We’ve written previously about how the country doesn’t equal the language and we wanted to explore this topic in more depth while challenging traditional market segmentation assumptions.
Firstly, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that geographic segmentation and language segmentation are the same thing, but many marketers overlook the fact that successful marketing campaigns often rely upon creating many sub-segments within geographic markets.
Segmentation, targeting and positioning need to be continually adapted for different markets. This doesn’t always mean reinventing the wheel, but certain factors in the buying decision or competitors within the consideration set may mean you need to adapt your marketing campaigns alongside these factors.
Take the example of Germany, which we will be analysing throughout this piece; it is overly simplistic to think of Germany as one homogenous market. In the UK, you wouldn’t necessarily take the same approach in London as compared to Leeds. The same concept applies to international marketing!
Demographic differences in Germany
Demographic and psychographic differences are vast in a country as large as Germany.
Personality differences between people that lived in the former East and West Germany remain today, even 30 years after the fall of the Berlin wall. Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise us so much, as the wall separated the East and West of the city for decades. So, how do these personality differences play out?
Well, authors of a paper titled “Let Bygones Be Bygones? Socialist Regimes and Personalities in Germany”, found that when investigating the influence of political regimes on personality through personality tests that East Germans scored higher on the personality traits neuroticism and conscientiousness, and lower on openness.
Neuroticism is defined as a predisposition to experience anxiety, anger, shame and other difficult emotions.
Following social conventions, customs, rules and norms were also considered relatively more important in the former DDR (East Germany) than in the former FRG (West Germany). Relatively high scores in conscientiousness explain the desire to follow rules to the “T”. It was revealed that many people in the former DDR follow rules blindly, stating that “this is how it works”.
The authors of the study conclude that increased local surveillance was an important differentiating factor that can explain the personality differences between former DDR and FRG citizens. This can potentially make massive differences to how you approach each region, or even each psychogeography as a segment.
Covid infection rates in Germany
Over the last couple of years, there has been an intriguing experiment in behavioural change as governments implement policies to influence people to take vaccines. From a marketing point of view, it’s a fascinating insight into how personality factors significantly influence decision making – regardless of language spoken and geopolitical borders.
In the UK a disproportionate number of BAME citizens went unvaccinated. This is also true of the different regions of Germany.
In Germany, the districts with the highest infection rates were in the eastern areas of Saxony. This area reported 7-day incidence rates per 1,000 people at 969, the vaccination rate was 57.7 per cent. In Thuringia, the incident rate of 685 is linked with a vaccination rate of 62 per cent.
A study by academic Heike Klüver aimed to determine whether the willingness to be vaccinated correlates with education levels and political leanings. The study into Germans’ willingness to be vaccinated, based on 25,000 people was carried out in March 2021. The survey revealed that 67 per cent of those surveyed were already vaccinated or were considering vaccination. Seventeen per cent were undecided, while 16 per cent were unwilling to be vaccinated.
Heike Klüver commented on his findings: “We see a significant correlation between education and rejection of vaccination. The lower the level of education, the higher the rejection.
“The people who reject vaccination are more likely to be voters for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and more likely to have held right-wing positions. In addition, these are people who have low trust in politics, the government, the media, and the health-care system as a whole.”
What does this tell marketers?
The main thing is that in just one country, there are so many demographic factors that influence segmentation, targeting and positioning. Demographics, political leanings and education levels, to name just three factors weigh heavily on people’s lifestyles and decision making. Perhaps certain segments require longer, deeper and more trusting relationships with brands before they decide to buy. This psychology mixed with demography geography and behavioural factors may also influence loyalty after the buying process too.
Focus on in-market segmentation
Whichever market you operate in you are bound to be up against online and offline competitors and some (perhaps with home advantage) will understand demographic variations more intimately than your business.
To level the playing field, you can leverage a different kind of market segmentation to offer more effective messaging. By blending different types of market segmentation methods and rethinking your approach beyond translating documents for home markets, you can identify the optimal messaging to encourage a new target audience to become loyal customers.
The 4 main types of market segmentation are:
- Demographic – age, gender, ethnicity, income, education level, faith, profession
- Psychographic – personality, hobbies, goals, values, belief systems, lifestyle
- Geographic – country, region, postcode, city
- Behavioural – spending habits, purchasing habits, browsing habits, brand interactions and loyalty, brand feedback
Segmentation meets translation
So, as you can see there are four main segmentation factors you can investigate to find and define your target market to effectively promote your product or service.
Your customers’ every decision is made by weighing up how well your messaging reflects their wants and needs. Market segmentation allows you to recognise these needs and market directly to them, without any misfiring messaging or leaning too heavily into factors that don’t persuade them to take action.
Get a quote
If you would like to find out more about our professional translation services, perhaps you have a marketing campaign to rewrite, you can get in touch with us today for an instant quote.
Our translation services are trusted by more than 1,400 satisfied customers, including the likes of Coca Cola and Disney. If your brand is as discerning as these global behemoths, we’d love to work with you to solve your translation challenges!
