were an investment, and they want a return on it before sinking more money into translations.

Some companies will change their international message later on. If they realize their message is not effective.

Many larger companies simply let their international sales team pick up the extra responsibility of correcting the “wrong” messages in their written communication.

This mistake is very common in large American companies, eager to keep control on their brand while selling abroad.

There is a very simple solution to getting your message right for your international markets:

• Start small.
• Plan for change.
• Stimulate feedback to learn more about YOUR foreign markets
• Adapt your message to the culture you are communicating with

Planning for your future content right from the start will both save you extra translation costs and give you a foreign sales message with a bang.

Evaluate The Best Marketing Channels

Imagine you know:

• Precisely what you want to communicate now,
• What information you want to get back from your foreign markets,
• And what you want to communicate later?

Well then…

Now you can determine the right international marketing channel to use to communicate this content.

Of course, you will also need to get feedback from your target markets to verify the marketing channels they want you to use to communicate with them.

This means adding a few more criteria for you to get feedback on.

When you get

• The right message,
• Sent to your foreign markets on the right marketing channel,

…you have the base of a good international marketing strategy.

Choose The Communication Platforms You Need

Now you know:

• What you want to communicate.
• How you want to communicate your message.

Your communication platform needs are usually very easy to identify now.

In addition, the content planning you did earlier will tell you what you need to plan for in the future.

Added Bonus

And one of the other questions most companies struggle with:

• Which communication platform should you use for your foreign language content?

• Your domestic website with country-specific sub categories or sub domains
• An international website
• Localized websites

Well, you now have something to go on to answer this question.  Of course, there are other criteria to look at, but this gives you the criteria covering your foreign content needs.

Read the whole story

More On Culture Customized Content

Once your initial translations bring in some feedback and you have enough country-specific business intelligence, you will want to create a message adapted to your specific foreign market.

Culture Customized Content Guide • What is the secret to effective international business development?Find out here.

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Why Selling To Everyone Is Too Expensive

If this is your first expansion into an international market, you know you need an effective international marketing and communication strategy.

But there are often a few stumbling blocks you need to get past before you can find the right international business development strategy for your business.

• Small companies often assume that one website with one message will sell to different markets in different countries.
• Larger companies are often confused about whether they need foreign websites, localized websites, regional websites or even one international website.

You see, internet as an international platform can be misleading.

To respond to both of these questions, it is best to only consider the web as a communication platform.

And then take a step backwards and ask yourself why you need the communication platform…

…To sell your products and services.

And where does the confusion come in?

• Internet is an international communication platform, and not a sales strategy.

First Learn To Sell

Selling to international markets means you have to learn how to sell to them.

International markets are not big groups of people.  They are individuals.  And these individuals in foreign countries, will be different to the people who buy your products in your own country.

The thing is, you first need to learn how to sell to your new customers.  And you cannot do this if you try to sell to everyone in all of your foreign markets at the same time.

You have to learn how to sell one country at a time.

Yes, there is a learning curve…and you have to go through it.

This is how you will learn to sell to each of the countries you are targeting, one country at a time.

It is often similar to how you first had to learn how to sell to your domestic markets.

Craft The Right Message

Each culture responds to your message in a different way.  Ideally you have a strong marketing message for your domestic market.  This message works best in your domestic market.

For your foreign markets things are different…

Unfortunately there is a very high chance you will need to tweak your domestic message, or even change it radically, to get optimum results in the foreign cultures you sell to.

If you want to get more bucks out of your communication you need to adapt your communication to the cultural differences in each country you sell to.

Put out the the proper message for each different country you sell to.

…You might even need to target specific cultures in within each country.

Take Your Message Abroad

It is not only a question of finding the right message:

• For each of your foreign markets
• For each country or culture

You also need to take your message abroad.

This is where the rubber hits the road.

Will you be able to afford to put your message out to everyone in your target country?

This is where businesses can spend their money unwisely.  It can be difficult to determine how or where to give your message visibility in a foreign country that you do not understand.

Yes, internet can help you get your message abroad…

…but you need to think very carefully through this.

