
India, today is rapidly growing with its economy presenting a huge market for businesses, globally. However, entering the Indian market is not as seamless, with its diverse and vast population. Brands need more than just effective products and services—they need to embrace Indianization to connect with the Indian consumers, gain their trust, and set foot in the regional places. In this blog, we will delve deeper and discuss what the term Indianization means, why it is crucial for global brands, and also understand how companies can adapt their products and services to enter or expand their businesses in the Indian marketplace using the #i11n approach.
What is Indianization?
Indianization is no new term; it has been in the country for years and ages, though we may have missed it, overlooked it, underrated it, or did not understand its significance or ways to use it. Indianization or the #i11n approach encompasses a deep understanding of the customs, values, preferences, and behavioral patterns of Indian consumers and incorporating it into the campaign planning, strategy making, and even product designing of the businesses to drive better results.
Now, the question arises, why do brands need Indianization while penetrating the Indian market or expanding their businesses in its different regions? Well! As you know, India has a huge population with around 1.4 billion people, and 22 officially recognized languages. This further means diverse regions, different dialects, and different cultural practices. If you seek a one-size-fits-all approach in India, you might be disappointed with the results. For the brands to penetrate the Indian market requires going beyond just translating the messages into local languages; it requires understanding and implementing cultural sensitivity into the business marketing strategies including natives’ preferences, demands, regional infrastructure, pricing sensitivities and more.
Here are some factors explaining how Indianization plays a significant role in businesses to achieve success in India:
1. Adapting to culture to drive target audience loyalty
India is known for its diverse cultures and traditions that are deep-rooted in the native people. Therefore, it becomes crucial for the brands to Indianize their messages, products, and services and align them with the local cultural norms. Moreover, adapting to the consumers’ cultures reflects that the brand respects their traditions. Furthermore, this will not only help them resonate with their diverse target audiences but also win their trust and build new connections.
2. Incorporating Indianization for better and wider reach across India
With a diverse range of cultures comes diverse languages, spoken across the nation. Moreover, if you want to make your brand expand to the local regions of the country, merely communicating through Hindi cannot help; your business needs to talk in native languages as well, like Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, etc. Furthermore, it is very crucial for any brand to incorporate the #i11n approach to adapt the tone, style, and humor to penetrate deeper into the market outreaching the regional communities.
3. Understanding purchasing patterns, pricing, and preferences
In India, understanding people’s choice of purchasing patterns and preferences plays a very significant role. Also, Indians value things of good quality, and making purchases at good deals. What price strategy you may have been using at other places, might not work in India. Therefore, brands must ensure that the pricing and the quality of their products or services are aligned with their consumers’ preferences in the country, respective to the regions. Moreover, with the Indianization approach, you not only get the market insights of your target community but also business strategies and tips to connect better with people and make your brand name. Also, festivals like Diwali and Eid among others, impact the buyers’ choices massively, and businesses could leverage these times to introduce their products or services to the customers with attractive offers and promotions.
4. Adapting different marketing strategies for India’s diverse regions
Another aspect of Indianization involves the adapting of different marketing strategies depending on the region. While the quality, and pricing matter a lot for the Indians, building an emotional connection is important. By incorporating emotional elements and values in your strategies and promotions, it becomes easier to reflect with the audiences. Moreover, you could use different channels for different regions depending on the reachability. However, a multi-channel approach like digital, and mobile-friendly one could be the best option here. This could work for both urban and rural areas of the country as the internet, today, is vastly used by people from all regions, nationwide. Furthermore, engaging, informative, and bite-sized videos could work wonders here.
What are the Key Steps to Successfully Leverage Indianization into Your Business?
1. Utilizing local insights of the target communities
2. Incorporating localization techniques to communicate better
3. Catering to India’s economic diversity
4. Campaigning during festivals with amazing and attractive deals and offers
5. Using short, focused videos for marketing or promotional purposes
6. Focusing on regional pricing strategies
7. Emphasizing quality and trustworthiness
Conclusion
The #i11n approach is no longer just an option, it has become a necessity for the brands to reach their Indian consumers. Undeniably, the Indian market is growing and evolving with many new businesses taking this as an incredible opportunity to penetrate the Indian market or expand their businesses in the local regions of the country. However, without leveraging the right approach, you cannot achieve your desired results, and that is where Indianization helps your brand in every way – from connecting to your target audience to conveying your messages in their native language and adapting the localization technique to incorporating marketing insights for enhancing your business strategies.
If you want to learn more about how Indianization could help your brand grow, you can contact Lexiphoria. With a team of professionals working for years for brands to expand their reach globally, we assure you of providing holistic solutions to all your business expansion and penetration needs.