The launch of a product is a stressful endeavor for a business owner. There are many aspects to cover and you must make sure you get the right attention from the right type of consumers in order to call the launch successful.
Nowadays, the advertisement you put together for a new product can make or break its success on the market. Statistics say that about 75% of newly launched products on the market fail to bring the expected financial gain during their first year. The numbers are available for the US market, where people are fairly stable when it comes to their shopping habits.
But how do things work in a foreign market? How do you launch your product on another continent?
Marketing materials
As mentioned, the quality of the advertisement is crucial when you launch a new product. However, on a foreign market, you get a few extra worries to consider: the language and cultural differences.
There is a long list of examples when it comes to products that could have been successful but failed because of the marketing campaign. In these cases, the marketing team didn’t have one of the most important assets: a bilingual person that would understand the language and the culture you are trying to convince your product is worth buying.
For instance, if you are trying to launch a product in an Arabic country, the differences in culture can’t be ignored. In this situation, you need to have one or several employees who understand the language, know about cultural differences, and can proofread the marketing materials. Even more, they can give ideas and directions onto what would work in the respective market.
Spreading the word
Once the product was launched, you can’t rest in hoping that people will come and admire your product. You must continue the advertisement campaign and this includes addressing the local press, product presentations and even training sessions if your product is designed in this way.
All these activities require the presence of a person who understands both your company and product and the language and culture on the other side. In this situation, the presence of bilingual employees is extremely valuable.
Get in touch with opinion makers
You don’t have to reach to the most expensive and important opinion maker in the country. You just have to identify the ones that have enough influence to create interest within the audience they have. Nowadays, an opinion maker can be a blogger, a journalist, a local celebrity, or even someone people look up to.
Try to impress through social media
The Internet and social media are powerful tools if used correctly. First, you need to identify the most popular channels for the market you are interested in. Some countries are more into Facebook while other like Pinterest or Twitter more. Once you have this information, start a pre-campaign by “accidentally” leaking information about your new product. This is a great teasing campaign that can set the mood for the actual campaign.
As you can see, there are many issues to deal with in the modern world and cultural and language differences don’t make the job any easier. That’s why is important to make sure you hire the right people and offer them a rewarding work environment.
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