• Does your business rely heavily on offline communication?
• Can you leverage culture customized content on the web?  If so, how can you bring this online communication to life in your foreign markets?

Effective Messages = Targeted Messages

The questions above can seem daunting.

There is help…

Remember, when messages are not effective it is primarily because they are not targeted.  Culturally targeting your communication does part of your job.

The more targeted your messages are, the more effective they will be.  This is why it is critical to plan for culture customization — targeting — of all of your communication right from the start.

But visibility is also important and is also a key factor in effective communication.

This is where an integrated marketing strategy can help you.

Targeted online communication is easy to use in an effective integrated marketing strategy.  Integrated or multichannel marketing, puts your targeted messages in front of your foreign markets.

Culturally targeted communication makes sense in a foreign country based integrated marketing strategy.

Only large multinational companies, with extra large budgets, can afford to carry out an effective integrated marketing strategy without culturally targeted communication.

An integrated marketing strategy does not have to be huge.  For example, it can simply be comprised of:

• A website with regular communication
• A short monthly newsletter
• Weekly email marketing
• …and ads in relevant support

…All culturally customized to the market in one country gives you an effective communication tool.

Define Your International Business Development Strategy

If you try to sell to everyone with the same message it will:

• Be expensive to get in front of your foreign markets

AND your message has no chance of being good in any of your markets.

Culture customized communication + Consistent web content + Integrated Marketing =

Easy international business development leveraging online marketing

Now many mid-sized companies want to target 4-5 or even a dozen countries all at once.

This is where things get confusing.  Website localization and creating templates usually get placed on the to do list.  And confusion about where to start comes running back.

If this is the case, it may be a good idea to start off with one international website for one region. This give you the time to:

• Work on crafting your message, preferably in an International English, and using website templates.
• Get foreign market feedback to begin crafting messages for one specific country at a time.

Read The Whole Story

How To Run Your International Sales Strategy

Guide 7 - Run With Your International Sales Strategy • How do you sell to your foreign market once you who you are selling to? Read more about how to run your international sales strategy

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International Business Through Culture Customized Content

There are several reasons why culture customized content is worth the time, money and effort to create.

Here are some of the reasons why culture customized content is a good international business tool:

Speak To The Right People

If you do not adapt your communication to your foreign market, you may not be reaching the people you want to reach.

You need to communicate with your foreign clients.  In cross-cultural sales it is easy to miss your target unless you adapt your communication so your foreign clients hear you.

Who are you speaking to?

Open Dialog the Right Way

If you are not communicating on the same level as your foreign audience, who are you communicating with?

When you begin to target international markets, it is important to open your communication to your international prospects.  Start with culture customized content and you will find the right way to open a dialog with your foreign markets.

How real is your dialog?

Get Through With The Right Content

If you are not targeting your communication to your foreign market, are they picking up your message?

Culture customized content will help you get your message through to your international prospects and clients.

Is your content the right way to communicate with your foreign market?

Keep The Conversation Going

If you do not adapt your communication to your foreign market, how can you expect to create a real conversation with them?

Get your culture customized content right and you will have the basis for a good conversation with your foreign markets.

How effective is your conversation?

Market Internationally

If you are not communicating with your foreign market, what are you doing?

International business development requires international marketing.  International markets gets you in touch with your international prospects.

Is your marketing really international marketing?

Culture Customized Content As A Tool

Most businesses think of foreign content as an expense.

But if you think of culture customized content as a communication tool, you will use your content creation as an international marketing strategy and get more mileage out of it.

Culture customized content gets your marketing through faster.  It stimulates more foreign feedback.  And this helps you to adjust and improve your sales and marketing for faster success.

Read The Whole Story

More On Culturally Customized Content

• What is the secret to effective international business development? Find out here.

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Brainstorming Questions For International Product Development

Do you need to establish how a baseline for your international product?   Understanding clearly how you currently operate will help you to identify possible changes you may need to make once you get feedback from your foreign markets.

Here is a list of brainstorming questions to help you with your international product development.

Brainstorm these questions in-house as a team effort.

