Internet Niche Marketing

The world is a small place thanks to the Internet, but there are still plenty of differences between people by nations. Those differences often translate into global and domestic marketing problems.

Some companies use a one-size-fits-all marketing approach. This approach is doomed to fail because what people in one culture like, another those in another nation abhor.

To market globally well, you must learn characteristics of the people in each nation and culture. The best way is through market segmentation.

Global and Domestic Marketing: Consider Differences In People By Nations

Different cultures within the USA, and across the world, are going to have different buying habits. This presents a problem when you are trying to sell a product across nations.

Even with USA residents, culture differs by national origin. Yet, most USA residents have been somewhat assimilated into the USA culture. So differences intensify across borders.

Global and Domestic Marketing: Demographic Characteristics Vary By Nation and Culture

Demographic segments vary across the world. For example, some characteristics for Generation Y in the USA may be similar worldwide, but most will be quite different.

The World War II generation in the USA was influenced by the second world war just like most people in the Western world. However, the influence of Pearl Harbor on the USA WWII generation was greater than for those in the rest of the world.

If a business plans one campaign for the world around characteristics for USA markets, the campaign will fail in the rest of the world.

Global and Domestic Marketing: USA Psychographic Characteristics Don’t Cross Borders

People’s attitudes, morals, values, concerns, and expectations vary by nations. They result from each nation’s culture, history, experiences, and social expectations. Different nations vary by what they teach in their schools, what they expect within families, the role of established religion, and the type of government.

Every nation’s culture differs so what is valued, expected, desired, and feared vary by nation.

For example, it was once common for USA Caucasian families to teach their children that African or Black Americans were inferior and should be treated as such. Some organizations like the Klu Klux Klan even regularly practiced murdering and torturing Blacks and got away with it. And this was after World War I when the Nazis were considered abhorrent for their racial hatred.

This illustrates that many nationally specific events, beliefs and culture form the personalities of people. So personality characteristics must differ nation to nation.

Global and Domestic Marketing: Buying Habits Are Nationally Specific

What people can afford to buy, how they buy, and what they buy changes from nation to nation.

What people choose to buy results from many factors that are tied to their national experiences and culture.

Take grocery shopping as an example. In many prosperous European nations, people still buy fresh groceries from local markets and purchase every day for that day’s meals.

But in the USA, we buy from large chains that freeze, can, dehydrate and process in other ways so that food lasts for a long time. Then we buy at least enough for a week at a time, and some people buy for a month at a time. We think shopping everyday would be a terrible inconvenience and that we are just too busy with our careers and family to spend that much time buying groceries.

People in some nations probably think that USA residents have their priorities messed up to avoid spending their time buying and preparing fresh, healthy foods.

If we are so different in the way we purchase survival products like food, how much more different are we when it comes to buying other products.

Global and Domestic Marketing: Conclusion

Marketing campaigns can not be successfully transferred from one nation to another.

International marketing demands that a unique marketing program be created for each nation and that marketers know characteristics of the people in each nation.

But the sad truth is that little nation-specific information about people’s characteristics is being developed. And much of what is developed remains proprietary. If we are to improve every nation’s ability to advance economically, we must accumulate and share this information. Only then will global and domestic marketing provide equal chances of success.

Tags: Marketing