E-commerce companies looking to enter new geography often make one crucial mistake. They try to please all potential customers in that geography. But in chasing a please all strategy, they end up pleasing none.
If you are planning to expand your e-commerce operations beyond your backyard, you should conduct thorough audience research. Here’s why.
Putting the “Target” in “Target Market”
The e-commerce market includes all buyers who are looking for all kinds of things on various online marketplaces. A 30-year-old prematurely balding man looking for an alopecia solution on Amazon is a part of the market and so is a 53-year-old Latina woman searching for a makeup foundation just like the young teenage boy shopping for a college hoodie, as well as a septuagenarian woman searching for crocheted doilies.
Your e-commerce company sells patent leather shoes, belts, and bags. Which of the above buyers are most likely to be your customers? All of them? Some of them? None of them? Not all these potential buyers will be interested in your products. Those who are will be part of your target audience. You must identify your target audience because it will help frame up your sales and marketing strategies and have a tangible impact on your revenues and profits.
The Importance of Customer Research with an Example
The success of your e-commerce brand depends on knowing who finds your products appealing and clicks on the “Buy Now” button. This is where target consumer research gets in the game to reveal customer preferences, their decision-making process, and their opinions about products similar to yours. When such intrinsic factors surface, you uncover new insights to make informed decisions about how to brand and market your product in the new geography.
“But I have already defined my target audience in my home market. Do I still need to define the audience in the new market?”
As a seller, you need to perform the target audience research for every new geography you plan to enter. The reason is simple, every new geography brings its own set of characteristics, culture, behavior, preferences, and a host of other psychographic factors that directly impact the purchase decision of the consumers. Hence, it is important to know them first, before you plan your product positioning, marketing, and communication strategy.
What You Should Research About a New Target Market
Start your audience research in the new geography by focusing on simple demographics like age, gender, and income level. Then look for information about the potential buyers’ wants and needs. If these requirements are already met by other products from other brands, you have your marketing plan laid out for you. If not, you have a great opportunity to create an effective branding and marketing strategy to show prospective buyers how your products can add value to their lives.
In the course of your research, look into buyer behavior to understand what triggers their feelings, drives, decisions, and actions – is it thorough research or plain habitual buying. The answers to such questions will guide your marketing strategy and help you customize it to the needs of this new audience.
Besides the quantitive data, you need to dive deep into the cultural, religious, or linguistic factors. Be careful, if you ignore them, you might end up like KFC whose famous and catchy English slogan “Finger-Lickin’ Good” translated to a creepy-sounding “Eat Your Fingers Off” in Chinese!
Finally, uncover and unpack data about customers’ preferred communication and purchase channels, their common payment methods, and their preferred language for communication. For example, if your target audience consists of Gen X or older buyers, you may want to invest more in an email marketing program but if most of your buyers are millennials, you may consider investing in AI-enabled chatbots to strike a conversation.
Conclusion
Knowing your target audience means understanding what they think and value, how they behave, and why they feel a certain way. This knowledge is critical to defining the success path in a new geography. When you know your audience, you can develop a winning branding strategy and create compelling marketing campaigns that resonate with your prospect and help them to convert.
If you’re not sure where to get started, please contact us. We will help you understand your audience and capture new opportunities to launch your products into a new international market.
