The Most Common Mistakes Companies Make with Global Marketing

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Marketers often find themselves at the forefront of a company’s global expansion. The marketing team is usually responsible for carrying out the market research that will determine where a company should expand, and it’s usually charged with creating a plan for attracting customers.

As a former business consultant to marketing executives at companies trying to expand globally, I’ve noticed some common marketing roadblocks that can stand in the way of international success:

1. Not specifying countries. Executives tend to think about overseas markets in vague regional terms (e.g., “We’re shifting our focus to Asia,” or “We’d like to double our growth in Europe”), but this oversimplification is problematic. Ask people what they mean by “Europe” and you’ll get widely varying answers—Western Europe, the European Union, the euro zone, and so on. Customers identify at the national level, and marketers need to remember that every country has its own local laws, cultural norms, forms of currency and payment, and unique business practices.

It’s essential to break up broader geographic “markets” into individual countries with distinct revenue and lead generation goals—and to conduct adequate local market research. Being more specific from the beginning helps tremendously with prioritizing one market over another, creating a staffing plan, and budget allocation—all of which are necessary for helping a company achieve its desired global goals. Research into local markets has to be aimed at understanding the market size, the challenges customers face, the solutions they currently have, and where your product can fit in. Many companies fail to think about these basics of product positioning at the country level and overlook things like strong local competitors.

2. Not paying enough attention to internal data. Developing a global market entry strategy requires more complex and specialized market research. In the vast universe of data that can help you figure out which markets are best for you, the most important data points are: 1) how much estimated opportunity is available in that market, 2) how easy it will be for your company to do business in that market, and 3) how much success you’ve already had with that market.

Many companies rely heavily on external data sources to guide this decision-making. However, analyzing your own data will help you answer the latter two questions and determine whether you have a strong product-market fit. Are you seeing a surge in leads from a particular market, in spite of not investing heavily there? Do you see a shorter sales cycle or a higher win rate in some countries? Is the average purchase price higher in a given market? Third-party data sources don’t know your customer or understand your brand – only you can answer these types of questions. Marketers can do a better job of utilizing their own data to prioritize their global marketing decisions.

3. Not adapting their sales and marketing channels. Many companies (especially Western ones) believe they can enter new markets by following the same playbook that brought them domestic success. While brand consistency is important, different markets favor different sales and marketing approaches. For example, in countries where relationships have a higher cultural value, such as Japan, selling products and services through local partners, such as resellers or channel partners, achieve faster success than direct sales models. Conversely, SaaS, online, and “touchless” sales models are often popular in markets where the cost of living is higher and automation is prized, such as the Nordic market.

Similarly, marketers need to change up their own channels according to the behaviors of each market, and this can vary across countries within the same region. For example, in Brazil, a marketing campaign might find more success with promoted messages on Facebook due to the popularity of this social network there, while in other Latin American countries, Twitter might attract a larger audience more quickly, and thus be a more effective marketing tool. While some channels work across a large number of markets, you want to explore what delivers the best result in each market by conducting detailed market research that relies heavily on local, in-country experts in advance.

4. Not adapting the product offering. Companies achieve “product-market fit” one country at a time. Yet all too often, companies try to launch identical products in different markets, ignoring the fact that they’re dealing with very different customers. For example, a software company won’t succeed abroad if it sells the same product that it sells at home if users in the new market aren’t as familiar with certain advanced features. Instead, they should start with a more basic version of the product to get people accustomed to it. Likewise, a more advanced market might require more features than a product currently has available.

Pricing is a similar issue. Because the value proposition varies from one market to the next, pricing will vary. While it’s not always essential for companies to change their pricing structure for international markets, many companies find that they are able to grow much more quickly by making adjustments at the local level. Forms of payment vary widely from one country to another. Marketers need to consider different pricing strategies for markets that are predominantly cash-based versus credit card-oriented, for example.

5. Not letting local teams lead the way. One of the most disappointing mistakes that I’ve seen companies make is that they hire highly competent, intelligent local people to serve their overseas markets, but then fail to consider their input when making strategic decisions.

In my global consulting engagements, marketing executives would often ask me, “What do you think our best way forward is in France? Why aren’t we succeeding there? What should we do differently?” My answer was often, “Ask your local teams.” They would frequently admit that they hadn’t tapped resources like the salespeople who sold there, and their local partners, vendors, consultants, and customers.

This is extremely important, because these individuals not only know the country in question, they know your business. The biggest challenge companies face with incorporating local insight tends to be communication. The marketing team must therefore put a system in place to help ensure that local views are captured and disseminated frequently enough. Don’t bring your company into a country the hard way. Leverage your existing relationships, and make sure to give their feedback extra weight. They are by far your most credible advisors.

