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“Culture hides much more than it reveals, and strangely enough, what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants”

- Edward Hall

In This Issue:

Regular Weekly Columns:

• Recent Get International Clients Blog Topics
• Foreign Trivia
• Example Of Websites With Global Business
• Q & A
• Are You Missing International Business Opportunities?

This Weeks Feature Article:

Online Marketing With 5 Different Cultural Behavior Values
Individualism – Collectivism
Part 1 of 5

Recent Get International Clients Blog Topics

• Global Website Development Mixed With Traditional International Marketing In An International Internet Business Plan
• Basic Outline For Cross Cultural Online Marketing
• Website Design – Power Your International Web Pages With Focus
• The Impact Of Color And Its Different Associations In Multicultural Marketing
• Get Your Front End Acquisition Strategy For International Clients

Read more on www.getinternationalclients.com

Foreign Trivia

Which day of the year is Europe Day celebrated?

Send your answers to cindy@cindyking.biz with “Foreign Trivia” in the subject line.

Answer to last week’s trivia question: Britain’s tallest cathedral is 123m tall. Where is it ? Salisbury

Feature Article

Online Marketing With 5 Different Cultural Behavior ValuesIndividualism – Collectivism
Part 1 of 5

Over the next 5 weeks we will be looking at five different ways to approach cultural marketing.Cultural researchers refer to different behavioral values in different cultures. Geert Hofstede researched this a few decades ago.And these different behavioral values are outlined in many reference books. They are also outlined in the book The Culturally Customized Web Site by Nitish Singh and Arun Pereira. I wrote a review of this book recently on www.CindyKing.biz.

The 5 Different Cultural Behavior Values

Different cultures can be measured along 5 different scales:

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

These different behavior scales can be used by international internet marketers.

Marketing towards these behavioral needs gives internet marketers tools to play with and tweak to get better responses from different countries and cultures.

This is especially helpful, if you are marketing to another country at the opposite end of one or more of these scales to your country.

It is important to understand that these scales cannot give you a cookie cutter strategy. This does not mean you must through all of your good marketing practices to the wind and start all over again.

They are useful to show you what you should try emphasizing in your online marketing.

If you think your cross cultural marketing is not speaking to your foreign market, or if you would like to improve your cross cultural communication, have a quick look at each of these behavioral traits to see the differences between you and your foreign market.

High Individualism versus High Collectivism Behavior

This week we will look at what is referred to as collectivism and individualism.

On one end of the scale there are countries where the cultures tend towards a society of individualism.

On the other end of the scale there are countries where people tend towards a society of collectivism.

Basically, different cultures have different ways of behaving towards themselves as individuals as opposed to their behavior towards a group.

The importance of the group or the individual in a country is stronger or weaker depending on the country’s Individualism – Collectivism culture.

Countries can be divided into varying degrees of collectivism and varying degrees of individualism.

The more individualistic a country is the furthest away from the more collective countries.

And vice versa

High Individualism

Here are some countries considered to be high on the Individualism scale:

• USA
• Australia
• UK
• The Netherlands
• Canada
• New Zealand
• Italy
• Belgium
• Denmark
• Sweden

High Collectivism

Here are some countries considered to be high on the Collectivism scale:

• Guatemala
• Ecuador
• Panama
• Venezuela
• Colombia
• Indonesia
• Pakistan
• China
• Costa Rica
• Peru

Mid Range Individualism – Collectivism

Here are some countries considered to be mid range on the Individualism -Collectivism scale:

• Poland
• Czech
• Hungary
• Austria
• Israel
• Spain
• India
• Japan
• Argentina
• Iran

Emphasize The Right Online Marketing Tools

Each country has a unique cultural blend of all five of the different cultural behaviors.

But you can still study each one of these individual cultural behaviors to identify the right mixture of things to emphasize in your foreign market.

It is interesting to look at the differences in your cultural behaviors when developing your international internet marketing plan.

Example 1

It is very easy see how a culture with a strong individualism trait reacts more strongly to a strong privacy statement for example.

The strong guarantee and privacy statements we see with American online marketers emphasize, and over emphasize, are a reflection of their strong individualism.

Don’t

This does not mean you need to take out the privacy statement if you were marketing to Guatemala for example.

