For instance, American culture and Indian culture are highly dissimilar, and many things accepted in America aren’t accepted in India. Indians do not favor the style of clothing, or cuisine American consumers prefer. Therefore, a company that markets itself in many countries needs different digital marketing tactics based on individual cultures. Because all of these factors have an impact on how well a corporation performs internationally. So, how can International brands ensure culturally sensitive advertising that appeals to every target audience member? Let’s discuss it from this article.
What Is Cultural Sensitivity?
Cultural sensitivity, also called cross-cultural sensitivity or cultural awareness, is the understanding, acceptance, and appreciation of various cultures and cultural sensitivities.
For instance, when McDonald’s first opened in India, they came up with the Mc Aloo Tikki because some Indian consumers were vegetarians. Similarly, IKEA made certain adjustments to its business cycle, philosophy, products, and prices to achieve acceptability when it wished to enter the US market.
The digital marketing services from KloudPortal outlines which approach is best for your company and how to reach the target audience.
Why Is Cultural Sensitivity Important In Marketing?
Adopting cultural sensitivity in marketing is important to satisfy the local customers’ requirements and expectations. Plus, it recognizes the cultural variations and parallels between the new market. Also, scaling businesses globally helps the organization to understand how to reach potential customers and new audiences.
Besides, historically numerous minority groups have experienced marginalization. So, businesses can gain their trust by showing them that they are empathetic in this way. Plus, when greater representation provides a wider diversity of viewpoints, multicultural consumers see a company as inspiring and helpful.
Consider a scenario in which your multicultural marketing approach emphasizes the difficulties that a minority group encounters while simultaneously highlighting their contribution to society. In that instance, your organization will gain more support from that group, and they will feel as though they have an ally who is sincere and caring because of your awareness of their difficulties.
KloudPortal’s digital marketing services understand your products and services and deliver digital excellence through strategic execution.
How Do You Improve Cultural Sensitivity?
While some organizations opt to maintain a homogeneous business structure that minimizes cultural differences, others take this as an opportunity to diversify their client base and enter new markets. Here are some ideas for improving cultural sensitivity in your marketing strategy:
Train employees to be sensitive
Training lays the foundation for understanding and appreciating others’ viewpoints and backgrounds. It also develops empathy, which is the capacity to understand and relate to others’ ideas, feelings, and life experiences. Ensuring that employees are aware of other cultures established in the company’s code of conduct, rules, and policies helps avoid discrimination and other types of misconduct.
Research different viewpoints and ideas
Diverse nationalities and origins have different approaches to business problems. And an effective corporate connection can be greatly facilitated by developing a marketing environment that supports and encourages cultural differences. This marketing strategy will support your business’s marketing initiatives to attract and retain a diverse talent pool. Plus, this will present your business as a worthy alternative to job seekers, clients, and investors worldwide.
Remove obstructions to intercultural communication
One of the most common communication obstacles in cross-cultural collaboration is language. To bridge the communication gap, consider offering basic language training to staff members who frequently interact with clients or partners who speak a foreign language or other languages.
Train your staff to communicate with people from other cultures in various ways, especially those they interact with frequently. Remind staff members of the company’s principles and guidelines regarding how they are expected to treat one another.
Serve advertising by region
Instead of being reactive, brands should be proactive, and getting it right should be their main priority. For instance, in a barbeque commercial, Americans don’t like to see images of live animals being killed for their meat (such as live pigs or live baby calves, or pork chops and veal). Hence, to ensure that an advertisement meets the cultural relevance test, it is important to carefully examine its verbal and visual messaging before it is released.
In digital marketing, execution is crucial, and the digital marketing services from KloudPortal put a lot of effort into implementing plans to connect with your audience, ultimately boosting revenue.
What Strategies Can You Use To Support Cultural Sensitivity In Your Practice?
Here are some of the most important tactics that companies could use when incorporating cultural sensitivity into international marketing campaigns or introducing products in new markets:
Beware of gender stereotyping
In western countries, one of the most popular themes brands use to engage with consumers is undoubtedly staying away from gender stereotypes. The reason being marketers understand that modern customers in the twenty-first century lead more varied, complicated lifestyles and aren’t always limited by the typical gender roles of the past.
For example, In an athleisure marketing campaign by ASOS called ”More Reasons to Move,” women were portrayed as dominating sports like football and boxing that males typically dominate.
Investigate the words and phrases
Do a quick Google search to find the meaning of a word you’re considering using in your marketing campaign. For example, if you use a foreign language in your advertisement, make sure you understand every word or phrase. Words like peckish, and quid, which English speakers frequently use in the UK, may have little sense to someone from the US, Canada, or Australia.
Hence, try to collaborate with people native to your target market or join forces with a respected language service provider who has native, in-country linguists with Transcreation experience and can negotiate the tricky waters of cultural differences.
Keep out of controversial images
To avoid offending clients in markets abroad, an organization must be cautious while selecting its items’ graphics, iconography, or religious symbols. For example, an American store, GAP, had to issue an apology after releasing a T-shirt with a wrong map of China and immediately had to pull the product from the Chinese market.
So, if you cannot interpret symbols or text from different cultures, it would be wise to have them verified by a native speaker of the target language. Because when utilizing imagery that only sometimes corresponds to their own culture, brands can still run into problems.
Revise your product packaging
Product packaging is vital, particularly when you launch new products or a brand in international markets. It will significantly impact how a product differentiates itself from the competition and how your brand is viewed. Hence, companies must assess the appropriate cultural values to comprehend how various cultures react to particular imagery, ideas, and symbols.
Establish communication with ethnic influencers
Consumers from a certain cultural background are more prone to seek advice from recognized experts and members of their community. Therefore, utilizing these influencers’ expertise and authenticity is the most successful multicultural marketing strategy to present your company to a diverse target audience. It will also improve the sensitivity training for your staff.
How Can KloudPortal Help?
In today’s global economy, culture has a significant impact on marketing. Ignoring the value of culture can be disastrous for your brand and prevent your company from expanding. So, creating native-language materials to inform your audience about your product or service and adapting marketing messaging to fit the needs of each culture are essential components of the process.
KloudPortal, one of the best digital marketing agency focuses on enabling companies to contact potential consumers through brand awareness and promotions. It provides SEO services and custom content creation to reach your marketing objectives. So, reach out to your experts and explore our digital marketing services.
Bishnu Priya
About The Author…
Bishnupriya Pradhan hails from the serene hill station in Odisha, Koraput. As a Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry graduate, she has served as a Veterinary Assistant Surgeon for the Government of Odisha and also worked as a Research Associate in Bharat Biotech’s RCC Laboratories, Hyderabad. Researching and writing on diverse topics has always been her passion. She chose to be a content writer to exercise her writing skills and creativity and produce a quality write-up that can reach scores of online readers.