6. Not thinking through the global logistics. Marketers use software that enables them to publish content on their website, send out email communications, publish social media updates, and carry out other key marketing tasks. But the same tools don’t support every market. For example, perhaps the software you use to conduct webinars only supports five languages, while your marketing automation software allows you to market in dozens of languages. Maybe your payment solutions only work for a few countries, but yet your CRM is filled with contacts from more than 100 countries.

Marketers need to ensure that they can actually market to people in the countries they’re looking to enter, which means considering details like how to display local currency, being able to email customers in their time zone, and supporting the languages customers speak.

As business continues to become more global, companies can gain competitive advantage by focusing their marketing efforts on targeting the right international markets and adapting their products and strategies to appeal to local customers. They’d be wise to avoid these pitfalls.

Original article published here: Harvard Business Review

Language Families: finding relevance among languages

Primary_Human_Language_Families_Map

According to Ethnologue, 7102 living languages exist throughout the world. These languages can be categorized into several language families such as Indo-European, Niger-Congo and Afro-Asiatic. In Europe, as most languages belong to the Indo-European language family, people can often find similarities and differences in other languages that they speak.

These similarities can be seen with examples from Romance languages, which is one of the language groups of the Indo-European language family. For instance, French, Catalan and Spanish are quite similar because they come from the same branch. If someone wants to learn Catalan and if s/he already knows French and Spanish, s/he can take benefit from the same root of the languages. Consequently, for such a person it is much easier to learn Catalan compared to those who do not understand any Romance languages.

Thanks to the same language group or language family, people often find it easy to learn another language. We can find similarities in grammatical rules, vocabulary as well as pronunciation. For instance, the number “six” in each language varies as six (FR) – sis (CA) – seis (ES), but they are still similar. In four Romance languages, for instance before you start eating you would say, bon appétit (FR) – buon apetito (IT) – que aproveche (ES) – bom apetite (PT).

Not all the languages can be categorized into a certain language family. The Basque language in Spain is just one example. Although there are some hypotheses with regard to the origin of Basque, it has not been determined exactly where this language comes from. Thus, a language like Basque is also called an isolated language.

Japanese is also a language whose origin has not been explained yet. Therefore it has been considered to establish a language group called Japonic languages including Ryukyu languages. Probably some people guess that it is related to Chinese. Of course, Japanese uses some characters which originally come from China, but pronunciations and grammar are quite different in Chinese and Japanese. As a result, the root of Japanese is very difficult to define. Same as Basque, there are many hypotheses which have not been settled in certain relations.

One of the hypotheses showed a connection between Turkish and Japanese as Altaic languages. Though Turkey and Japan are far away from each other, surprisingly, there are similarities in vocabulary, meaning as well as grammatical functions.

For instance, as regards vocabularies, “Iyi” in Turkish means nice, good. In Japanese, the word “Ii” has the same meaning. There are some words of the same spelling but with different meanings, for instance, “yama”. In Japanese it means mountain, while in Turkish it means a patch, which covers a hole on the cloth. Another example, “tane” means seeds or species in Japanese, while it means pieces in Turkish. The last example is “avare” in Turkish, which means unemployed or distracted. In Japanese, the close word is “aware” which means pity or miserable.

While a solid theory has not been proposed for the relation between these two languages, as you may notice, there are some words that have similar pronunciations or meanings.

Furthermore, not only vocabulary but also grammar is very similar. Based on the Turkish phrase below, the following examples show a direct translation word by word into Japanese. Also English has been added in order to show the meanings and grammar.

Ben dün mektubu yazdım (TR).

Watashi Kinou Tegami Wo Kaita (JP)
I Yesterday Letter Wrote (EN)

Watashi Wa* Kinou Tegami Wo Kaita (correct Japanese)
I wrote a letter yesterday (correct English).

*A particle should be added here.

As you can see the example above, the grammar in Turkish is similar to Japanese rather than to English. The grammar of Turkish and Japanese are based on SOV (subject+object+verb) in this case.

Turkish language is categorized into Turkic language group which belongs to the Altaic language group. While Japanese has not yet been proved to be an Altaic language, some scholars refer to this hypothesis. Then, if it is true, the examples shown above completely make sense. The Turkic language also spreads to Siberia and China. Possibly we might imagine that the Japonic languages and Turkic languages somehow influenced each other while people used them on the Silk Road. Historically, many of the facts concerning languages have been veiled in mystery. Why don’t we investigate the roots of languages?