• What makes your product better to manufacture?
• What is easy about manufacturing your product?
• What does your market think about your product?
• What are the physical benefits of your product?
• How can you improve your product?
• How reliable is your product?
• Is there anything less reliable in your product?
• Is your product easy to maintain?
• How will you service your product for foreign customers?
• How will you respond to international complaints?
• Are customers happy with your product?
• Are prospects interested in your product?
• How can you create good publicity for your product?
• What is the best way to market your product?
• What is the key selling point for your product in a specific foreign market?
• How does your primary selling point differ in your international markets?

There are no good and bad answers to any of these questions.

In fact, it does not even matter if you do not have all the answers to these questions.

What is important is to keep these questions in mind.  You will need to answer them as you progress through the process of your international business development or the 8 steps of the International Sales Road Map.

Answers to these questions are the basic information you need during the process of choosing, reviewing, and adapting your product for international markets.

You may think of more specific questions to ask about your particular product or service.  Add these on to this list and review them again regularly.

Answer these questions as best you can now.

Have a look at them again when you have completed all 8 steps.

• Do you see any other questions your business needs to add to this list?
• Are there any changes to your answers with what you now know about your international markets?

Read the whole story

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Join Us On The International Sales Road Map

New Format - Get International Clients Newsletter

• Are you committed to developing your international business?
• Do you know what you need to do to get more international clients?
• Do you want an easy to follow action plan?

Then you will be happy to read about the up-coming changes here at Get International Clients.

Starting September the Get International Clients Newsletter will become the ideal companion to follow the International Sales Road Map.

But don’t worry, the Get International Clients Newsletter will still be FREE.

The weekly newsletter will only change its format slightly.

You see, I am tired of hearing the excuses from the brick and mortar companies. I am tired of seeing small internet business owners with great international potential making the same mistake:

NOT taking the right action to develop international business is the biggest barrier to international business success.

Developing an international business takes work.

The key to success is to take small steps consistently. You do not need to spend months and months wondering what to do, and trying to figure out what budgets you need.

In any case, you will not be able to answer these questions accurately prior to jumping into action.

So don’t waste your time. Take action today. Even small actions. And continue taking action regularly.

Sequential Newsletter Gives You Easy Steps To Follow Every Week

If you are already a subscriber, you will know that the current format of the weekly newsletter already gives you useful tips and action steps. What will be different? Up until now, the newsletter is issued every Sunday evening my time and everyone gets the same newsletter every week. The new format will be sequential. Your newsletter will still be published every Sunday evening. But the newsletter you get will depend on when you signed up. So if you subscribe in September or in December or sometime next year, your first newsletter will be the same. The new format gives you easy action steps in the sequence you need to develop your international business.

• Each week you will go through a different step.
• So you will complete the 8 steps in 8 weeks.
• And then it starts again.
• The next 8 action steps will take your further along the path of developing your international markets.
• And this process will repeat itself every 8 weeks.

Get the action steps you need to open up your business to foreign markets.

Get the motivation you need to take action right now and create the international business development process best suited for your business.

The International Sales Road Map is for all business owners and marketing professionals who are not doing anything specific to develop their international business. This includes companies without any international clients at all, and companies with accidental international sales. Brick and mortar companies and online businesses.

This means you have to start right from the beginning in the first 8 weeks.

And then during each 8 week cycle we will review the International Sales Road Map process, adding on additional action steps, so you can improve your strategy.

Every week you will receive an action step and a homework assignment for you to take that week.

To get the most out of the Get International Clients Newsletter you must commit to taking consistent action.

Additional Current News During The Week

In addition to the Get International Clients Newsletter I will send you each Sunday evening, I will also send you an email or two during the week if I have been working on something that I want to share with you.

For example, when I notice any trend in the questions coming in, I will share my answers with everyone.

This way you get more current information.

But I have to warn you, some weeks the work I get paid for will be keeping me too busy for these extra current news bits. So I am only going to send them to you when I can.

In-Depth Special Reports Answer Your Questions In Detail

This is also where the free monthly reports come in handy. You can read them when you have time.

You can stay focused on taking the small actions you need to take each week, and keep your momentum feeding your international business development.

