International Web Marketing

Yesterday I told you how I now have 20 odd domains live waiting for me to get to writing landing page text for them.

As I said, I simply put up an article or two from my business directory so that Google would have a few weeks head start in finding them before I would start promoting them.

I have not advertised any of these domain names in any way.  So I was surprised last week when I saw a very thoughtful comment on one of these websites.

In fact, I think the domain name must be good because it gets a steady trickle of traffic.

The comment was from a business professional who said that if his company were to adopt a culture customized content strategy he thought every single department head would want to contribute.

First Thought

My first reaction was to chuckle.  It was obviously from an American about an American company.  I just finished reviewing the tags on about 50 of my cultural web tool articles on Get International Clients.

These articles are based on how you can use Geert Hofstede’s cultural behaviors on your website when customizing it for different cultural markets.

Americans have a high score in the individualism scale.  Of course every department will want to have their say in implementing a new website communication strategy for their business.

The problem is that if one person was in charge and based in their home country’s office, he would have his work cut out to get the culture customized content right for a foreign market.

Add different agendas from different departments all located in the same home country office and you have stalemate.  You are sure never to get your culture customized content perfect.

Second Thought

All things being equal, what a wonderful opportunity for companies in cultures with high collectivism score.

Hmm… I have to follow Asian web marketing when it matures further.   And after a little more thought, I also think the Arab and South American worlds will also be very interesting to watch too.

Of course, the key here is “all things being equal” and there are several elements that make comparison difficult.  One of them being different rates of market maturity.  This would require longer analysis.

Final Thoughts

As a marketing executive for American companies, responsible for Europe, Africa and the Middle East, I was often confronted with the typical American hands on approach to culture customized marketing.

Translation: all marketing materials usually came from North America, or had to be approved by North America.  All other communication was often “controlled” or “shared” – depends how you want to look at it.   Priority was often given to North Americans for key field positions.

Also, from my own experience, native field executives had a harder time to get their culture customized suggestions acted upon.

There is something else that strikes me.  As an American marketing and selling in foreign countries the language is different than when marketing and selling in North America.

When you are in the field, marketing and selling to foreign customers, you cannot use the same marketing and sales language.

• You naturally limit your own vocabulary so the others can understand you.
• You also limit the use of different concepts.

With these constraints everything gets back to basics.  Your natural option is to find out precisely what your foreign clients needs and wants and how you can sell that to him.

This is a place where the people in company headquarters simply cannot come unless they are out there meeting these same people.

Now some companies set up weekly phone calls and yearly international road trips for their senior North American management.  This can bring insights and lead to trust in letting the right person do the job at hand.  The trouble is this is often a top marketing or sales executive with other agendas to deal with too.  I have rarely seen large North American companies use culture customized content effectively.

Besides, I wonder if these same companies are more interested in branding their own company image only in a way they can identify with and feel the that culture customized content is counter productive to this.

In the end, I think there are real market opportunities for companies that actively strive towards customizing their communication with the cultures of their foreign target markets.

Internet has taken away the advantage of bigger businesses targeting foreign markets if these same bigger businesses cannot learn from past mistakes.

Marketing sophistication is different in different countries.  And beware if your current sophisticated marketing structure has gone so far it has left out the basics.

Remember…

Business is business everywhere.

Business is selling.

Selling at its basic level is an agreement between 2 parties.

Marketing helps make the sale easier.

When marketing or sales communication becomes everyone’s business in one culture, this communication does not make sales easy in another culture.

Cross-cultural selling is about getting back to the basics of business, where both cultures can connect and come to an agreement.

The business basics common to both cultures.

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• The Difference Between An eMarketer And A Geek Marketer
• Ways To Enter International Marketing
• What Is Marketing?
• What Is Your Definition Of International Web Marketing
• Your International Marketing Choice

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How Too Many Contributions Spoil International Communications