Original article published here: Termcoord

Sources:

Ethnologue

Language Families

Romance Languages

Similarities among Catalan, Spanish and French

Romance Languages Vocabulary Lists

Article concerning the relevance between Turkish and Japanese (in Japanese)

Basque Language

Language Isolates

The World’s Top 20 Languages—And The Words English Has Borrowed From Them

English is known as a magpie language that picks up words from almost every other language and culture it comes in contact with, from Abenaki to Zulu. And although some languages have understandably widened the English vocabulary more than others, modern English dictionaries contain more of a geographical melting pot than ever before.

Listed here—in order by number of native speakers—are the world’s top 20 languages (according to Ethnologue, a global catalog of the 7000 languages currently in use worldwide). Alongside each entry on the list are just some of the words which English has borrowed from it.

1. CHINESE: 1197 MILLION NATIVE SPEAKERS (MANDARIN: 848 MILLION)

Linguistically speaking, Chinese is a “macrolanguage” that encompasses dozens of different forms and dialects that together have just short of 1.2 billion native speakers. By far the most widely spoken variety of Chinese, however, is Mandarin, with 848 million speakers alone—or roughly 70 percent of China’s entire population. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Chinese words have been recorded in English since the mid-16th century, with the earliest examples including the likes of tai chi (1736), ginseng (1634), yin and yang (1671), kumquat(1699) and feng shui (1797). One of the earliest of all is lychee (1588).

2. SPANISH: 399 MILLION

One quarter of the world’s 399 million Spanish speakers live in Mexico, although other important Hispanophone countries include Colombia (41 million), Argentina (38.8 million), and Venezuela (26.3 million); there are almost as many native Spanish speakers in the United States (34.2 million) as there are in Spain (38.4 million). In English, Spanish loanwords are characterized by terms from weaponry and the military (guerrillaflotillaarmadamachete), animal names (chinchillaalligatorcockroachiguana), and terms from food and drink (potatobananaanchovyvanilla).

3. ENGLISH: 335 MILLION

According to Ethnologue, the English language’s 335 million native speakers include 225 million in the United States, 55 million in the United Kingdom, 19 million in Canada, 15 million in Australia, and just short of 4 million in New Zealand. But English is one of the world’s most widespread languages: mother-tongue speakers are recorded in 101 different countries and territories worldwide, 94 of which class it as an official language. Moreover, if the number of people who use English as a second language or lingua franca were included, the global total of English speakers would easily rise to over one billion.

4. HINDI: 260 MILLION

The world’s 260 million native Hindi speakers are mainly found in India and Nepal, while an estimated 120 million more people in India use Hindi as a second language. As with all Indian languages, a great many Hindi loanwords found in English were adopted during the British Rajin the 19th and early 20th centuries, but long before then the likes of rupee (1612), guru(1613), pilau (1609), pukka (1619), myna (1620) and juggernaut (1638) had already begun to appear in English texts.

5. ARABIC: 242 MILLION

Like Chinese, Arabic is technically another macrolanguage whose 242 million native speakers—spread across 60 different countries worldwide—use a range of different forms and varieties. The first Arabic loanwords in English date from the 14th century, although many of the earliest examples are fairly rare and obsolete words like alkanet (a type of dye, 1343) andhardun (an Egyptian agama lizard, 1398). Among the more familiar Arabic contributions to English are hashish (1598), sheikh (1577), and kebab (1698).

6. PORTUGUESE: 203 MILLION

The population of Portugal is just under 11 million, but the global Lusophone population isboosted enormously by Brazil’s 187 million native speakers. Etymologically, Portuguese and Spanish loanwords are often tricky to differentiate because of the similarities between the two languages, but according to the OED, Portuguese is responsible for the likes of marmalade(1480), pagoda (1582), commando (1791), cuspidor (1779), and piranha (1710).

7. BENGALI: 189 MILLION

After Hindi, Bengali is the second most widely spoken language of India with just over 82 million native speakers. But the largest native Bengali population in the world is found in Bangladesh, where 106 million people use it as their first language. The number of Bengali words adopted into English, however, is relatively small, with only 47 instances—including jute(1746), almirah (a free-standing cupboard, 1788), and jampan (a type of sedan chair, 1828)—recorded in the OED. 

8. RUSSIAN: 166 MILLION

One hundred and thirty-seven million of Russian’s 166 million native speakers live in the Russian Federation, with smaller populations in Ukraine (8.3 million), Belarus (6.6 million), Uzbekistan (4 million) and Kazakhstan (3.8 million). The earliest Russian loanwords began to appear in English in the 16th century, among them czar or tsar (1555), rouble (1557), andbeluga (1591).