The special reports are there when you have more detailed questions.

All newsletter subscribers will get one monthly report free with their subscription.

The free monthly reports start in September too, and they will go further in depth into one of the actions covered that month.

By the way, these same reports, free for the Get International Clients weekly newsletter subscribers, will be available for non-subscribers, but at a price of $29.99.

I could say there are two reasons why you should sign up now for the Weekly Newsletter.

• It is true, when you see the value of these free reports when they are published in September, you will want to sign up immediately.

But, the real reason why you should sign up for the International Sales Road Map Weekly Newsletter is very simply to start taking action today.

Let me guide you through the steps you need to take to develop your international business.

The sooner you start to develop the skills you need to communicate effectively with your foreign markets, the sooner you will get international clients.

Don’t wait and let others get the competitive edge you could have today. Sign up below.

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Newsletters For International Business Development

As an international business developer, one of your primary concerns should be to use all available tools to build trust with your foreign prospects and clients.

Most cross-cultural communication barriers are a direct result in lack of trust. So not only do you have to actively work on building trust building, you also need to highlight your current trust-building efforts and continually bring them to your clients attention.

Building trust can seem vague. But it becomes easy when you learn that you build trust through clarity and consistency.

This means you need to communicate clearly and consistently. If you are building a business you also need to be proactive in your communication.

A Monthly Newsletter

It is no surprise that one of the oldest communication tools is also a good trust-building communication tool.

Newsletters have been around for a long time. Although some people may think their market is tired of newsletters, market fatigue is usually not at fault.

If you feel your newsletter is not working for you, your newsletter is probably not addressing a key element.

Let’s look at why a newsletter is a great tool for your international business development. This list will help you understand what needs to go into a good newsletter.

Building Trust Through Consistency

A newsletter gives you a tool to provide consistent information on a regular, and again consistent, basis.

The content you provide in your newsletter should be consistent. Consistent with your topic and with your readers expectations.

Your newsletter’s publication schedule should also be consistent. Your consistency will reinforce the reasons why your readers should listen to you.

Newsletters are a great tool to build trust in your international markets.

Business Clarity And Specificity

Your newsletter also gives you a tool to communicate clarity in your business objectives.

• Avoid mixed signals.
• Create a congruent message.
• Provide proof to your claims.

This is a very important part of successful newsletters for either domestic or international audiences. Many people do not make their newsletter congruent with their markets.

Successful use of congruency in your international marketing is one of the determining factors in successful international business development.

Newsletters are a great tool to communicate with clarity about the specificity and congruency of what you do.

Cultures Where Newsletters Work Best

According to the 5 different cultural behavioral scales there are some countries where newsletters should be promoted more.

I do not want to list countries here, because the statistics that are available are old. I also feel that generalizations in business can easily lead to big mistakes. The theory that concerns us here is:

• Some cultures have a high tendency towards individualism, the United States and Great Britain for example.
• Some cultures have a high tendency towards collectivism, China, several other far eastern countries and also several South American countries.

The important thing to remember is that high collectivism cultures are where people respond better to a group.

Newsletters bring people together, so they should give you good results in high collectivism countries.

This does not mean that newsletters do not work as well in the other countries.

This does mean that your high collectivism market should react well to newsletters. So if you want to expand into these countries, try creating a culture targeted newsletter for these countries. Also remember to pay attention to responses within these markets when promoting your newsletter.

Newsletters are a cultural communication tool.

Multichannel Marketing Element

If you are serious about developing your international markets, you will need to use a few different marketing channels to communicate with your foreign markets. There are several reasons why multichannel marketing is important:

• To find the best way to communicate with foreign markets
• To create presence when you are not physically there
• To give you good communication tools to stimulate market feedback
• To continue your conversation elsewhere and stay in front of your prospects

Newsletters are an easy way to touch your markets on a large scale. You can easily use your newsletter within an integrated marketing program or international lead generation strategy.

Newsletters are a key component in many multichannel marketing strategies.

Easy To Culture Customize

One of the best reasons to create a newsletter specifically for one target country, is that it is an easy option. In todays world, people do not want long articles.

