The Ten Ways Doing Business in the USA Differs from Europe
Perhaps to their detriment, American companies don’t indulge as frequently as their European counterparts in pricing research; instead, they typically focus on selling more units in the immense US market or reducing product cost to protect profitability.
It is easier to raise large amounts of funding of several million or more in the US market, which represents a majority of all global deal funding. Start-ups in California received more than half of all venture capital in the US in 2023, as reported by Crunchbase.
“Made in America” does not carry as much weight for American consumers as local development for European companies. Americans care more about product quality, ease of use, reliability, and value than country of origin.
Making a connection with the customer and having a message that is emotionally relevant is critical for success in the US market. To cut through the noisy environment, it’s more important to be relevant to a specific demographic niche than it is in Europe.
Few US products are designed for specific regions of the country. While some retailers and certain restaurant chains are regional, it simply makes more sense for US companies with massive online outlets like Amazon and powerful national retailers such as Target, Walmart, Costco and Dick’s Sporting Goods to practice customer segmentation nationally.
Americans like their marketing narratives relatively brief. European companies marketing in the States should focus on no more than three key brand attributes and invest in surveys to ensure they resonate with their target audience.
Most Americans see the US as the center of the world and know surprisingly little about the world outside the US. For the most part, it does not matter to them that a product has been successful overseas, nor would they necessarily value a European endorser.
America still remains a country of strivers and a place of achieving dreams. American marketing in general tends to be more aspirational than in Europe. Taglines, for instance, are very important in setting the tone for a product sold in the US.
Public relations generates a better return on investment in the large, homogeneous English-speaking US market which has thousands of potential media targets.
The US market is big enough to consider alternative applications for a given product that could not be justified in more finite European markets. For instance, one marketing research client found that their product was instrumental in measuring the impact of different product names– which is a very sizable industry in the US.
Atlantic Partners is a boutique consulting firm dedicated to helping European and Israeli companies successfully launch into a US market that is 25% larger than the EU and UK combined. For more information, visit our website or contact us by emailing Ralph Fascitelli at Ralph@atlanticpartners.us or Leigh Fatzinger at Leigh@atlanticpartners.us.