9. JAPANESE: 128 MILLION

Japan’s 128 million people comprise the language’s entire native speaker population, enough to make it the ninth most widely spoken language in the world. Japanese words have been appearing in English texts since the 16th century, with some of the earliest loanwords including katana and wacadash (both types of samurai sword, 1613), miso (1615), shogun(1615), and sake (1687). 

10. LAHNDA: 88.7 MILLION

Lahnda is the collective name given to a group of related Punjabi languages and dialects spoken predominantly in Pakistan. Punjabi words adopted into English are rare, but nevertheless include bhangra (a local traditional dance form and music style, 1965), andgurdwara (a Sikh temple, 1909).

11. JAVANESE: 84.3 MILLION

Java is the most populous island on Earth, home to almost two-thirds of the entire population of Indonesia. More than half of its 139 million inhabitants speak the local Javanese language, enough to earn it a spot just outside of the global top 10 here. The words batik (1880),gamelan (1816) and lahar (a volcanic mudflow, 1929) are all of Javanese origin. 

12. GERMAN: 78.1 MILLION

Seventy million of the world’s 78 million native German speakers live in Germany, with the remaining 8 million found in the likes of Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg. As English itself is classed as a Germanic language, historically the two languages share a close relationship and ultimately many of the oldest English words could be argued to have German roots. More recent direct German loanwords, however, include sauerkraut (1633),pumpernickel (1738), doppelgänger (1851), and frankfurter (1894).

13. KOREAN: 77.2 MILLION

Korean loanwords in English are relatively rare, with none at all recorded by the OED before the 19th century. Among the most familiar are kimchi (1898) and taekwondo (1967), while rarer examples include kono (a traditional Korean board game, 1895), and kisaeng (the Korean equivalent of a Japanese geisha girl, 1895). 

14. FRENCH: 75.9 MILLION

The world’s 75 million native French speakers are divided among 51 countries and territories, including 7.3 million in Canada, 4 million in Belgium, and 6 million in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (home to the second largest French-speaking population in the world). Thanks largely to the Norman Conquest, roughly three out of every 10 English words are thought to have French roots, and the trend has continued ever since: English has adopted more loanwords directly from French—absintheblancmangeconciergedauphinenvoifête,gourmandhollandaiseimpasse—than from any other living language. 

15. AND 16. TELUGU: 74 MILLION AND MARATHI: 71.8 MILLION

Telugu and Marathi are India’s third and fourth most used languages, with just over 74 and just short of 72 million native speakers, respectively. Neither is responsible for a great many English loanwords, however, and the vast majority of those that have found their way into the language tend to be fairly rare and unfamiliar, like desai (a revenue office or a petty thief, from Marathi, 1698), chawl (an Indian lodging house, from Marathi, 1891), and podu (an area of jungle cleared for farming, from Telugu 1938). By far the most well known is bandicoot, which is thought to literally mean “pig-rat” in Telugu.

17. TURKISH: 70.9 MILLION

Sixty-six million of the world’s 70 million Turkish speakers are in Turkey, with smaller populations found in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, and Kazakhstan. Turkish words in English date back to the 16th century, with vizier (1562), tulip (1578) and caftan (1591) being among the earliest to arrive.

18. TAMIL: 68.8 MILLION

Tamil is India’s fifth most spoken language, as well as being one of the official languages of Sri Lanka and Singapore. Catamaran (1697), pariah (1613), poppadum (1820) and patchouli(1843) are all Tamil words, as is curry (1598).

19. VIETNAMESE: 67.8 MILLION

The OED records just 14 Vietnamese loanwords in English, the earliest of which is the name of the Vietnamese currency, dông (1824). Among the handful of others is pho (a traditional Vietnamese soup, 1935), ao dai (a woman’s high-necked tunic, 1961), and both hao and xu(1968), the names for one-tenth and one-hundredth of a dông, respectively.

20. URDU: 64 MILLION

Urdu is the sixth Indian language to make the global top 20, with its worldwide total comprised of 51 million native Indian speakers, a further 10 million in Pakistan, and smaller populations in Nepal and Mauritius. Urdu words have been adopted into English since the fifteenth century, with surprisingly early examples including mogul (1577), cummerbund (1613), and bungalow(1676). Earliest of all, however, is shrab—an old Anglo-Indian nickname for an alcoholic beverage, the first record of which in English dates from 1477.

Original article published here: Mental Floss