The Internet offers the opportunity to reach global markets without a multinational budget. This blog alone has been visited by people from over 130 countries. I didn’t try to be global. But whether you try to be or not, your website and blog is. Why not take advantage of that?
Even though this global reach occurs so naturally and without effort on the Internet, we still tend to act locally. Our references are local, our currency is local, our time and date stamps are local. Local is good, but if you are selling a product that has a potential global market, why not promote it in other ‘local’ places around the world? Local isn’t defined by geography anymore. Your digital presence is as local in China as it is in America. One click away. David Hasselhoff probably doesn’t sell too many records in the United States; but he is huge in Germany.
If your book isn’t selling well in America, why not have it translated into Korean? According to Nielsen Online, books sell more than any other product on the Internet. Interestingly, the United States isn’t even in the top 10 with regard to percentage of Internet users who purchase books online.
- South Korea – 58%
- Germany – 55%
- Austria – 54%
- Vietnam – 54%
- Brazil – 51%
- Egypt – 49%
- China – 48%
- India – 46%
- Taiwan – 45%
- UK – 45%
* Data from a BBC News article, Books ‘most popular online buy’
If you have a product (or a book) that crosses cultural boundaries, why not take some time to develop a promotional campaign for another global region. Rather than concentrating your new media campaign on Facebook, you might also include CyWorld (which is popular in Korea, China, Japan and Taiwan). Perhaps your flat-line product or book in the US market will be popular, like David Hasselhoff, in a different region in the world.
Update: Reports today suggest that Firefox is HUGE in Finland.