Do

If you were marketing to a country with a culture of strong collectivism such as Guatemala, you should emphasize something referencing customer loyalty for example.

Example 2

American marketing is highly personalized. American online marketers get your first name almost before they say hello to you. And then you receive personalized emails and correspondence.

If you have a name with a common nick name, American marketers don’t think twice about using it uninvited.

Don’t

This does not mean you should stop personalizing your marketing in a strong collectivism culture.

Do

You should try to emphasize about something about the community for example.

Beyond Extremes

The examples above were between two countries at the extreme opposite on the Individualism – Collectivism scale.

It is not always easy to establish the right emphasis for countries in the middle of the scale. If this is the case keep your marketing well balanced and have a look at their other behavioral values.

Cultural Behavioral Research Helps Online Marketing

The research done in cultural behavioral values has helped traditional international marketing. Internet marketers can also use this research to help develop their international markets.

There are often ways and formats of communicating online towards each behavioral value.

Easy testing and tracking gives internet marketing more scope to refine different cultural approaches and improve international results.

Spend a little time surfing on websites from countries with different placements on the individualism and collectivism scale. Even if you do not speak the language you can often get a feel for the style of communication.

Next week we will look at the second behavioral trait: High versus Low Uncertainty Avoidance Behavior

Example Of Websites With Global Business

It can be daunting when starting out. How do you go about creating a good global website and then culturally customized websites?

There are many steps a company takes to become totally international.

To give you an idea of what is recognized as a global website, have a look at another company website:

www.philips.com

Phillips is the 5th best global website in 2008 according to John Yunker’s report.

Go check this website out. This is the first global website we have reviewed here in the Get International Clients Newsletter that lands directly on a list of countries… if it is your first visit to this page.

There is an automatic cookie installed when you click away from this page to remember your destination of choice. You can uncheck this cookie if you read the box at the top of the page before selecting your destination.

It is interesting to note just how this list is made. It is divided into regions of the world. Flags are used. And the country is first listed in English and then in the foreign language.

If you do not want to click through to one of these country websites, there are only 3 other links: to the global website, the site map and to the careers page.

The Global website is also very interesting. You can find a list of products available by country. There has obviously been a lot of thought into the developing this website.

John Yunker researches and publishes a list of the best globalized websites.

Q And A

Question: Why is it best to develop your international market one step at a time?

Answer: This is one of the most frequent reasons why companies are not successful in developing their markets internationally. They go too fast.

Markets are different. You need to adapt your own business to a culture you are not able to fully understand until you actually do business there.

You need to adapt much more than your communication and your products. All of your business processes are involved.

And then there are the surprises and delays that inevitably come up.

I try to give internet marketers tools to get over some of the initial hurdles in international online market research.

Being able to do a large part if not all of your international market research online is one of the great advantages of internet marketing.

And yet the simplest of things can stop all of your efforts or delay them or increase costs.

For example, you may be blocked because your computer cannot read a different foreign alphabet. On my personal blog I give you instructions on how to change your computer setting to do this.

You can then carry out a fair bit of your international market research online using the free translation tools. No matter how much you are able to do in-house, your first hand market research is invaluable.

There is a certain learning curve to go through in international business. You need to give yourself time.

Read more on Get International Clients.

If you have a question on how to get more international clients, leave your question at cindy@cindyking.biz .

Are You Missing International Business Opportunities?

King Business Tools makes International Communication Affordable even for Small Businesses

Stop missing opportunities! King Business Tools’ Monthly International Content Creation Packages integrates Internet and Traditional Marketing Strategies for international lead generation. We provide companies like yours with an affordable way to create a business presence in foreign markets fast. Or are you unsure of the opportunities you are missing? Do you need ideas? If you need help in defining how to focus your international business expansion, sign up for a 39 point international analysis of your current internet presence and get an hours live phone session with the King Business Tools Idea Factory.The International Business Idea Factory run by King Business Tools covers expertise in North American and European business expansion. Get started today — contact me at: cindy@cindyking.biz or +33 6 98 91 86 11 Contact me now to learn more about how I can help you Generate More International Leads For You Today.Cindy King is based just south of Paris, she runs King Business Tools, a French Company, to provide European and North American companies.

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