Small businesses have a great challenge if they are based in one country and selling to another country. Understanding the demographics of your foreign markets will make you more sales.
But it is often hard to really get into the demographics of your international markets. It can be hard to stretch yourself to fully understand cultural differences and the consequences in your sales and marketing strategies.
This is also complicated by single language markets made up of many, many different cultures. You not only have one set of specific demographic characteristics. You can literally have dozens.
The best place to start is to determine specific demographic information for each of your target markets, and to move on from there. The process actually gets easier the more cultures you adapt to. Your company will get faster at understanding how to adapt to each different culture.
An interesting example was how MTV adapted its music to each country. There are two main factors that came in to play.
- Music is culturally different in each culture.
- MTV targets a younger audience and youth do not have the same lives in different cultures.
MTV realized early on that they needed to adapt their music to the culture in each country. This is fairly easy to understand.
But what was interesting was that they realized that in some countries the vast majority of households only had one television set. Therefore their television shows would also have to be culturally acceptable to other generations. If the older generations were offended in any way, MTV would not be turned on.
Demographics do need to studied and defined for each culture. It is a very enriching experience. Fully understanding your international markets will show you the opportunities for your international business growth.
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This is part of the Get International Clients Business Guide 1 Discover Your International Business Be sure to check out the other useful tips to discover your international business. |
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