One very cost-effective way to create a culture-customized presence in a foreign country on a small budget, is create a monthly newsletter for each country you are targeting.

A simple, monthly, 2 page newsletter, with 4 short articles will not cost you a fortune.

The plus side, is that you will get more mileage out of your investment with minimal planning.

You can easily re-purpose the 4 articles in your monthly newsletter and use them in different marketing channels. Each month this could give you the following culturally customized touches in your target country:

• 1 2-page newsletter
• 4 weekly articles on your country specific website
• 4 weekly blog posts
• 4 weekly emails
• 4 weekly audio blasts if you take the time to have someone read them.

You can even print out your newsletter on one double sided piece of paper and mail it to your prospects your clients, or distribute it out at events.

And, if you think strategically about the subjects you cover each month, a year later you could have 12 useful evergreen product sheets, or case studies to help you develop your international sales.

Culture customized newsletters are great value when developing your business in different countries.

International Communication Tools

If you currently do not have a newsletter targeted to your international audience, consider the points above and give it a try.

Instead of thinking of newsletters as company communication, look at newsletters as a culture targeted communication tool.

Change your perspective of newsletters for an even better understanding of how you can use your newsletter to build you business.

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How To Connect With Your International Clients

Are you ready to create stronger relationships with your international audiences? Then maybe you are experiencing a common problem.

When small companies set out to create stronger relationships within their foreign markets they feel confronted with two conflicting challenges:

* One of the challenges is how to keep foreign content creation manageable and affordable.
* The other challenge is to create a multichannel marketing to leverage more.

There is no easy answer to this.

You Need Communication

You will always need to initiate contact with your foreign prospects if you want to develop these markets.

You cannot sit back, do nothing and hope foreign clients find your products. If you want to make sales in different cultures you need to communicate with these cultures.

* The better you connect with a specific foreign culture the deeper relationships you create.
* The more you understand your foreign markets, the better your offer will be for that particular culture.
* The more relevant your international offer, the more international sales you will make.

So, how can you get the most value out of your foreign language content?

You Need The Right Communication

First, you must carefully select the ways you touch and make contact with your foreign markets.

Is this the content you need to connect with this particular foreign market?

It is not always easy to find the right communication format for each of the countries you are selling to.

You Need Telephone Marketing

In todays world, you need to get the most out of internet based communication. But before looking into web marketing, remember :

• Do not forget telephone marketing!

Telephone marketing is not expensive today. There is no excuse not to include some telephone marketing in your international marketing strategy. Telephone marketing is the ideal way to keep your finger on the live wire of how your international marketing needs to be focused.

The most valuable information you will get from your international markets will probably come from your telephone contacts.

Telephone marketing does not need to take up much of your time.

• One phone call every couple of days, consistently over time can move your business into an international business.
• If you have a slow month where you are able to be on the phone for an hour every day, this time can put your international business development on the right track.

What is important is to keep a regularly in touch with your foreign markets over the phone.

Start with using the phone for your international market research. This will get you in the habit of grabbing for the phone.

Continue to grab for the phone as often as you can throughout all of your international marketing.

You Need Value Communication

Your international communication is easy to deliver over the web. But you still need to create targeted communication.

Creating communication targeted to a specific culture requires a little effort. This is complicated by the fact that when you first start, you will not know how you need to target your communication.

If you are making the effort to create targeted communication and want to learn more about your international markets, it makes good sense to use the best web marketing tools to help you.

• Choose your communication strategically.
• Use your communication strategically within a multichannel strategy
• Use web statistics to help you monitor results and give you the information you need to adapt your aim to improve your communication.

This is how you will learn to create valuable communication for each of your international markets

You Need To Get More Out Of Your Communication

If you are just beginning to develop your international markets, you will need to test which communication methods work best in your foreign markets. Different cultures respond differently.

• Do not make any assumptions.
• Take things one step at a time.
• Test different communication formats on a small scale.
• Adjust and adapt your international communication to your foreign markets.

Connecting with foreign markets through targeted foreign content is information marketing. One of the fundamental principals of information marketing is to re-purpose your content.

