Marketing in Israel vs. the US

I recently wrote a guest post for Gaia-VSM, a wonderful company that provides strategic marketing and market strategy development for startups in Tel Aviv. I’ve had the pleasure to work with them as the marketing manager at Typemock. The following is my thoughts on marketing in the US vs Israel.

Marketing in Israel vs US

Israel-Flag-300x225As an American working in high tech marketing who has lived and worked in Israel for almost a decade, I’ve been privileged to see both sides of Israeli and global business, and the differences of high tech marketing in Israel and America.

Marketing in Israel and marketing abroad have some key differences. Let’s understand why this is.

The State of Israel has a total population of less than 8 million and is one of the world’s smallest states, geographically isolated. It’s smaller than the size of New Jersey, America’s fourth smallest state, and has a lower population. Israel’s domestic market is tiny.

Israel is a tiny island. The scope and scale of marketing and running a business in Israel – even one throughout the whole country – is similar to running a small, local chain in the United States. Local business owners in the United States can benefit from networking and community available from neighbors in other states. This networking is not available in Israel, unless you are fluent in languages other than Hebrew.

It takes more market share to become a market leader when your audience is hundreds of millions or a billion compared to less than 7 or 8 million.

At the same time, because Israel is not the target market, Israeli technology firms have been forced to go global from the start. And thus they can look at any market: Europe, Africa, Asia, etc. Businesses in America are more likely only to focus on America and Europe. Israeli tech companies did not suffer as much during the global economic crisis because they were able to focus on the emerging markets, when a flight to China or India is shorter than flying out to Palo Alto.

One of the major weaknesses with Israeli businesses is that there is a dearth of marketing talent who have spent significant time abroad and are fluent in English, and have been exposed to global standards. Unless you have lived or worked abroad, this has the potential to lead to a misguided view of the market. It may lead to a false assumption that Israeli consumers and businesses act the same as markets abroad.

One of the highest values in Israel is creativity. However, this creativity is not always attractive to the target audience and may even be viewed as offensive or inappropriate. This leads to incidences such as this Jerusalem store, as  one American-Israeli comedian  made fun of.

Doggy-Style

Creativity and a lack of English fluency, including cultural nuances, lead to embarrassing mistakes that may work in the streets of Israel, but are offensive or off-putting to non-Israelis.

Israeli startups tendency for early acquisitions and to export their marketing and sales abroad leads to a continual spiral in which the marketing field is less developed. Since marketing strategy is business strategy, this keeps Israeli businesses from scaling globally.

Israeli marketing is also less developed. Always in danger, they are focused on short term campaigns, like PPC and affiliate marketing, and sometimes lack a comprehensive strategy that can get them where they need to be in the short term to long-term success.

While short term is essential, advertising is overemphasized as a promotional challenge. Other forms of promotion do not get the necessary attention.  Public relations and analyst relations is not as common. Startups, in particular, are less familiar with the import role analyst relations provides in getting investment and enterprise customers. In Israel, you can buy the complete printed list of Israeli media for less than 500 NIS whereas global databases like Vocus and Cision cost thousands of dollars.

In America, a business plan is a guideline to follow. In Israel, a business plan is something you have because your investors require but otherwise ignore. However, in an Agile world, following a plan and not deviating from it when circumstances demand has gotten American companies in trouble, whereas Israeli innovation and ignorance of the guidelines has allowed for creative ways to overcome obstacles. This lack of respect for rules has led to great innovation but not as great marketing and business. There are guidelines for marketing. While the Bible may be from Israel, the marketing bible is from Silicon Valley. Geoffrey Moore wrote the marketing bible,  Crossing the Chasm  and  Inside the Tornado  for high tech marketing. Yet, none of Moore’s books are available in Hebrew translation and are not as widely known in Israeli marketing circles.

Hence, there are several important, strategic, key differences when marketing in Israel and in America. When going global, make sure you are aware of these differences.

*Avi Hein made aliya from Washington, DC in 2004. He was the marketing manager at Typemock, a software company making software development tools. He blogs at https://www.avihein.com/. Reach out to him on Twitter at @avihein.
 

Read the article at Gaia-VSM or learn more about Gaia-VSM.

What I learned from Steve Jobs

In an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams, Brian asked Steve Jobs about his accomplishment. Jobs’s response: “I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful”

This is also how I see things.

Growing up expecting excellence – at one of the top high schools in America, going to a Tier I university, with many peers who went to Ivy League and Top 10 schools – excellence was the norm, not a singular achievement.

My standards are high but realistic. Normal to me and the community that I grew up in is excellent to others.

The standards are based on a minimum of best practices, knowledge, and commitment to intellectual rigor and knowing how to learn how to learn.

Sometimes, I admit, it can come out as complaining or disappointment.

Sometimes this is why I am disappointed in Israel or not always enthusiastic about a good idea. It’s good, but I’m used to great.

I wrote my first website at 15, the same time that I also wrote my first press release and pitched my first journalist. I started an organization that has influenced popular culture and the media over the past 15 years. I’ve been called partially responsible for founding a modern civil rights movement. So what? So did lots of others, and we haven’t yet achieved our goal.

I started my career as a college intern in the United States Senate, beginning in the halls of power. So what? So did lots of others. At one time in my life, I’ve been in the same room as every US president since Bill Clinton. So what? There were lots of other people also in that room, some of whom much closer to the president. Winning a Nobel Prize? That’s great. One of my classmate’s father won a Nobel while we were in high school. Truly an amazing achievement, but also one that I expect to happen every once in a while. Of course, I was broadly exposed to it. I didn’t win it myself. That Israel has 10 Nobels? Is that great, or should we have more? I expect more.

These are high expectations.

They are also achievable. Excellence is my norm. I can’t perform at low level, but perform best with other excellent peers.

OK, to be fair, I didn’t learn this message from Steve Jobs.

It’s how I’ve always lived my life.

The Brand of Me – Or How Journalism Is Changing

I frequently say that digital media and digital marketing is not about the tool. It’s not about Twitter or Facebook or YouTube. It’s about the fact that communication — and how people get their information — are changing.

People don’t get their information from the daily newspaper, get their local paper — if you’re lucky and live in a big city you get the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times or Chicago Tribune — or go out to the local store and purchase a newspaper and read whatever’s in their paper. Rarely pay attention to who the journalist is that wrote the piece. Or are lucky to read papers like the New York Times or Wall Street Journal with an amazing array of editorial writers.

In today’s digital age, people don’t look for news. News comes at them and to them — at an amazing, rapid rate. Millions of people are getting their news from links on Twitter – whether retweets or posts from their friends or network, celebrities like Ashton Kutcher with 4.8 million followers, corporate accounts, or news sites like CNN with over 3 million followers. Twitter is a news source.

People find out about what’s happening in the because they see a link posted on Facebook or Twitter. A recent study by some Korean researchers argued that Twitter is less like a social network and more like a news source; Twitter is the new CNN.

This was also discussed at Israel’s Com.Vention, the country’s largest annual Internet convention. At one of the sessions, with Robert Scoble, and several high tech executives, about digital content creation, it was mentioned by one of the speakers that today, because we get our information at us — and not dependent on any media outlet — journalists are dependent on their own personal brand. Instead of getting our news from a print newspaper, we read journalist’s — people who have credibility and write quality, regardless of what degree they have or what outlets they write —  blogs – whose links we found on Twitter or were shared on Facebook.

I apologize that the sound is not very good, as I took this video from my cell phone. Start at 2:00 in particular, where it talks about how journalism and content consumption and creation is changing, and especially at 3:00 where the speaker talks about the “Brand of Me.”