You can easily use the basics of re-purposing your foreign language content to leverage your investment and test different communication formats.

Example With A Culture Customized 2 Page Newsletter

For example, one of the easiest ways is to start with creating a short 2 page newsletter, with 4 short articles, targeted to one country.

• The 4 short articles can easily be re-purposed into 4 emails, 4 blog posts and 4 articles on your website under a country sub domain.
• The 2 page newsletter can easily be printed on one piece of paper and mailed or handed out at an event.
• You can include a different call to action on each communication format, and track results. For example, surveys, games or special report download.
• You can include links to your other marketing activities to integrate your international prospects into a wider sphere if this is appropriate, a general product information event for example.

Of course you should aim to write your culture customized content in the appropriate foreign language.

But do not let this stop or delay your international marketing for months.

The feedback you can get is often worth it and delays do not bring you anything of value.

If most of your foreign prospects usually speak English well enough to read in English, start your newsletter in English. Be proactive in cultivating feedback.  Begin the process of learning about your foreign markets.  Then you will know how to create a foreign language newsletter much better when you are ready to do it.

Your Other Options

The benefits of writing a monthly newsletter targeted to one country audience are important in cross-cultural communication:

• A monthly newsletter provides consistency, essential in building trust across cultures.

It also provides a good multichannel marketing element.

As you can see from the example above:

• A little thought and strategy into your foreign content creation can give you real international marketing tools.
• A little monitoring and analysis helps you to find the right communication for your markets.

A culture customized 2 page newsletter is not the only option for beginners. A country targeted blog is also a good starting point for some businesses.

How you integrate your first culture customized communication tool into your international marketing strategy is more important than your first choice. Where you start is simply your starting point.

Yes, it is better to identify your best communication tool right from the start, but not if this means you delay starting your communication for months or never get started.

Remember: your first priority is to stimulate foreign market feedback so you can learn more about your market and adapt your communication for more effective results.

The right communication will connect you with your international clients.

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Cross Cultural Web Tools For High Collectivism Cultural Behaviors

Last updated 16 August 2008

There are 5 different scales of cultural behavioral traits.

• High Individualism versus High Collectivism Behavior
• Uncertainty Avoidance versus Low Uncertainty Avoidance Behavior
• High Power Distance versus Low Power Distance Behavior
• High Masculinity versus High Femininity Behavior
• High Context versus Low Context Behavior

Important: Read the Basic Guidelines For Using Cross Cultural Communication Web Tools before implementing any of these web tools.

Today we are only going to look at the web tools for the high collectivism behavior trait. This is part of the high collectivism versus high individualism behavior scale.

Traits Of High Collectivism Cultures

Some cultures are described as being high on the scale of collectivism . These cultures have strong beliefs in:

• Group goals

This is opposed to the other end of this scale, cultures high on the scale of individualism, which have strong beliefs in:

• Personal goals

Cross Cultural Web Tools For High Collectivism Cultures

There is more than one cross cultural communication web tool you can use to appeal to each of the different cultural behavioral traits.

Here are the web tools you can use on your website to communicate better with cultures who score high on the behavioral scale of collectivism:

When You Need A Community For Your Website

When A Family Theme Works On Your Website

Where To Put National References On Your Website For Maximum Results

How A Newsletter Works In Different Cultures

When To Have A Local Blogroll

Where Loyalty Programs Work Best On Your Website

These web tools respond well to the traits for cultures high on the collectivism scale. Read more details for each of these web tools in the articles in the Web Tools For Cultural Communication Guide.

There is lots more on the different cultural behaviors in the June issues of the Get International Clients Weekly Newsletter. Sign up quickly for more tips and ideas for getting more out of your international marketing.

Important Notice

Basic Guidelines For Using This Web Tool

If you have not read the Basic Guidelines For Using Cross Cultural Communication Web Tools as mentioned in the very beginning of this article, please do so before implementing any of these web tools.

You need to look at the whole picture of all five cultural behaviors before tweaking how you use the specific web tools outlined here.

Use these cross cultural web tools to inspire you to improve your web communication with your international clients.

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